Thursday, March 20, 2008

Vincent: Fee offices have improved in Blunt administration

The photo that accompanies former Director of Revenue Trish Vincent's op-ed piece in today's Springfield News-Leader indicates no unusual growth in the size of her nose. That would be one explanation for the article's content.

A quick check of the calendar shows that April 1 is still 12 days away, so it can't be an April Fool's joke.

With those two possibilities shot down, no rational explanation remains for Ms. Vincent's contention that fee offices have improved under Gov. Matt Blunt's administration.

Ms. Vincent was responding to a News-Leader editorial in which the operation and awarding of the fee offices was criticized:

Gov. Blunt made these license offices run better -- not worse -- and his administration deserves significant credit for making these offices more efficient and accountable to taxpayers while improving customer service.



Ms. Vincent brags about the pilot program under which a handful of license fee offices have been put up for bid. Of course, this pilot program came long after dozens of fee offices were gift-wrapped for Blunt contributors, to be managed by firms set up by Blunt buddies, that last step, one that had never been taken by the governor's predecessors, Democrat or Republican.

I was amused by the portion of Ms. Vincent's article which referred to the plans she and the governor required prospective fee agents to submit in order to be considered for the offices. Unless I missed it, Ms. Vincent has never allowed the public or the media to look at these plans. And you have to wonder about any system in which nearly every good plan submitted came from someone who had contributed to Matt Blunt's campaign.

When Matt Blunt's tenure as governor ends in 10 months, his fee office scandals and his draconian first-year Medicaid cuts are going to be the two lasting legacies of his administration.

No wonder Blunt didn't run for a second term.

3 comments:

Tom Hanna said...

So, when Holden and Carnahan (and Teasdale and so on) awarded fee offices to Democrats that was just good clean government, but when Blunt awarded them to Republicans that was scandalous? I'm afraid I don't follow the logic.

Anonymous said...

Two issues here ... First, see the above comment. I know for a fact that the fee office in Neosho was long held by a Democrat, until the Democrats lost power. Boo Hoo! To the victor go the spoils!

Also, Randy, do your research, Trish Vincent is no longer the head of DOR. Perhaps you should know something about what you're typing before you type it.

Randy said...

You are correct that I should have referred to Ms. Vincent as former Director of Revenue. That will be changed.
As for the rest of it, I have made it clear in the past that I am not in favor of this kind of behavior no matter which party is doing it. The Blunt method is worse in two respects:

1. This is the first time, that companies have been set up to manage the fee offices as part of package deals.

2. The pretense that people are submitting plans to operate the office. Apparently only people who were contributors to Blunt managed to submit workable plans, and then no one has been allowed to see these plans. The governor would have been better off just coming out and saying he was rewarding his contributors.