We’re trying to attract new businesses and residents to Whitewater. How about our sitting governor, Jim Doyle, who shows an appreciation of double standards that would make him a perfect fit for the stodgy town squires of Whitewater, Wisconsin?
Over at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there are the results of a fine investigative report detailing the many deficiencies and shoddy accounting of Governor Doyle’s travel expenses. The report, entitled “Doyle’s travel reports deficient: Documentation lacking 145 times over two years,” details how often our governor has failed to comply with state-employee travel requirements. Often, indeed.
Here’s just an except from the investigation:
Madison — Gov. Jim Doyle and his staff failed to properly account for 145 travel expenses over two years, including a $5,200 business-class flight to Ireland and a $654-a-night stay in a London hotel. Nearly three-fourths of the time in 2007 and 2008, Doyle and his staff didn’t supply receipts as required under state travel policy.
By comparison, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton and her staff didn’t provide receipts one-third of the time during the same period….
State policy requires employees to provide receipts for purchases made with their state-issued credit cards for flights, hotels and other expenses. That documentation was often missing from hundreds of pages of Doyle’s travel records obtained under the state’s open records law….
Doyle’s travel records were reviewed by a group of reporters and student journalists as part of a joint project involving the Journal Sentinel, a University of Wisconsin-Madison investigative reporting class and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.
Among expenses that weren’t properly documented was a business-class ticket to Ireland for Doyle in April 2008 that cost $5,226 round trip. An accompanying coach-class ticket for Goodwin cost $830. They made the trip to Ireland and England to meet with the head of SABMiller about the merger of Miller Brewing and Coors and to discuss policy issues with government officials.
The travel policy requires state employees to purchase the lowest appropriate airfare, which is described as coach fare. More expensive charges require written justification, but that wasn’t provided for Doyle’s trip to Ireland.
What makes Whitewater, Wisconsin perfect for Governor Doyle?
Consider the response of one of his aides, Chief of Staff Susan Goodwin, to the investigative report:
Asked if the governor would change how he tracks travel expenses, Goodwin said, “Absolutely not, absolutely not…. We will not limit his role or chain him down and not allow him to fulfill his duties as governor.”
One rule for Doyle, one for everyone else.
Perfect for Whitewater! Doyle may be new to this approach, but we’ve had double-standard in Whitewater long before the Doyle Administration.
I’d bet we could even teach Doyle a thing or two about favors and excuses for a few, and strict standards for everyone else. Doyle’s encroaching on the territory of a few hundred self-important Whitewater locals who think that Destiny herself called them to the higher purpose of making up their own roles, rules, and regulations.
There’s an excuse, interpretation, nuance, rationalization for the calcified, self-important few who walk about like sultans; for others, it’s strict compliance, all the way through.
We thought of it first, for goodness’ sake! City Manager Brunner’s Where’s Whitewater? location effort is nothing compared to the gains we could make attracting new, energetic hypocrites to Whitewater.
There are likely thousands of people across Wisconsin, insisting on double standards for themselves, deeply disliked in their own towns, who will fit right in with us.
If anything, Doyle will take years to catch up to our local standards of hypocrisy.
No time to start better than right now, right here.