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Saturday, October 14, 2006
Government dealings move into the open
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue tells a story of going with his father to the country store where farmers gathered to moan, boast or bluff about the season’s crop. One in particular would wait until the others had declared, and then announce triumphantly that he expected his crop to be slightly better than all the rest.
Even in good years, Perdue says, his father declined to declare his crop bountiful. On one occasion, riding back home, the young Perdue asked his father why he’d not spoken up. These folks are farmers, his father replied. They can drive by your fields and know how well you’re doing.
In government, successes are often not so readily evident. And, in fact, efforts that I regard as legacy potential have virtually no campaign visibility at all. It is the work of the New Georgia commission, a Perdue effort to modernize management of the public’s business.
Decades ago, the government of a largely rural, desperately poor state in constant need of paved roads, better education and decent housing had as its first obligation eliminating barriers that kept motivated people and communities from prospering. That purpose is largely accomplished. Motivated Georgians, without regard to place, can achieve a standard of living equal to those anywhere in America.
As the state grew, in fulfilling its obligations, it grew much as the growing family with no option to move. It added rooms in this direction and that. Design didn’t matter, nor did the flow of daily traffic.
There comes a time, though, when the state has the time, resources and need to put the house in order. That is what the formally named Commission for a New Georgia is doing.
One example requires reflection on the Georgia that was — and probably still is. The traditional currency of politics is pork and favoritism.
Sam Caldwell served for 17 years as labor commissioner before going to prison for 21 months in 1984 for conspiring to defraud an insurance company by intentionally sinking a boat and for using state employees to perform personal jobs. While in office, he put together a powerful state political machine. Ironically, he had won the office in 1966 by running against the patronage system that the Labor Department had become. He died in 2001.
When Caldwell’s political machine fell apart, reporters began to take a look at the currency of his political power — and found it in leases for local offices. Relatives of four high-ranking staffers were given no-bid leases at above-market rates on often-inferior quarters that in one 12-month period amounted to $1.24 million. In Dublin, for example, Labor paid $7.07 a square foot for the kind of space that other agencies leased for $3.72 to $6.29. In Gainesville, it paid $7.96 for space; others agencies paid $4.35 to $8.55.
The General Assembly in 1976 had required state agencies to get three bids, but exempted the Labor Department because the bulk of its money comes from the feds.
One of the work efforts of the New Georgia commission has been to assemble leases and do something that represents the greatest and most meaningful reform — to make them transparent. Gena Abraham, the state property officer — a new job-designation that comes with responsibility to find out how much property taxpayers own and lease — has identified 1,600 leases and 19,040 owned buildings.
Many of those leases have been renegotiated at a savings to the state. In Douglasville, for example, consolidating leases by three agencies into one will save taxpayers $8.4 million over the next six years. That’s important, certainly.
But the real reform is transparency. Every one of those leases is available for examination on the Internet (www.realpropropertiesgeorgia.org) and searchable by county, agency, landlord and rental rate. By Wednesday, every one of the buildings is expected to be listed, too.
Why is that so important?
Walk into my family graveyard in South Georgia. I know, but you wouldn’t, that most of the 200 or so people buried there are related in some way. With a genealogical chart, those relationships could be known to all.
Lease and ownership transparency are the keys to the genealogical chart. Post them publicly and somebody will know the relationships. It’s the greatest possible protection against cronyism and sweetheart dealing. Transparency is the beginning of accountability.
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