President Reagan often said “a federal agency is the closest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see here on Earth.” A recent Department of Legislative Services audit of the Maryland Stadium Authority shows Reagan’s maxim applies equally to state government.
The MSA was established in 1986 to lure an NFL team to the region and negotiate a long-term lease with the Orioles. With those tasks completed long ago, the MSA has since justified its existence with other projects completely unrelated to its original purpose.
The result has been a distressing record of bureaucratic waste and abuse that, according to the audit, includes giving a disgraced former director $42,000 for work never done; paying indiscriminate severance packages to numerous departing employees; not getting competitive bids for a building renovation; mishandling cash receipts and thus paving the way for employees to defraud taxpayers; and failing to pursue aggressively $1.7 million in unpaid back rent from the Orioles.
But these latest charges of abuse at the MSA aren’t the first. A 2004 audit found the MSA inappropriately granted $66 million in construction projects. The attorney general’s office said the MSA’s 2005 decision to spend more than $100,000 on outside counsel in a campaign to block the Washington Nationals from moving to D.C. violated state procurement laws. The MSA’s own annual financial reports show it has become a sinkhole for state tax dollars, with the 2006 loss of more than $42 million (before government subsidies are counted) considerably exceeding the loss of $31 million in 2005.
Maryland has a rich but unappreciated history of involvement with major professional sports. In motorsports, for example, the Sports Car Club of America’s Trans-Am — the longest-running professional road racing series ever — had its origins at Marlboro Raceway in 1966. To its credit, among the projects now being pursued by the MSA is an Allegany County Motorsports Park. And Jeff Halperin of Potomac — long with the Washington Capitals and more recently with the Dallas Stars — is among the most prolific scoring Americans ever in the National Hockey League. Other MSA projects include advocating for a Maryland Horse Park and a minor league baseball stadium in Waldorf.
But relying on a state agency guarantees waste and inefficiency and probably slows progress. If there is genuine market demand for these and other projects, ultimately they won’t need a money-losing state agency to get them started. Gov. Martin O’Malley says the audit shows a need to change the MSA’s leadership. A better idea is to dissolve the agency, so it won’t continue proving Reagan right.
