Dori: Your tax dollars are being squandered through incompetence

I am watching out for your money and watchdogging government. And no surprise — your tax dollars are being squandered.

I cannot believe the level of incompetence in city government. Seattle City Light is putting smart meters in customers’ homes. Now they say they’re running $17.4 million over-budget, with the total cost up to $101.5 million, according to Crosscut.

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Linzi Sheldon from KIRO 7 News, who first broke the story, told us that Seattle City Light plans to move the money around from other projects to cover the deficit, rather than directly passing the cost to customers. But all their money comes from us, so eventually, in one way or another, we’ll end up paying for it.

Here’s the incredible part. Sheldon said that Director of Customer Care Kelly Enwright told her that $5.4 million of the extra costs come from the fact that one of the employees “missed the line that said taxes.”

“So the quote that they had was just for the smart meters, but it didn’t include the taxes,” Sheldon said. “And that was the big costly mistake.”

She plans to research how many people looked at this document and what the qualifications were of the person doing the math.

“It makes you cringe, doesn’t it?” Sheldon said.

She said it should get even more interesting, because Seattle City Light will have to go before the council later in the summer to explain why they need to move the money.

They missed the sales tax — $5 million. They go over my expense accounts with a fine-toothed comb, and yet Seattle City Light can miss a $5 million item.

If you are the budget person for Seattle City Light, and you’re a steward of $100 million taxpayer dollars, I’m thinking you probably should know not to overlook a $5 million sales tax item.

I cannot believe the level of incompetence that manages to keep jobs in the city government. Anyone out there involved in bookkeeping, projecting revenue and expenditures, budgeting — what would happen in your job if you missed a $5 million item? Send me a text or email.

Beyond Seattle City Light

And remember that homeless “tent mansion?” Apparently the city is finally tearing it down. What about the couple that set it up? You and I are going to pay for them to get out of town to Kansas City. You’re thinking a Greyhound bus, right? No — it’s only tax dollars. What do you need your tax dollars for? So we’re going to buy plane tickets for the vagrant squatters who have been illegally been camped out in front of the Space Needle for months now.

This is what we do for homeless campers? And you wonder why people are flowing in from all around the country to Seattle. Our city leaders try to tell us, “Oh, these homeless people are just people who grew up in Laurelhurst, went to Roosevelt High School, and are down on their luck. So let’s collect $500 million in tax dollars so you can help the kids you went to school with.” Wrong. These people are coming to Seattle from thousands of miles away because they know this city is a magnet for handouts.

If you want to travel somewhere, you have to save and work and delay other purchases that you might want to make. But hey, if you go sit on a sidewalk and refuse to move, the Seattle taxpayers will fly you wherever you want.

They are holding the city hostage. I didn’t think we were supposed to negotiate with people who take us hostage. The message is out there: if you want to hijack taxpayers, the easiest place to do so is Seattle, Washington. Whether it’s through public utility math errors or handouts to vagrants who pitch a tent on the sidewalk, your tax dollars are being frivolously, criminally wasted.

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