Marven Goodman believes public officials must set their personal fiscal house in order before asking for the public trust as a custodian of the taxpayer dollar. Those who fail to wisely manage personal funds will likely have difficulty in stewardship of taxpayer funds. The 12-yearincumbent’s failure to pay thousands of dollars in taxes should have been a warning to those of us who live in Logan County of the eventual 1.3 million dollar budget mistake and fiscal chaos. What follows are the events leading up to the county’s current budget predicament.
You can click on the highlighted hypertext to see the supporting documentation.
August 23, 2003 -- Due to unpaid taxes dating back to 1990, the IRS files a $40,890.88 lien upon the incumbent.
January 18, 2005 -- The Oklahoma Tax Commission files s lien upon the incumbent for $7,842.65 resulting from unpaid state taxes dating back to 1990.
2010 -- A state audit finds the incumbent has presided over the County Commission during a flawed budget process in which the county spent several thousand dollars in excess of the funds available (findings start on page 15).
May 23, 2012 -- After nearly nine years, the IRS and Oklahoma Tax Commission release their liens upon the incumbent after he discharges a personal bankruptcy.
April 30, 2013 -- The Oklahoma Tax Commission files a new lien on the incumbent for $4,076.33 due to unpaid taxes during the 2010 and 2011 tax years.
September 13, 2012 -- The incumbent writes an article entitled "Budget Fouled Up". He says the county has made a $1.3 million budget mistake. The mistake occurred after he failed to reconcile the spending amount with the amount available to spend. Over the previous two years the county appears to have literally spent more than $1.3 million it should have and now must find the money to make up the deficit. The county will have to either find a pot of new money or cut costs and overhead to make up the difference.
October 2013 -- Instead of focusing on cutting costs such as wasteful overhead and duplication, the incumbent votes to balance the budget by raiding hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fund which was suppose to be used to pave roads (see page 1, estimated income, transfers from other funds in the amount of $750,000).
March 25, 2014 -- The State Auditor's office state that budget problems have been a recurring issue in Logan County. A spokesman for the office describes repeat findings due to the failure to budget properly and indicates these finding will likely continue through the end of June 2014.
May 19, 2014 -- Within just a month to go until the election, the incumbent issues an non-bid, sole source contract for approximately $50,000. This allows the county to avoid the important bid process which might have pushed the expenditure back past the election date but could have saved the taxpayers thousands of dollars. According to county records, this appears to be an unprecedented action.
May 25, 2014 -- The State Auditor's office prepares to release another series of findings of deficiency. One of these findings exposes the incumbent for failing to maintain an inventory of consumable supplies for over a year. Without this inventory, thousands of dollars of taxpayer funded supplies are unaccounted for and could be lost or stolen without the public ever knowing it.
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