Proposed Amendment: Discourage Rent-Seeking Special Interests

The following charter amendment was presented by Carole Perry, at the February 9 Charter Review Commission meeting.

Carole Perry read the following email from Whatcom County Council Member Sam Crawford into the public record:

As the County Council is finalizing the 2015/2016 county budget, I thought of a charter amendment (below) that might save the taxpayers quite a bit of money... money that necessarily comes out of our general fund property tax revenues because no other county fund is eligible for public "charitable expenditures". The county's "general fund" is the most vulnerable and greatest-need fund because it's what pays for the county's essential services such as the criminal justice system, sheriff, basic services, etc. 

Over the years we've put money into everything from the Whatcom Symphony to Food Banks to Historical Societies to Festivals to Chambers of Commerce to whatever. Often it is a matter of behind the scenes lobbying (as just occurred for one group who was successful in obtaining $80,000 yesterday, and that's in addition to a bunch of other organization contributions already in the proposed budget) 

Whatcom County Charter Section 6.74 Charitable Appropriations  

The Whatcom County Executive and the Whatcom County Councilmembers shall not distribute county funds via grants or expenditures, whether budgeted or non-budgeted, to charitable, educational, civic, homeowner, neighborhood, arts, trade, business, religious or scientific non-profit organizations or any other similar types of community organizations/groups not mentioned herein, unless the grant or expenditure is directly reimbursed by community, private, state or federal grant agencies for the identical purposes for which the agency/government grant is provided. 

On the other hand, I guess another possibility (if you like the idea of the county taxpayers collectively contributing to some of these various charities) would be to not prohibit these expenditures, but somehow require more public notice and review (not sure how you'd do that through the charter). 

Sam Crawford 

Whatcom County Council Member 

360 676-6690 

Emails by Councilmembers are considered public documents and subject to disclosure.

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