That the Baltimore City Public School System?s $1.2 billion budget is riddled with discrepancies should surprise no one. So long as no real consequences exist for shoddy budgeting, errors will continue.
Public companies enjoy no such leeway. The 2002 federal law known as Sarbanes-Oxley mandates that top executives of public companies declare every financial report complete and accurate, among other requirements. If authorities find otherwise, those officers may be held criminally liable.
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Former New York Attorney General, now Governor, Eliot Spitzer, made enforcing those rules his top priority while in office ? to disastrous effect for high-profile lawbreakers.
In the land of government accounting, however, lame excuses including a childish whine like not having enough time to review the budget serve as easy outs for board members and school officials who don?t want to do the hard work of scrutinizing the system?s way of spending our money. Do you think that acting city schools? chief Charlene Cooper Boston or any of the 10 board members would sign off on a budget they knew to be faulty if they could be fired or prosecuted for any errors?
The double standard that allows those in charge of taxpayer-financed budgets to escape accountability must end. It doesn?t matter if no fraud exists in the current budget and that discrepancies, possibly caused by a software glitch, reveal only fund allocation errors. We don?t have to delve into the history books to remember the $58 million budget deficit of a few years ago requiring a city taxpayer-financed bail out. More recently, The Examiner reported that two former high-ranking Howard County administration officials received more pay than they deserved when leaving. How does that happen? Who let that happen?
With over $1.2 billion at stake, city taxpayers deserve to know that every safeguard possible exists to ensure the integrity of the budget. So do Howard County taxpayers and all of the state?s taxpayers.
State legislators could remedy the situation by passing a law next session requiring top officers of every state agency, system or entity to sign off on their budgets and financial statements with firing and/or criminal penalties consequences for poor oversight.
