Every two weeks or so, the county sends out data in PDF format as to how our tax dollars are being spent. To say it’s difficult to understand where our money is going and why is an understatement. As an example, for the March 3, 2022 meeting, the data shows that the county spent a total of $4,439.59 at Amazon Business. The breakdown beyond that shows numerous items, to include commercial DVDs such as Resident Evil. When I read this, I wondered why, and then of course sent in an inquiry- not my first one due to this system.
Our system does not show the citizens (or the elected officials) where the spending is originating or the justification. These are two key items for accountability. In addition, once a citizen questions the expense, a staff member has to go through the records to answer the inquiry.
There’s been a better way to do things for many years. As a law enforcement supervisor, when I wrote (pen & paper) a purchase order, I had to write a justification. An example that came to mind was “Tires replaced due to hurricane debris” when I had to buy tires for police cars. We’re now fully in the electronic age, which should make accountability easier.
Twice I’ve suggested to the Board of County Commissioners that they adopt an accounting program similar to the City Of Tallahassee’s “checkbook” system.
That system, which is available to citizens online, has the following data available:
Check #, Check date, Check amount, Vendor name, Department name, Object description, Remarks (2 fields), Project (2 fields), Description, Program, Program description, and Source (to include P-cards).
While this does not indicate the name of the person making the purchase, at least it shows the department, which in turn makes the department head accountable. This system also cuts down on the time staff needs to spend on inquiries from citizens about how money is being spent. It would make things even simpler to convert the first “Remarks” to “Justification” and the second “Remarks” to the name of the person authorizing the expenditure. Doing this would also eliminate the need for the remaining fields other than “Source”.
I’ve written to our commissioners again asking they implement a system such as this to make accountability of our tax dollars easier.
Paul Henry