The Fallacy of Government Funding System

This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions.

“Governmental Money Management” is an oxymoron.


Government – Federal, State, County, and Municipal- In my opinion, the systems used by all levels of government to manage, budget, and spend our hard earned tax payer dollars are administered with flawed and ill conceived policies and procedures. As a result, nation wide, billions of public dollars are needlessly wasted. Locally, millions are wasted each year.

First, the entire contract management process is a “smoke and mirrors” sham of the public. Why go through a carefully administered bidding process for a defined project, when in the final outcome our politicians and “crats” plan to be sure all available funding for the project will be spent anyway?

It is considered foolish and a form of mismanagement within the bureaucracy to not spend all available money……regardless of how frivolous, “porkish”, or foolish the usage is. An unwritten, unstated rule within their system is “Thou shall NEVER, NEVER return any funds back to the granting agency.” All politicians and bureaucrats seem to endorse and adhere to this precept…even our esteemed county officials and municipal officials. In fact, when they engage in these actions, they even feel they are doing a good job for the “folks” here at home.

The total cost of this concept for our public treasuries on a nation-wide basis is huge. If this one foolish, selfish, unpatriotic ideology could be corrected it would solve many existing budget shortfall problems for a multitude of state and local entities.

I can cite numerous recent examples….right here in good ole Jackson County.

● The City of Marianna adding extra pumps to the wastewater treatment plant when they realized the project was coming in at over $100,000 under budget.

● The Dept of Transportation adding several inches to the width of the first stage of the Sidewalk to Nowhere from Kelson to Citizens Lodge Park in Marianna after the bidding came in at several thousand dollars under the allocated amount for the project.

● The City of Marianna deciding to four lane the entrance road into the industrial park because they finished the road work for the Ice Springs plant with $300,000 left in the grant funding for the road.

● The City of Marianna spending $300,000 on a standby generator for the airport operation. This money was available in a FAA grant, so we grabbed it even though we really have little need for it. (In my opinion as a pilot with 12,000 hours.)

● The County taking stimulus money to build sidewalks in places where they are not needed, while other roads near schools remain without sidewalks…..just because the money was available in the first instance.

This type of thinking of “bringing home the bacon for the folks back home” is costing our nation billions every year as politicians and bureaucrats throughout the country spend on unnecessary projects…..just because the money has been made available. I contend it is unpatriotic to waste public money in this manner. It is NOT free money….it comes from millions of struggling taxpayers.

Zero Based Budgeting Causes Waste- Another foolish and wasteful procedure used by government agencies is the concept of “zero based budgeting”. Under this philosophy, once the governing body has approved a budget for a department, it is the responsibility of the head of that department to be sure and spend all of the funds which were approved….even if they do not need them.

Because of this flawed reasoning, it is not uncommon to see government departments suddenly replacing all computers, desks, and chairs in their offices as the budget year end approaches, even if they do not need replacing,…as the department head expertly spends all of his budgeted monies. This creates millions of dollars in unnecessary government expenditures every year.

The budgeting process is an annual “smoke and mirrors” exercise designed to make the public think the governing body is “reigning in” the departments under their jurisdiction. The scenario goes like this: The department heads submit their budget requests, which are always at least 15% higher than what they actually need. Then the governing body reviews their budget and expertly cuts the budget back some 10% before approving it. Then the department head begins the task of spending it all.

A better process would be a commonly used approach in industry. A realistic budget would be presented and approved. If the department manager is able to complete the mission of the department during the year significantly UNDER budget, then upper management allows the department head to reward his staff with bonus payments which equal HALF of the amount saved, and the other half is RETURNED to the central fund. The department head is assured that the departmental budget will not be cut, and will be approved for at least what it was the previous year.

In government, for some foolish reason, the governing board seems to feel it is BAD MANAGEMENT to ever not spend all budgeted monies, and if a hapless department head ever commits this sin, then you can be assured that the department budget will be significantly CUT the next year to prevent them from ever committing the sin of saving money again.

This needs to be stopped!

Keeping My Resolution….Say Something Nice-

I commend all of our area police officers who are working to prevent crimes. This includes those hard working police officials who are working to stop drugs from taking over our county, and those who solve robberies and murders and nab the bad guys. I do not commend those who spend their entire day chasing some motorist who is going a few miles over the speed limit….primarily to increase revenues for the starving government agencies. Their time should be spent on something more significant if their real mission is to stop crime and protect the population. If they are merely traffic cops they do not deserve the same level of respect granted to real crime stoppers.



Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hatcher Publications.