The important role the Indiana State Board of Accounts plays in keeping our elected officials honest cannot be underestimated. The agency does an extremely good job at rooting out corruption in smaller cities and counties and many other local units of government around the state. Incredibly, it never finds any corruption in the larger cities and counties of the state outside of Lake County. It must be that Indianapolis, Carmel, Fishers, Fort Wayne, et al. are always run by upstanding, honest folks, right?
The recent audit of the agency has accused the town of Speedway's former fire chief, Mark Watson, of misusing more than $60,000, allegedly to purchase personal items for himself like a large screen TV, a pickup truck, gun and grill. In one case, the audit claims Watson set up a dummy company called Fireprof in order to get reimbursed $4,500 for repair work. Computers purchased by Watson with the town's credit card can't be located. Additionally, $20 entry-level exam fees paid by 158 prospective firefighters entrusted to Watson supposedly never made it into the town's coffers. Officials are now asking Watson to repay the town $62,000, as well as pay for the $21,000 cost of the state audit.
The Marion Co. Prosecutor's Office tells the Indianapolis Star the agency referred the matter to it for criminal prosecution, and it is currently reviewing the evidence for potential prosecution. In all seriousness, I applaud the State Board of Accounts employees for their good work. I just don't understand why the largest financial misconduct occurring in this state never shows up in any of their audits, allowing the most serious financial improprieties in state and local government to go unpunished. Yeah, I know the answer. We lack the resources to get the job done.
7 comments:
Graft, corruption, theft, mother's milk of politics.....
Anon 525: one correction, "Graft, corruption, theft, mother's milk of [government] ..."
Back in the day, Mitch sent in a big proposal to have some sort of inspector general with wide ranging powers to investigate, prosecute, etc. etc. and the Democrats watered it down to a night watchman with no lamp.After Scott Palath, and toupee boy began the flee bagger to illinois trick, exposing them to the scorn of all, the R's took over. It must have soon become apparent that Graft, Corruption, Theft, had its political uses and we have seen endless Republican corruptions (and probably quite a few escaped our view). A few more on the Pence Watch and he will be underwater.
So Mark Watson pissed in someone's cornflakes. You know damn well these investigations sit on some political boss' desk awaiting "signoff" before going public and referral to the Prosecutor. Which explains why some investigations end up in someone's blackbook until it needs pulled out for political purposes.
It seems to me that an inordinate amount of the AG's office has been long devoted to rooting out democrat crooks in NW Indiana and to the detriment of the rest of the state. Limited resources do tend to make one make choices. With all this blog has noted concerning crookedness in Marion County a concentration of resources here would starve the rest of Indiana. What might work would be a fraud hotline, or a corruption hot line but one going other than to the Mayor's office or the Prosecutor's office.
Why should Speedway have a credit card? I'm sure that Speedway
will claim that it is needed to make smaller purchases such
as hotel stays for employee trips to out-of-town seminars,
postage and stationary supplies purchases, etc.
The town board should all be replaced in the next election
for doing such a poor supervisory job and for having
such a dinosaur accounting system.
I wonder if they would visit Bicknell and find out why they're paying 70 dollar water bills? I'm sure there are other issues they could look into while they were there.
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