It’s time for accountability in the Richland County roads tax mess
There are two quick conclusions that can be reached from the Department of Revenue’s audit findings that $41.4 million of sales tax money — funds that should have been devoted to improving Richland County’s roads — was improperly spent between 2013 and last year:
First, any individuals currently in Richland County government who can be directly linked to the misspent money should lose their jobs.
Second, it totally defies belief how so much money could be so easily misspent for so long — so the current criminal probe into what’s going on clearly needs to be expanded in scope.
Let’s put aside the fact that while the audit was completed in October, citizens are only now learning about its findings because both the Department of Revenue and Richland County had repeatedly refused to release the document to the public.
Let’s put aside the fact that in order to simply obtain a copy of the audit report, The State had to file Freedom of Information requests to multiple agencies.
That’s downright disgraceful, and the Opinion page will have much more to say about that soon enough.
Let’s just focus on some of the appalling examples cited in the audit regarding how penny sales tax funds were spent — instead of being properly devoted to Richland County’s roads.
They include:
▪ Spending nearly $1 million for public relations services.
▪ Improperly ponying up nearly $20 million to a consortium of companies that had been bizarrely created to manage the roads program that was being funded through the penny sales tax.
▪ Lavishing some $1.8 million toward “start-up” costs for the consortium — which in truth led to a glorified spending spree to buy everything ranging from coffee and postage to vehicles and a Nikon camera.
Trust us, there are many more examples — the ones above are merely the most nausea-inducing.
Then again, this whole mess is pretty sickening in general, isn’t it?
And it’s time for those who have shown such clear contempt for both the public’s money and the public good to pay the appropriate price.
The road to accountability in the Richland County roads tax scandal must be taken — and that trek must begin now.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 11:50 AM.