State Lawyer Basic Andrea Campbell spent $49 for lunch on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas final fiscal 12 months. We guess she wished she had packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a substitute.
That lunch invoice on the Island Grind, a “go-to espresso and snack spot” at Cyril E. King Airport on the island, is how the Herald knew Campbell went on a junket. We dug deeper — as we did at present — to unearth how your tax {dollars} are being spent.
It’s painstaking work that isn’t straightforward to pry out of elected officers. Simply have a look at the lengths we went to indicate you the journeys now-indicted Suffolk Sheriff Steven Tompkins’ workplace went on. He fancied the Bahamas and one other resort in Florida, stops at high-end eating places, and time at High Golf, as we reported this previous week.
We proceed to scour taxpayer-paid P-cards, or procurement bank cards, to find the place on this planet your elected officers are occurring the taxpayers’ dime.
Others are copying our enterprise journalism that has all the time been based mostly on the inspiration of you having a proper to understand how your tax {dollars} are being spent.
World leaders want to satisfy, usually in unique locations. No matter it takes to dial again the nuclear clock, we will settle for. However St. Thomas? The Margaritaville Seashore Resort, in Nassau, Bahamas?
That journey price the taxpayers $6,525, of which $1,985 is labelled as for “consuming locations, eating places.” We hope the feds ask about that junket when Sheriff Tompkins is grilled in his federal case.
Tompkins was arrested and charged with a pair of felonies associated to an alleged extortion scheme per week in the past whereas in Florida. The Sheriff’s Workplace didn’t return a request for touch upon why the sheriff was in Florida.
We hope the feds put that query to him as a result of Suffolk County — Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop — deserves to know why its sheriff is jetting out of city when the town is within the midst of an opioid disaster.
Too a lot of our elected officers deal with the job and the bank cards that include most workplaces as their private piggy banks. We’ve got extra work to do, poring by means of them, and can put up all we’ve dug up, however these expenditures can’t go unchallenged.
The P-cards are there for emergencies and out-of-budget spending. They aren’t private jet-setting plastic to spend frivolously.
That is precisely why voters again the poll query giving the state Auditor permission to audit the state Legislature.
With inflation making a visit to the grocery retailer trigger for a panic assault, each dime spent on Beacon Hill needs to be justified right down to the penny.
Massachusetts has good folks working in public workplace, however they don’t have the clout to face as much as the one-party system. There may be completely no motive why a Sheriff for Suffolk County ought to really feel the necessity to jet off to the Bahamas for any junket.
There’s a large distinction between marketing campaign funds and taxpayer {dollars}.
In search of election and reelection takes plenty of dough, so make your case and hit the circuit to tug in each donation you need. However, with regards to our hard-earned cash, again off.
Tompkins, Campbell, and who is aware of who else owe the residents of Massachusetts a refund for any journey deemed pointless. Sure, combat crime, cross laws, hold our surroundings clear, however stop burning by means of taxpayer money.
The Herald won’t cease calling out the worst offenders!
