On the agenda for the Board of Supervisors’ 29 Feb 2012 meeting, item #7 asked the Board to “Consider Homeland Security Cooperative Grant in the amount of $300,000.00 for Force Protection Program.” We were told this was a 100% grant and that a separate accounting number would be given to this Grant so that the funds could be tracked. Well, hallelujah for that.
Upon examination of the claims for the month of Feb 2012 we found disbursements from this grant to be $101,499.45. So, Sheriff Hamp, how can you spend money before the Board of Supervisor has approved the funding?
Ah, so you want to know what was purchased with this huge amount of money? Well, you could go to the Public Records and look it up for yourself or you could wait for the Transparency Committee to do all the work and just tell you. I guess we’ll go with the Transparency Committee. The Sheriff spent $1399.00 on body bags (isn’t this a Coroner’s expense?) continuing: $50.00 on shipping; $90,288.20 for riot equipment; $6,819.20 for telephones and $3,002.45 for rooms and meals.
There are some who would say, so what, it’s a 100% grant and someone is going to get the money from Homeland Security so why not Tunica County? First of all, it’s still our money, meaning the funding for this grant came from the United State Government and that be us. Secondly, just because you can do something doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do.
So, here it is, the Tunica County version of a “Bridge to Nowhere.” Please write to your representatives in Congress and use this as an example of wasteful spending.
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