By Andrew Ripemoff
So I got this really sweet Batman t-shirt the other day. I guess, technically, I can’t say I OWN it. But I DID pay for it. So did you.
As we’ve reported here at Face The State, the state auditor is investigating Colorado Board of Education expense reports. This is the right thing to do.
Board members have used taxpayer funds to implement their own sort of stimulus package - expensing gift baskets, unused hotel rooms, and lavish dinners to you and me. You know, just to get the economy going and all.
The state even billed the taxpayers for a Batman t-shirt, a gift for outgoing board member Rico Munn, which - on the surface - may sound like an unreasonable purchase, until you realize that he could have gone with the much more expensive "Spiderman 3" shirts.
Now if you are one of those boring, retentive, tightwads who thinks it’s wrong to use taxpayer money on Batman clothes, you are clearly not qualified to serve on Colorado's highest education governing body. You should just go back home, relax, tell your three-year-old daughter to stop feeding crayons to the dog, and leave the job of distributing state education funds up to the professionals.
I’m talking about professionals like Munn, a Democrat activist and Denver trial attorney, who was recently lured out of the bat cave and appointed as head of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies by Gov. Bill Ritter. In the press release following his appointment, Munn said:
edkohler/Flickr
"One of the most important functions of government is to protect the people," which I guess helps explain the Batman shirt. After all, Batman protects people. But I wonder if the caped crusader bills the citizens of Gotham for expensive prime rib dinners, which is what the Education Board did to us after a 2006 jaunt to Telluride.
And let me tell you, that must have been some trip, for not only did the eight-member board go out for a nice dinner, they took 20 other people with them. The final damage? A tab that cost us taxpayers $2,300. (And we didn’t even get a thank you kiss at the end of the night.)
Former board member Karen Middleton, who recently gained more public "exposure" as the appointee to fill Michael Garcia’s seat in the state house, described the Telluride trip to the A.P. as: "an appreciation dinner for the school district."
$2,300 on prime rib? So THAT’S what the Referendum C supporters meant when they said our schools needed more money.
Unfortunately though, it’s not just the Democrats who are throwing around cash like Michael Moore at a Krispy Kreme. The board’s biggest spender was Pamela Jo Suckla, a Republican from Slickrock (a suburb near where the Flintstones live). Regardless, Suckla incurred expenses totaling $25,851.
The most frugal spender? Bob Schaffer, with expenses totaling only $521 for the entire year - a figure which, unfortunately, is not good news for diehard Mark Udall supporters, such as anyone working at The Denver Post.
And speaking of liberals, you may be surprised to learn that Amendment 41-backer and multi-millionaire Jared Polis wasn’t too shy to ask for almost $1,000 worth of state reimbursements. On top of that, at his retirement party, our education board took $385 of taxpayer money that could have been used in the classroom, and redirected it to buy flowers for Polis.
At the party, Polis - the tireless promoter of ethics in government - was also to forget for a moment that he was the lead sponsor of Amendment 41, a messy constitutional amendment that bans gifts to almost all public officials. Must have been the Crystal champagne that made him accept a $212 clock.
As Paris Hilton proves, even multi-millionaires like free swag. Especially if regular ol’ hard working folks are the ones paying for it.
Yes, yes, I know that in the big picture, all these expenses may not seem like much. But this is government waste, and there’s plenty more where that came from. This situation also makes me realize that when liberal politicians talk about draconian budget cuts in education, what they really mean is that they may have to eliminate the souvenir t-shirts and skip the creme brulee.
In fact, it was not long ago when the Ref. C supporters threw out their education funding scare tactics in a lame attempt to frighten voters. On May 16, 2006, then-candidate Ritter warned us of dire consequences should Ref. C fail. He wrote on his blog:
"We cannot continue to starve our institutions if we expect Colorado to live up to its promise and create a healthy 21st century economy."
Very true. We shouldn’t "starve our institutions." Apparently, we should stuff their faces with $2,300 worth of prime rib. And as for the man in charge of overseeing all this mess, Joint Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Buescher? He’s been quieter than Rep. Mike May on Douglas Bruce Appreciation Day. You can’t blame him. In a Daily Sentinel headline right after Ref C passed, Buescher promised his constituents: "Ref. C will be used wisely."
And yet, Colorado Dems probably want even more of our money. Even after the Ref C refund grab, the Ritter property tax increase, and incredibly wasteful spending, Democrats will try to raise our taxes again. In fact, after they’re done taxing us, they’ll leave us with nothing but the shirt on our back.
Probably one with a Batman logo. We can only hope that it is made of organic cotton made, produced by a union shop, and printed on energy star machines.