Thursday, March 31, 2011

Yeah, this ain't what independent taxpayer stewardship looks like

In between the absurdity and bumbling that is today Wisconsin GOP were these couple of gems in the last week. Both of which involve topics I have some familiarity with.

1. The Walker Administration's idea to remove a cost-benefit analysis when deciding if they want to contract a service out. Yes, because the Blackwaters and Wackenhunt's of the world are sooo cost-effective and upstanding overseers of the taxpayers' dollars, let's just give them multi-million dollar contracts with little to no oversight. I mean, why have a state employee do a job when you can pay an unaccountable consultant $125 a whole lot more, right?

The especially cool part about that one is DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch saying "We did a cost-benefit analysis on the cost-benefit analysis and found it was costing us money." Even by Walker Admin. standards, that takes the Unintentional Comedy Scale to a new level.

2. The DOA also had to reveal to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where it came up with its estimate of $7.5 million of damages caused by protestors to the Capitol building. And here it is!

Yeah, as someone that has to gather independent cost estimates for government procurements, I usually need more proof than me writing stuff on the back of a piece of notebook paper. Now, call me a stickler, but if I threw some figure against the wall for something involving taxpayer dollars and massively inflated it, I think I'd get fired for cheating the public.

But then again, I'm liberal, which does mean I have to be much better at my job than the right-wing affirmative action cases that seem to fill this administration. Oh well...

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