Your tax dollars at work

By Charles Sowell  

MAY 10, 2010 7:32 p.m. (0)

There is a vast difference in how much Greenville County Council members have spent so far this year from their taxpayer-supported discretionary accounts, a Journal analysis of the data has found.

Examining spending records for the past six months for all 12 council members shows Councilman Jim Burns spent $74.86. Councilwoman Xanthene Norris spent $14,045.56.

The data is available on the county’s fiscal accountability Web site.

Previously this kind of information was available only through a Freedom of Information Request that could incur considerable cost and was usually sought by newspapers.

The Web site is the result of a long-simmering dispute between council and retired Greenville businessman Ned Sloan. Taxpayer groups have also played a part, but the biggest push has come from Sloan who has frequently sued local governments over spending practices.

Greenville County Council Chairman H.G. “Butch” Kirven said some council members don’t file at all in some months and there is always a flurry of activity during the last month of the fiscal year – June – when most council members try to spend their $21,000.

The money may not be carried over from one fiscal year to another. Leftover money is transferred into the general fund.

The council chairman and vice chairman have slightly larger discretionary accounts, Burns noted. The overall pot of money is about $270,000.

Sloan, who won a suit challenging the council’s discretionary accounts in February, was not impressed with the county’s Web site.

“They can hide anything they want at any time they want,” he said. “This whole transparency thing is a fad right now.”

Kirven said he was looking forward to the time when the county can post all of the checks they write to the accountability site as they are processed.

Joe Dill, who ranked second on the spending list with $13,374.72 for the past six months, said “Transparency is a wonderful way to protect yourself. When things are recorded (like votes or spending) all you have to do is look in the record and the truth will be known.”

Burns said his aversion to spending taxpayer money stems more from what he sees as economies of scale.

“I can spend $2,500 for speed bumps in a neighborhood and put in a couple,” he said. “Or we (the entire council) could pool the money and put in a whole lot of speed bumps in many places.”

Burns said he’d been harping on the need to do away with discretionary spending accounts for some time now.

Circuit Judge John Few, in his ruling on Sloan’s lawsuit, called the discretionary accounts a “slush fund” for individual council members.

Many council members spend much of their fund on public events held in towns within their districts and sometimes two council members will throw money at a project as did Dill and Councilman Willis Meadows for the city of Travelers Rest.

Last week’s council meeting saw the first use of the county’s new policy on discretionary spending with three items on the consent agenda.

Councilman Joe Baldwin asked for $2,500 from his discretionary account to help Greer defray costs for their 4th of July Bash; Meadows spent $2,500 to help the City of Travelers Rest defray tourism related expenses; and Joe Dill also spent $2,500 for Travelers Rest.

There were discrepancies on spending totals since some council members had not filed their expense reports for the month.

Kirven said he expected council would continue to list discretionary expenditures under individual council expense forms for bookkeeping purposes. Items will appear on the consent agenda from now on for a vote from the full council before taking effect.

Search the Greenville County accountability Web site at http://www.greenvillecounty.org/apps/transparency.