Oink! 2014 Tennessee pork report documents $609M in taxpayer waste

By Chris Butler | Tennessee Watchdog, NASHVILLE — Tennessee officials wasted $609 million in taxpayer money last year, according to the 2014 Tennessee Pork Report, which a free market think tank released Wednesday. The Beacon Center of Tennessee releases the annual report every summer.

Beacon President Justin Owen said this year’s report reveals the highest amount of taxpayer waste in the publication’s nine-year history, which places blame on a large variety of state and local government entities.

PORK: Tennessee Tax Revolt President Ben Cunningham,
Beacon Center Policy DIrector Lindsay Boyd, and Beacon
President Justin Owen introduce the 2014 Pork
Report at a press conference Wednesday in Nashville.

So how do government officials traditionally behave when they make this infamous list? Do they show embarrassment or remorse or do they get mad and defensive?

“It’s a mix,” Owen told Tennessee Watchdog at a press conference Wednesday. “I would say some realize they’re making mistakes and have started to clean up their act, but others think it’s OK to do what they’re doing, particularly on the waste side when you’re talking about spending money on stupid projects or things that aren’t wise for taxpayers.”

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development is the recipient of this year’s “Pork of the Year,” after Owen said it handed out $200 million in wrongfully paid unemployment benefits. Felons, dead people and gainfully employed state workers were among the recipients, Owen said.

This year’s Pork Report also cites 16 Tennessee Watchdog stories written over the past year, including:

• Tourism taxes paying $30 million to convert the Memphis Pyramid structure into a new Bass Pro Shops retail store/resort.
• A $60 million contract state officials signed with an out-of-state marketing firm in Missouri to promote tourism in Tennessee.
• About $42 million in Tennessee Department of Transportation money for a swanky airport in Cleveland, specifically designated for the corporate jet crowd.
• About $302,000 to pay a Robin Williams movie, “Boulevard,” to shoot on location in Nashville, supposedly to market the city — even though the movie never once references where it takes place.
• $750,000 paid by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission for colored stick art in front of the new Music City Convention Center.

STUCK WITH THE STICKS?: An artists’ rendering of the 
sticks that will be placed in downtown Nashville, at
taxpayer expense, at a cost of $750,000.

The report also details how local governments and public utilities in Tennessee wasted $7.5 million more than they had last year and frequently bypassed competitive bidding requirements.

In the report, Beacon staff members recommend their own solutions to taxpayer waste, including establishing independent commissions that would analyze the state budget line by line.
“At the local level, officials can create audit committees to analyze their budgets, maintain sufficient rainy day funds, impose debt disclosure requirements for taxpayers and overhaul financial management systems altogether,” Owen said.

Thanks to Tennessee Watchdog for permission to reprint this article. 

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