Governor finally awoke
Finally, it seems the Guv has woken up and called for an audit of state-owned vehicles - who has them and what are they used for. Other than the Guv, I see no reason for any elected official to have a stateowned vehicle.
The Guv, for all practical purposes, is the only elected official who is “on call” seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The rest of them, from Lt. Guv ondown to Land Commissioner, have no reason to have a full-time state vehicle provided to them (at our expense, I might add).
There is no reason why, if they need to travel someplace on state business, they can’t check out a vehicle from a pool of vehicles. Most private businesses do it this way, so why can’t the public business of state government do it as well?
I’ll venture an answerto this question. Based on the response of some of the elected state officials, notably Treasurer Martha Shoffner, there is a sense of entitlement that a full-time state-owned vehicle goes with the job regardless of need. In addition, there is a sense that this state-owned vehicle can be used for personal use and that taxes do not need to be paid on this personal use.
This has to end and, hopefully, it will oncethe audit is completed.
Elected officials knew when they begged us for our vote that the job was in Little Rock and that if they lived elsewhere that was their problem. Getting from home to office should be done in their personal vehicles at their expense. It’s not the public’s responsibility to pay them to get to work.
PETE RATHMELL Garfield, Ark.
Opinion, Pages 4 on 08/11/2010