A Horse of a Different Color

Did you follow the controversy surrounding the proposed donation of $100,000.00 to a private non-profit this week? If you read blogs or news online you might have learned Supervisor Wally Covington intended to donate this sum from his discretionary fund to a group not even located in his district but did happen to be under a board officiated by Mr. Covington’s wife.

If you read anything about it, you may have thought it was irrelevant to you. Perhaps you thought it didn’t matter or that you could have no effect on the decisions of county officials. I want you to know nothing could be farther from the truth.

It is relevant to you. It does matter and you can affect the outcome of matters determined by county officials. As a matter of fact, I feel comfortable stating that it was public response that resulted in Supervisor Covington’s withdrawal of his proposal to donate that sum.

All the supervisors have discretionary funds. That is money allotted from our tax contributions that the supervisors may spend as they see fit. The supervisors often contribute to local charities, youth groups, sports organizations and other non-profits.  Typically, we citizens see no harm in it and the BOCS often helps these groups with our tacit approval.

What happened in Mr. Covington’s case was a combination of circumstances that led to a political firestorm. I won’t get into all the details because you can certainly read a recap on local blogs and news sources. I’m also posting an informational email from John Gray, CPA, who ran against Chairman Stewart (and Babur Lateef) in the last election. Mr. Gray was kind enough to identify how discretionary funds are used. I do want to make a few points for you to ponder, though.

First, I don’t think Mr. Covington was attempting to put anything over on us. He made what was certainly a magnanimous gesture to a worthy cause (in his mind) and smacked of favoritism and nepotism in ours.

Americans are sick of impropriety. We’re tired of big business and big government running and ruining our lives. That is apparently the gist of the “Occupy” movements. All those people protesting by sleeping in parks, living in and leaving unsanitary conditions, causing chaos for public safety were simply a little farther along the process than we.

We in Prince William staged our own “Occupy” movement. We occupied our keyboards and cell phones. We wrote, we blogged, we emailed, we communicated and we managed something the Occupy protesters have not: We prevailed.

All of us want to be heard. In fact we need to be heard. Sometimes our ideas aren’t so great or we don’t understand the intent. Sometimes we are mistaken in our efforts. We don’t often agree on major topics. We can’t seem to manage to get together in person for meetings and organizations to help guide our government, and when we do meet, we’re all waving our hands in the air, wanting others to, “Hear me!” “Listen to what I have to say!” and “Here’s what I believe!”

So, now, there’s a big, hot focus on discretionary funds. We’re all ready to dump the whole concept of discretionary funds and teach those politicians a lesson. Is that really the answer, or do we just need more accountability? I agree the government should not be disbursing cash to charitable organization. The government should stick to governance, but I don’t think it is possible to budget for every single item that may require a cash infusion. 

It’s up to you folks. You are the ones who decide. Just like at the polls, it is your choice that determines what happens next. Go ahead! Occupy your keyboards!

Here are some links to help you form your own opinion:

• Black Velvet Bruce Li
• Moonhowlings (And another piece here)
• Insidenova