Tracking the 'stimulus'

By Richard Eckstrom
Comptroller General

A couple weeks ago I accepted an invitation to appear on the cable news channel C-SPAN, which was doing a special feature on the federal “stimulus” package approved by Congress. Our state has established itself as a national leader on spending transparency, the producers told me, and they felt viewers would be interested in what we are doing to track federal stimulus dollars to ensure they are not misspent.

Before I go any further, I want to note that I strongly opposed the stimulus package, which was loaded with wasteful spending on items that have very little to do with creating jobs and growing the economy. It doesn’t grow the economy… it grows government! And let’s not forget who will be repaying this trillion dollar debt we’re borrowing to grow government; it won’t be us.

Repayment of this wasteful debt extends far into future generations… our children and grandchildren.

But regardless of one’s personal opinion of the stimulus package, what’s clear is that we owe it to those future generations to make sure the funds are spent legally, and to reduce chances for mismanagement and waste.

After Congress passed the Stimulus Act, Governor Sanford issued an Executive Order creating the Stimulus Oversight Task Force. My office was already working on several spending transparency programs, and so the governor tapped me to chair the Task Force.

At our initial Task Force meeting, we made the decision to form four “working groups” to handle various oversight duties. I also invited state Education Superintendent Jim Rex and state Medicaid director Emma Forkner to join me as Task Force co-chairs, an offer I am grateful they accepted. Both of their agencies are receiving hundreds of millions of these funds.

The Legislature has also gotten involved. In addition to the existing Task Force, the legislature recently established its own committee to oversee our stimulus funds and it appointed me and the State Treasurer as co-chairs. We’re now in the process of combining these two groups because they have overlapping functions.

The Task Force meets regularly. Our meetings are open to the public. We will be holding our next meeting on Thursday, June 25 at 10 am.

During my appearance on C-SPAN, the moderator asked me how much money had been provided in the stimulus package for states to track and oversee the funds. My answer was simple: None! In their haste to approve this trillion dollar spending plan, the President and Congress failed to include a single dollar for tracking and oversight to ensure all this money is properly accounted for and not wasted.

Whether or not funding was provided, the Comptroller General’s Office and the Task Force will continue to do this “on the cheap” -- using existing staff and resources to handle the additional tracking and reporting responsibilities required by this spending. Ostensibly, the purpose of the ill-conceived “stimulus” package is to grow the economy by creating jobs. And every dollar we would spend on oversight, administration, or more bureaucracy would be a dollar that wouldn’t be available for that purpose.