Driven to Extremes
In the event you do not recall it, or perhaps you missed it the first go around, Nancy Worley (D-Alabama) decided after taking office in 2003 that she needed a $30,000 Ford Expedition SUV as her official car. Although many newspapers, radio talk show hosts and others were highly critical of the move, Bob Ingram provides a good description and analysis of what happened here. His conclusion:
"When asked why she couldn't have been content with a Ford Taurus which she could have bought for about $11,000 she replied that the $19,000 difference wouldn't have saved anyone's job.Not to put too fine a point on her lack of respect for taxpayers and their money, I should note that Worley currently has assigned state cars to 3 of her political appointees, including one who drives a service van home and to work although he has a desk job in the Capitol building.
"Admittedly, in the scheme of things, the expenditure of $30,000-plus is not a big thing when we are talking about shortages of hundreds of millions of dollars...but the message it sends to the already suspect taxpayers was devastating. And disgusting."
I'm not sure why an office such as the Secretary of State needs vehicles assigned to three appointees. We grant Worley may need one, but I cannot imagine her office needs a total of four people to be prepared with state vehicles to meet the responsibilities of that office.
Meanwhile, we Alabama taxpayers are paying the maintenance and upkeep on cars that her political appointees use primarily to drive from home to work.
posted by watchman @ 9:50 PM
2 Comments:
You failed to point out, clearly because you just aren't well informed, the more than one hundred other SUVs, not all American companies I might add, that the state has purchased for department heads, politicians, and employees. Yeah, Worley has problems, the SUV purchase being the biggest one, but Chapman is ten times more pathetic.
Were those other departments purchasing their SUVs when they had sufficient vehicles on hand already? (Worley still hasn't gotten rid of the Crown Victoria used by Jim Bennett or the Buick LeSabre used by his other appointees.)
Why did Worley choose to purchase a new vehicle when she had vehicles she could use while having to trim her budget through layoffs?
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