Whittling away at open government
Jack Greiner's guest column in Tuesday's Enquirer pointed out a growing problem in Ohio, one most people won't appreciate until it's too late -- the eroding of openness and public oversight of government functions.
Greiner is the Enquirer's lawyer. His column talks about the Ohio Supreme Court's recent 4-3 decision in the case of Oriana House Inc. v. Montgomery. Oriana House is a private company that contracts to run a detention center for the Summit County Juvenile Corrections Board. Montgomery is Ohio Auditor Betty Montgomery, who wanted to audit Oriana's books because she was worried the public funds that finance the private company were being misspent.
The court, with a remarkable lack of wisdom, wouldn't let Montgomery get the records she wanted, saying that while Oriana may be publicly funded and perform a public function, there was no evidence that the government controls its day-to-day operations. That, of course, is the whole point. Summit County contracted with Oriana to run the day-to-day operations and Montgomery wanted to be sure it was being done correctly. The court seemed to say that if a lack of oversight results in suspicion that a private company may be ripping off the taxpayer, the public can't do anything about it because the oversight has been lax. That not only defies logic, it seems to go against previous court decisions that found public entities couldn't hide what they were doing by contracting with private companies.
If you're thinking "So what, I don't live in Summit County or care about some jail up there," I have a closer-to-home example. Think Marcus Feisel, whose horrible death recently attracted the attention of nearly everyone in Greater Cincinnati. Marcus was in a foster home operated by a PRIVATE CONTRACTOR for Butler County. This court ruling doesn't sound like something that will help us look out for all the other little Marcus Feisels out there.
posted by David Wells at 5:28 PM
7 Comments:
at 8:45 PM, October 10, 2006 
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at 7:56 AM, October 11, 2006 
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at 12:46 PM, October 11, 2006 
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at 8:57 PM, October 11, 2006 
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at 10:50 PM, October 11, 2006 
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at 12:32 PM, October 12, 2006 
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at 1:29 AM, October 13, 2006 
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Post a Comment*Yes indeed, Marcus Feisel was placed by the "faith-based" Lifeway for Youth, whose board members are all members of Grace Fellowship Church in New Carlisle, Ohio. Lifeway takes in $11 million in taxpayer funds and only spends $6 million on foster care.
Lifeway Petro audit letters:
http://www.auditor.state.oh.us/AuditSearch/Reports/2002/lifeway_for_youth_inc_98-clark.pdf
"Board members must maintain independence in order to ensure proper oversight of the agency's operations.
To be independent, individuals should not be involved in the management of the entity, have a vested interest in the entity, and should not be related to individuals with a vested interest in the entity.
Three members of the Board of Directors are closely related.
Michael Berner, Chairman of the Board/Executive Director, is married to Brenda Berner.
Elizabeth Hanrahan, Board Member, is married to Michael Berner's brother.
Brenda Berner, Secretary/Treasurer and Assistant Director, is Michael Berner's wife.
The remaining board members are all members of Grace Fellowship Church where Michael Berner
is the pastor.
Michael and Brenda Berner make the financial decisions for the agency without board approval.
Michael signs all contracts entered into on behalf of the agency, with the exception of the ones where he was the seller or representative of the related agency.
Lack of independence could lead to the domination of the board of directors by a small group, in this case the executive director and his wife, and increase the risk of decisions being made which could benefit them financially or materially."
http://www.auditor.state.oh.us/auditsearch/Reports/2003/thomas_j_hayes-letter.pdf
"Three of the board members of Lifeway for Youth, Inc. were also
closely related, while the remaining three attended the church where the board
chair/executive director was pastor. The board designated this individual and his wife the power to make financial decisions without board approval, allowing them to be involved in both sides of various transactions between the church and Lifeway."
snip
"At Youth Services Network of Southwest Ohio, Inc., House of New Hope and Lifeway for Youth, Inc. one person exercised nearly complete control of the cash
receipting and disbursing cycles."
Yet what did Jim Petro do about it? If you guess not much, you would be correct.
Lifeway Accredidation (lack thereof):
http://www.oacca.org/newmemberDetails.asp?aid=2070905904
The lack of accredidation and the plethora of accredited foster care agencies leads me to question why, how and who was involved in choosing Lifeway for Youth to provide foster care placement in Butler, Warren and Hamilton counties?
Another question I believe that needs to be explored is the privatization of services that provide for the common good.
The New York Times has been doing an excellent job detailing how religous organizations have received exemption from virtually any government oversight, all while feasting at the taxpayer funded trough.
Favors for the faithful
As Exemptions Grow, Religion Outweighs Regulation
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/business/08religious.html
An analysis by The New York Times of laws passed since 1989 shows that more than 200 special arrangements, protections or exemptions for religious groups or their adherents were tucked into Congressional legislation, covering topics ranging from pensions to immigration to land use. New breaks have also been provided by a host of pivotal court decisions at the state and federal level, and by numerous rule changes in almost every department and agency of the executive branch.
The special breaks amount to “a sort of religious affirmative action program,” said John Witte Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at the Emory University law school.
...
As a result of these special breaks, religious organizations of all faiths stand in a position that American businesses — and the thousands of nonprofit groups without that “religious” label — can only envy. And the new breaks come at a time when many religious organizations are expanding into activities — from day care centers to funeral homes, from ice cream parlors to fitness clubs, from bookstores to broadcasters — that compete with these same businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Religious organizations are exempt from many federal, state and local laws and regulations covering social services, including addiction treatment centers and child care, like those in Alabama.
Limiting Workers' Rights
Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/business/09religious.html
In God’s Name
Religious Programs Expand, So Do Tax Breaks
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/business/10religious.html?em&ex=1160625600&en=c1d18e0d4a2c8cd6&ei=5087%0A
All Ohio needs to do to retain auditing authority is to make it mandatory in their contracts - if they really want to audit, rather than just talk about it.
Betty Montgomery ought to first concentrate on the weaknesses of her office that have overlooked the misappropriations of hundreds of millions over the last couple years instead of looking for more work.
Privatization is an easy way for the government to cover up what it is doing in any aspect. Take the war in Iraq for example, and the millions (if not billions) that Halliburton has bilked us out of? We can't audit them, because if we did, we'd see the booze and big screen TVs our government provides for their employees over there. We would see fuel trucks that are empty running dangerous routes simply so KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) will look productive. Without auditing practices and good oversight, Halliburton has profitted handsomely and illegally from our confrontation. Without public scrutiny, war, for them, will continue to be big business.
Actually there is $9 billion missing from Iraq. I suppose that is but a pittance in a war that is now costing $11.9 million an hour.
What will we say about ourselves when we look back? That preventing gays from marrying and leftover fertility treatment embryos from being used was all worth it? Or will be be ashamed for allowing ourselves to be hoodwinked by a party that looted our treasury...
More bad news compliments of the party of cut taxes and spend:
http://www.cbpp.org/10-11-06bud.htm
Center on Budget and Policies
TODAY’S DEFICIT ANNOUNCEMENT MASKS BIGGER STORY: LONG-TERM OUTLOOK REMAINS BLEAK
The improvement in the deficit may not extend beyond this year. As former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin observed a few days ago about the new deficit figures, “The world doesn’t end, but the deficit goes in the other direction next year.”<2>
The outlook for the budget over the next 10 years remains bleak. CBO’s August projections show that if Congress makes the President’s tax cuts permanent and extends relief from the alternative minimum tax, deficits will total nearly $3.5 trillion over the next 10 years (2007-2016), averaging $349 billion a year and never dipping below $280 billion a year even if costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fall substantially.<3> And the deficit outlook for subsequent decades, when increasing numbers of baby boomers will retire and, thus, receive Social Security and health care coverage, is substantially worse.
A deficit of $248 billion in 2006 means that the second largest six-year deterioration in the budget in 50 years has occurred, just behind the deterioration in the six-year period from 1998-2004. In 2000, there was a budget surplus equal to 2.4 percent of Gross Domestic Product. A deficit of $248 billion in 2006 equals 1.9 percent of GDP. This 4.3 percentage point deterioration in the budget is the second-largest six-year deterioration in half a century, just behind the 4.4 percentage point deterioration between 1998 and 2004.
The Administration is essentially celebrating a deficit that is lower in 2006 than in 2004 or 2005, even though deficits typically shrink during recoveries. More noteworthy is that the budgetary record during the current recovery is worse than during any other recovery in recent decades.
The Administration’s claim that it has cut the deficit in half is misleading in several respects. First, the Administration uses a starting point of $521 billion, which was the deficit that it predicted for 2004 when it issued its proposed 2005 budget in February 2004. But analysts recognized from the outset that the $521 billion was inflated; the figure apparently was purposefully set high so the Administration could claim its policies were working when the actual 2004 deficit came in lower. At the same time that the Administration issued its $521 billion deficit forecast for 2004, CBO was estimating a deficit of $477 billion for that year. And the actual deficit for 2004 came in at $413 billion.
More importantly, compared to the fiscal picture the Administration inherited in 2001, the fiscal situation has worsened sharply rather than improved, hardly evidence that Administration polices “are working.” The Administration has cherry-picked the deficit “high point” (selecting, in fact, a high point that never actually occurred) as well as what may be the deficit “low point” — the 2006 figure — as evidence of success. But deficits are expected to turn back up in 2007 or 2008. That deficits declined in 2005 and 2006 amidst an economic recovery tells nothing about the efficacy of Administration policies, especially considering that deficits turned to surpluses during the 1990s recovery, following tax increases in 1990 and 1993.
You go, indygrad!
I get so tired of hearing about how our system fails us, but as soon as there is a request for the opening of pocketbooks, people put their foot down. You do get what you pay for and unfortunately, our society values actors, sports figures and politicians more than the lowly Marcus' of the world. It's not a Christian/non-Christian thing, it's not Republican/Democrat thing, it's a human thing and we should all be supporting this cause no matter what. It's always cheaper to prevent a problem than it is to fix it. We learned that the hard way with 9/11 and we see it everyday when we have yet another criminal in the system or, at the least, on welfare, who was not valued as a child. The responsibility lies with all of us.
indygrad's got it right except the montgomery part - she has allowed contractor's to do the workof her office while "cutting costs" and providing no oversight forthese outside auditors as required by law.
betty isn't clean in this - she isresponsible as the next guy.
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