In one installment of Dilbert--the daily cartoon strip featuring the office from hell, or at least the office down the block--the employees were trying to beat the clock as the budget year ended. They didn't want to finish the year with money in the bank, lest their budgets be cut the following year. So they ordered helicopters full of albino lion cubs and filled out the paperwork to get an office giraffe.
And that was the private sector (although almost fictitious). Imagine what goes on in government outfits when the budget deadline approaches.
Or you could point to Mike Preston, and what he said in the paper the other day.
The new executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission clearly doesn't understand how government works. And apparently nobody's told him that taxpayer money is just government money, and can be wasted as public servants see fit.
Last week the new guy--emphasis on new--said his outfit won't spend leftover money in the commission's budget this year just to balance the books. In fact, when the budget year ended June 30, the commission still had about $450,000, and that money will be put back into the state's coffers, that is, sent back to the taxpayers.
Clearly this Mike Preston fellow doesn't know how to do this. He even admitted as much, saying: "If this copier still works, why do we need to go out and buy a new one?"
The answer to that question has always been: because the money's there!
Now a new answer's been given. As out-of-it as Mike Preston has proven to be, some of us could get used to him. Fast.
Editorial on 08/10/2015