Adam Edelen

Today in the Herald Leader we have a fine example of smoke and mirrors from candidate Adam Edelen.  Edelen is running for state auditor and the article is basically a public relations piece for his campaign. 

Jack Brammer, the reporter for the Herald Leader is better than this, he knows how to ask a hard question but didn’t.  I don’t know why.

Here are the dot points:

1.      More public transparency and saving taxpayers' money.

2.      Launch an online site called "Taxpayer Dashboard" to give Kentuckians information to help them evaluate how well tax dollars are spent.

3.      Urge Kentuckians to get involved as "citizen auditors" with public service announcements.

4.      Push for legislation to require local and state agencies to publish all expenses online.

5.      Hold an annual statewide conference with local and state government financial administrators to urge more transparency and highlight innovations in their jobs.

6.      Update the auditor's Web site by creating a "digital safe house" to ensure the anonymity of whistle-blowers.

7.      Set up a system for prioritizing which audits should be conducted.

Point number one, this is just wishing for sunshine.  Unless you can tell us how you are going to do accomplish transparency and saving money it doesn’t mean anything.

Points two thru six attempt to say how he is going to accomplish transparency.  But let’s look a little closer.

Point number two calls for a "Taxpayer Dashboard".  He said he developed similar "dashboards" for Lexington residents when he was vice president of the Lexington Chamber of Commerce.

Go take a look at the Lexington Chamber of Commerce.  All I see are pages with links.  Not impressive.

Point number three public service announcements, really?  I’ll TIVO right through that.

Point number four, push for legislation.  A good idea every auditor has done it or should have done it.  The legislation he should push would require all of the county officials to use the same accounting system.  They don’t currently.  Some do a good job, but a lot of what goes on in the counties is total crap when it comes to accounting.  By the way how is he going to pay for requiring local and state agencies to publish all expenses online?  Another unfunded mandate?

Point number five, hold an annual statewide conference.  Rubber chicken and political smoozing at state expense, we can all agree we need more of that.

Point number six, ensure the anonymity of whistle-blowers.  Whistle blowers should be protected, but they should not be anonymous.  Revising the web site is going to ensure anonymity, that is not going to happen in this world.  This just shows a fundamental lack of understanding about how things, particularly computers, work.

Point number seven, system for prioritizing audits.  Do nothing different from what the current state auditor is doing.

And finally “Edelen said Luallen "has done a magnificent job in the auditor's office."

"I would just like to institutionalize her policies with a priority list."”

Now I know that no democrat running for office can speak ill of St. Crit, but I have personally heard Edelen say (before he was running for office) that he thought that Luallen was a do nothing auditor and that he was disappointed with what she had done with the office.

So let’s add up, former Beshear chief of staff with a smoke and mirrors agenda that says whatever he needs to say to get elected.  I’m not impressed.