The State‘s Adam Beam, via Twitter, brings to my attention this list of checks written by the city of Columbia between 7/1/09 and the end of January.
There are 206 pages of them, arranged by date, and about 50 checks per page. Which works out to more than 10,000 checks. (No wonder I got such a high score on that math part of the SAT, huh?) You know, if I worked for the city and had the job of writing checks, I’d insist the city get me a debit card.
I haven’t had time to look into it very deeply, so I have no analysis to offer. Just take a look yourself and see what interests you. (This is the difference between what the MSM traditionally did — having people who could spend all day digesting something for you and present you with the important parts — and the kind of firehose info feeds you get from the Web. Sorry, but I busy earning a living otherwise.)
For his part, Adam pointed this out:
Among the checks available for view, $4,764 for Purell Hand sanitizer
So maybe you’d find that of interest.
One thing that jumped out at me was a $180.44 paid by Municipal Court Administration to “STATE RECORD, THE” (by the way, The State Record Company doesn’t exist anymore by that name). And yet there are NO payments to the cutting-edge bradwarthen.com. Harrumph.
Whoa! And then there’s $1,539.12 paid to “STATE RECORD, THE” by Parks & Recreation Admin., and then right under that another $874.06 paid to that same entity by “Administrative Services.”
Then $195.24 paid once again by Parks & Rec, also to “STATE RECORD, THE.”
Look, I’m not objecting to my old friends back at the paper picking up a buck here and there, but where’s my taste? Shouldn’t I get to wet my beak? I mean, whaddya whaddya, badabop badaboop badabeep!
OK, so no one’s interested in this (going by the lack of comments)?
Cool. I find it boring, too.
Brad – don’t you surmise that some of those S.C. agencies bought advertising in The State? That would seem a logical explanation for the expenditure. Just guessing. Jackie
Oops, a comment!
Yes, some of them were for ads.
A couple of them, though, looked like they were paying for the paper. Made me wonder how many copies they’re buying. But maybe it was just misleading entries…
I actually spent ten minutes looking at them. The descriptions aren’t always meaningful enough to know what the expenditure is for.
But I know if I was the mayor, I’d have some specific questions.
For example, there are a lot of entries tagged: PKUP with a person’s name beside. One person’s name appears very frequently. I’m guessing that person gets the checks and distributes them. I’d be interested to know what’s going on with all those checks and what services they are going for.
There also were what seemed like very high transportation related checks for individuals in the fire department.
The Eau Claire Development Corp seems to be the recipient of several checks. There were 2 that really caught my attention–one on 8/17 for $322,221.57 and the other on 9/17 for $684,639.37. Both seem to be for home loans.
Is this how the city covered the $1.1 million loan default? Educate me, please.
@Libb–I believe you are right.