Big government, Little government or no government: Look at this!?

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/12/2263373/miami-dade-schools-igs-office.html



Some say our government is too big, with which I totally agree and think that we can do with just about half of it!



In case the above link doesn't open, this is basically what the news report is about:



An on and off local politician in Miami, who along with his siblings, has held different offices for the past years, got really upset at the Inspector General "contracted" at $1 million dollars a year because the inspector general noticed another "unethical" thing done by this politician-turned-schoolboard-member.



It used to be only a "Miami thing"--you know, the really corrupt politicians--, well Miami, Chicago, and New York? I'm been a bit sarcastic....But seriously, how can the Board of Education hire or contract the Inspector General?



Ironically, this politician-turned-schoolboard-member is right: it is a waste of taxpayers' money. There should not be a one million dollar contract of and by another government entity if Inspector Generals are indeed a government agency. And, the politician-turned-schoolboard-member should be investigated by the District Attorney's office.



Do I understand all of this correctly?Big government, Little government or no government: Look at this!?
For those who are fans of minimal government, there are several places in the world you can go to get government off your back.

Somalia tops the list of minimal, with Chad and the Sudan having nearly as little government. Personally, I prefer to live in a place with considerably more government.

In the story linked to, http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/12/22鈥?/a> the problem seems to be not "too much government" but rather "government regulations circumvented." A school board member divided $23000 dollars worth of work into four smaller contracts to avoid competitive bidding rules. I seriously doubt "less government" would have prevented this sort of behavior.

I saw nothing in the story about anyone being 'contracted" at $1 million dollars a year'. The inspector general appears to be paid a base salary of $234,968 plus insurance and benefits by Miami Dade county, totalling about $318000. One might consider this salary excessive, but corruption is too strong a word if those numbers from the story are correct.

The story does not make it at all clear how inspector general staff members might contract with the school board. One possibility is that, although the inspector general and his staff are independent watchdogs of the school system, hired by the county and not the school system, their expenses are in some way billed to the school system(s) they watch. In any case, the idea of an independent watchdog examining school expenses sounds seems like a good idea. If I lived in Miami Dade, this would be an instance of "more government" that I would favor. It seems like a way of reducing corruption, not encouraging it.

----------- update -----------

Sorry, I missed that $1 million figure in paragraph 7. My guess is that if we take the inspector general's compensation of $318000 and add in compensation for his 7 staff members, we will probably get a figure a little over $1 million. And yes, that paragraph also says the county bills the school system and provides an independent fiscal watchdog.

So I guess Miami Dade residents need to decide: is paying $1 million plus per year for watchdogging likely to be cheaper or more expensive than letting the school system run without independent watchdogging? Or, is there a cheaper way to hire a good watchdog? Because I think noticing the school board member's trick of dividing $23000 worth of work into four contracts is evidence of pretty good watchdogging.
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