Posted on 08/09/2010 1:19:37 PM PDT by La Lydia
A newspaper’s investigation shows some members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors spent lavishly using publicly financed county-issued credit cards. The Arizona Republic reported Monday that supervisors spent money on gifts for constituents and employees, trips, luxury hotels and catered meals.
Supervisor Fulton Brock was the biggest spender, racking up $64,344 in charges. Brock spent $4,300 on ads celebrating Flag Day, and promoting hazardous waste collection and other events. The ads featured Brock’s portrait. When questioned about the expenses, Brock told the Republic he planned to destroy his county-issued credit cards and instead buy items only with purchase orders through the clerk of the board.
“I really probably need to be more circumspect,” Brock said. “We have decided to shred our purchase card. I think that our office has responsibly used our purchase card, but it creates an image of and an opportunity for abuse.”
The second leading spender was Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. The Republic said Wilcox spent nearly $46,000 using her county credit card to purchase baseball jerseys for underprivileged children.
The supervisor who spent the least was Max Wilson. Records show Wilson spent a little over $3,700, most of it on office supplies.
Wilson said his personal philosophy was he didn’t “charge the taxpayers for anything that I do,” including out-of-town lodging, airfare and food. <,p> Records show that over the past five years, the supervisors or their staff charged nearly $181,000.
Supervisors have been especially critical of the Maricopa County sheriff’s office and its credit card spending practices. Two months ago, county management confiscated government charge cards from hundreds of sheriff’s employees and volunteer posse members, and limited most purchases to $200 per transaction.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/08/09/20100809maricopa-supervisors-spending.html#ixzz0w8psTVqd
$30,000 a year for things like this?
I take it that this must be sarcasm.
Did you read the story at the AZ link? They wasted money, yes, went on lavish trips and posed as good samaritans on the public dime. The poor guy who only bought office supplies shouldn’t have even been in this story. What is going on here is that the supervisors have been sucking up to their Hispanic constituents by harassing Sheriff Joe about his law enforcement credit cards, when their use of the credit cards hasn’t been exactly scrupulous.
I don’t know the politics of Max Wilson, but sounds like he has a reasonable sense of responsibility when it comes to public money. $3700 might even be a bargain depending on what is considered “office supplies” (i.e. printers, scanners, sundry equipment).
I doesn’t sound like he abused the credit card at all. I guess they included him in the interests of being thorough.
No, I did not. I read what you posted here, which should have been a teaser to draw interest to the article, instead the post indicated amounts that seemed fair and reasonable expenditures (though the T-shirts is a bit much).
Perhaps it would have drawn my interest to the article if the post had hit the highlights of some wasteful expenses and not $30,000 per year on office supplies.
My hands were tied. AP did a crappy rewrite of the Arizona Republic story, which is more coherent. But we cannot post from the Arizona Republic. I posted everything in the crappy AP story, but to understand what is going on, you really have to read the original, and you have to put it in the context of what they are doing to Sheriff Joe. Sorry to have offended you in any way with my post.
In no way was I offended.
But based on what I saw I ascertained that if they were serious then the article smacked of being a hit piece done out of desperation.
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