Lack of action from state leaders means more fraud and waste will occur
Recent statements and releases from our state’s s highest elected officials suggest that their attention is primarily directed towards partisan disputes with the Trump Administration, rather than safeguarding taxpayer dollars. This emphasis on political battles appears to come at the expense of implementing effective oversight measures to prevent waste and fraud in public spending.
As a result, the lack of adequate focus on financial stewardship increases the likelihood that fraudulent activities and misuse of public funds will continue. Consequently, this may leave many Washington residents without essential assistance or services..
Last week ChangeWA reported on three recent stories which highlighted the massive amount of waste and possible fraud that is currently occurring within state and local governments.
- An audit found that fraud is likely occurring within a $1.87 billion grant program inside the King County’s Department of Community and Human Services due to lax oversight (only 1% of the expenditures were reviewed, while the law requires 33%).
- Due to massive cost overruns, Sound Transit’s current construction budget is now nearly 300% of what was promised to voters. Last week it was announced that the proposed cost for the West Seattle link has jumped from $4.1 billion to $7.9 billion. Officials also revealed the agency has a $35 billion shortfall and will need to raise taxes (currently those living within the taxing district pay an average of $1,700 per year) or scrap/delay construction of future lines.
- WATech, the state’s technology agency, announced that after 10 years, it was scrapping $294 million in IT improvement project at the Department of Labor and Industries (L&I). WATech officials also revealed that nearly a billion dollars of other state IT work could face a similar fate of being terminated.
Thus far, neither Governor Bob Ferguson nor Attorney General Nick Brown have issued any media releases about taking actions to protect Washington taxpayers against the massive waste and possible fraud from these three disturbing situations.
The Governor and other state leaders obviously have accountability for WATech wasting millions of IT funds. Both WATech and L&I are executive branch agencies with the governor appointing their leaders and determining their budget. State officials also have responsibility for Sound Transit since the agency was authorized by the Washington State Legislature and state law dictates its procedures. While the governor and attorney general don’t have direct responsibility for the likely fraud at King County, the state’s top law enforcement official should show more concern when legitimate claims of fraud are expressed for a nearly $2 billion grant program in the state’s largest county.
The only remark from either Governor Ferguson or Attorney General Brown on any of these issues, was the governor saying those responsible for the millions wasted on state IT issues still, “have my full support.”
What one finds when they search through Ferguson and Brown’s recent media releases (i.e. the issues each care about the most) are a large number of partisan releases attacking the Trump Administration.
For the month of August (when each of the three stories on waste/fraud were revealed), Attorney General Brown had 17 media releases. Eight are boilerplate attacks on the Trump Administration that neither add to the debate on an issue nor promotes a workable solution.
Governor Ferguson has released 13 statements since the start of August, seven of them focus on partisan attacks on President Trump. Others deal with governor appointments and ensuring union workers are employed in large projects.
Neither of our state’s top two leaders was willing to stand up for taxpayers in three separate cases where public funds were being wasted by government employees and vendors. There have been no orders for an investigation, no statements about working with local law enforcement to make sure those who committed fraud are brought to justice, and no calls for government officials to be more accountable to the public.
This lack of concern over government waste will only mean there will be more examples in the future. Both men are following in the footstep of Governor Jay Inslee who kept attacking the Trump administration during the early days of COVID. Meanwhile his Employment Security Department was the victim of one of the largest thefts ($600+ million) in American history through fraudulent claims, yet not one person lost their job for the lax security measures.
It clearly appears that both Governor Ferguson and Attorney General Brown are far more concerned about partisan politics than they are about the taxpayers and those who continue to suffer because public funds have been wasted or fraudulently given away.
Photo by Joe Mabel, Wikipedia Creative Commons