Blount County Tennessee - Citizens for Better Government

Blount County’s “financial weapons of mass destruction”

You all have probably heard about how arcane financial tools, called derivatives, have brought our national and world economy to the brink of destruction. Warren Buffett captured the essence of the problem when he called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction”.

Did you also know that our County Finance Director, David Bennett, has been playing the financial derivatives game with our hard earned taxpayer money? (Click here for more)

Lots of errors in recent S&P report on Blount County

Good financial decisions require good information. The recent Standard and Poor’s report on the County led the Mayor to claim “the financial management of the County is second to none”. However, the report is just another example of how S&P made the colossal blunder of giving their highest, triple A, ratings to trillions of dollars of debt, that is now called toxic junk. S&P’s work is very poor. Consider their errors: (Click here for more)

Blount County debt doubles in last four years

Mayor Cunningham told the newspapers: “Blount County is fiscally sound and the management of the county's affairs is second to none". He based his conclusion on the content of a Standard and Poors report on the County’s debt. This is the same S&P who rated gave their highest AAA rating to trillions of dollars of debt, that is now commonly referred to as “toxic junk”. Is this is a solid base for the Mayor’s sweeping conclusion? It is as if you were to decide that your household finances are in great shape because you can still borrow money on your credit cards.

Perhaps the Mayor has not read the latest County Audit Report. The report says the County’s debt has nearly doubled since 2004, from $123,505,000 to $244,570,000. Adding the interest brings the total to a whopping $479,767,000. (Click here for more)

Is the Sheriff feeling the taxpayers’ pain?

In the last month or so, we have heard a great deal from Mayor Cunningham and Finance Director Bennett about the need to control County spending to cope with the severe economic downturn. At the January Commission meeting, Peggy Lambert, the self-appointed leader of the county political machine, even made good speech about the need for fiscal responsibility. The machine-controlled Commission then voted to appoint her to the seat vacated by Bob Ramsey.

Against this background, you can imagine our disappointment when we discovered that, just four days later, Sheriff Berrong ordered $518,000 worth of brand new cars. To add insult to injury, the Sheriff spent nearly $100,000 on three luxury SUVs. (Click here for more)

Cunningham, Berrong and Bennett continue cover-up of 36 missing Sheriff’s vehicles

Mayor Cunningham, Sheriff Berrong and Finance Director Bennett recently launched an all-out effort in the press to try once again to cover up the problem of the 36 missing Sheriff’s vehicles. Apparently, they recently did a physical inventory of the Sheriff’s vehicles, and found the number of vehicles matched what was on the county inventory. This does nothing to resolve the problem of the 36 vehicles that went missing in fiscal year 2007. (Click here for more)

How the Road Department Building will cost millions and increase our taxes

Blount County Finance Director David Bennett and the Mayor Cunningham are asking the Commission to rush into multi-million dollar real estate deal with absolutely no plan. What started out as a project to build a new 27,000 sq. foot building for the County Road Department “at no cost to the taxpayers”, has turned into the acquisition of a new campus, for most County departments, that will cost the taxpayers at least $7 million before it is done. Beneath the surface, this nonsense is being propelled by an initial project that got to be 33% over budget before the foundation was poured; a real estate agent, who is part of a powerful political family, closely allied with the Blount County Machine; an artificial, rushed, decision time frame being pushed by Bennett; and, a lack of any plan. (Click here for more)

Do our county officials care about incompetence, waste and corruption?

A couple weeks ago, WBCR radio asked us to make the same presentation that we made to the State Comptroller at the end of April. In this presentation we present documentation that shows incompetent accounting, 36 vehicles missing (yes even more missing vehicles have been identified lately) from the Sheriff’s fleet, failure to follow a number of statutes, misuse of funds and falsification of documents.

Harry Grothjahn owner of WBCR thought that this information was important enough that he sent written invitations to Mayor Cunningham, Finance Director Bennett, the Sheriff and all the County Commissioners.

WBIR-TV came. We had a good crowd of citizens attend. But none of our county officials were interested. (Click here for more)

Incompetent accounting means no answer on missing cars

For several years now, Sheriff James Berrong and County Finance Director (and political machine Chairman) David Bennett have had trouble answering what should be a pretty simple accounting question. How many cars, trucks, motorcycles, vans and SUVs does the Sheriff have in his taxpayer financed fleet?

Consider these facts. (Click here for more)

The Vote on the Senior tax freeze

The Tax Freeze for Seniors was passed by the County Commission. Voting FOR the tax freeze were Commissioners Ballard, Burchfield, French, Graham, Harrison, Hasty, Helton, McCulley, Murrell, Pitts Reeves, Samples, and Walker.

Voting AGAINST the freeze were Commissioners Farmer, Hargis, Keeble, Kirby, Lail, Lewis, Melton, Proffitt and Ramsey.