Topcity: Jenkins Claims "Life's Not Fair"; Topeka Voters Agree

Copied and pasted straight from Topcity.org. Their site is fabulous and so is this wonderful, wonderful rant:

Ms. Jenkins, the Kansas Treasurer and challenger to Rep. Boyda’s house seat, declared at a meeting in Topeka, October 27th, that “life’s not fair.”

Ms. Jenkins was responding to Commissioner Miller of Topeka’s question as to why some Kansas counties would be “unduly enriched” by over payments in fuel tax revenue. Shawnee County, which Commissioner Miller represents, would barely be breaking even on the colossal fiscal blunder.

This massive mistake was caused by a miscalculation in computer software, and had been ongoing for nearly nine years. Jenkins, who “discovered” the software screw up in April, waited two more months to notify the counties of the problem, apparently being too busy running for a national election to worry about her duties to Kansas as the state Treasurer.

Apparently, the current talking points out of the Jenkin’s camp is that “life’s not fair” when an elected official wastes millions in state funds. Similarly, this ambiguous psuedo-aphorism also applies to the failure of Ms. Jenkins to make a timely notification of the pernicious problem (both for the state and her political future) when it was discovered.

Because life’s not fair, and Ms. Jenkins couldn’t hide in a political fallout shelter while slogging down the campaign trail in April and May.

And life is also unfair for Ms. Jenkin’s partisan supporters, a faithful group of loyal Republicans, who have watched in horror as Ms. Jenkins pried up the floorboards of fiscal conservatism from the party platform, smashed the time-honored planks into kindling and then torched her and the Kansas Republican Party’s credibility on the issue in a media bonfire.

But fear not. Topcity Magazine feels that life is fair sometimes. One of those times will be November 4th, where hopefully Ms. Jenkins will receive the vote from Topekans and other Kansans she deserves. If life truly is fair, people will recognize the missed KPERS meetings, the fuel tax overpayment and the gross incompetence of its handling.

And maybe they’ll remember the utterly insensitive, self-serving retort of “Life’s not fair” from a defensive elected official too busy worrying about the job she’s trying to get instead of the job she was elected to do.

Amen!

Jenkins on Tax Mismanagement: Counties "should never have been notified"

The tangled web of state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins' mismanagement of state motor fuel tax dollars got even more tangled yesterday when Topeka-area government officials had what the Topeka Capital-Journal called a "terse" meeting with the embattled Jenkins, during which she made it clear she had no interest in accountability and even going so far as to say the counties have no right to know so much they're been shorted or overcompensated.

Oh, and she also left the door open for massive tax increases to fix her mistake.

That from a women who seeks a higher office that requires an even greater commitment to oversight and openness than the one she currently holds.

While that attitude from Jenkins is deeply troubling, her proposal as to how the legislature should fix her failing is much worse- at least in a pocketbook sense.

Kansas Treasurer Lynn Jenkins vowed Monday to urge the 2009 Legislature to compensate counties shorted millions of dollars in state fuel tax revenue and avoid the political agony of seeking reimbursement from overpaid counties.

Shawnee County Commissioner Vic Miller and Topeka Mayor Bill Bunten, who attended a periodically terse meeting in Topeka with Jenkins, said the state treasurer's proposal would allow some counties to cling to huge financial windfalls.

"Why should they be unjustly enriched?" Miller said. "We might get what we should have been paid, but they will have received more than they should have."

"Life's not fair," Jenkins replied. "What I'm worried about is moving forward, and that will be my recommendation."

Just so we're clear on what our petulant child of a state treasurer wants to do: The Jenkins Plain will compensate the counties who have been shorted, but will not require repayment from counties who got more than they were due.

Where will all of those millions come from? It will almost definitely require increased taxes or significant cuts in state spending.

How would Lynn like to pay for it? Mums the word. That Jenkins will push off the hard choices to the State Legislature, while it was her office's blunder, is telling as to her lack of leadership ability and a quite sad coming from home who harps about accountability and diligence on the campaign trail.

There's lots more in the article regarding Jenkins' basic lack of interest in open government and public accountability for the actions of her office. Read on:

Jenkins said she chose not to voluntarily distribute to county officials a detailed report on which jurisdictions were overpaid and underpaid in 2008. She said she withheld the information to avoid a "feeding frenzy" by counties that might engage in battles with other counties over the fuel tax money.

Read: Jenkins won't tell anyone what they're due because, gee, they might get upset and ask for it. Probably not a position the local government involved will be willing to take lying down, and, oh, look! Members of local government unwilling to take that lying down were in the room with her when she said it!

During the meeting in Wagnon's office in Topeka, Miller sought a full report on all 105 counties.

"What is your interest in every other county?" Jenkins said.

"I believe that is public information that would be vital to each and every Kansas county," Miller said.

Jenkins dismissed his concern, saying "some people are bright enough to understand that it's not something we should concern ourselves with."

WHAT ON EARTH? "Some people are bright enough to understand that it's not something we should concern ourselves with"?!?!!? Did she honestly say that local governments shouldn't be concerned with the fact they've been either underpaid or overpaid by her office for years? She can't have actually said that, because to deny something so obvious would be evidence of a total disconnect from reality.

It continues, though, and it's obvious that is actually what our dear state treasurer believes:

Miller said he remained unsatisfied with the flow of information to counties about the mix-up.

"You should never have been notified," Jenkins said.

"Why is that?" Miller said.

"My hope is that you're not shorted — that you're going to be made whole," Jenkins said. "We're hoping it's irrelevant to the discussion."

The amount you've been shorted, counties, is "irrelevant to the discussion." Can you believe that?

Can you believe she actually thinks no one should be concerned about the amount of money misappropriated?

Of course every single county government and every single member of the state legislature is deeply, deeply concerned with the actual amounts of money concerned in this disaster- because someone is going to have to pay to fix this mess.

Does Lynn Jenkins just not understand that?

The Home Stretch: Jenkins Offers No Substance, Attacks Straw Men

Some bits and pieces of articles that published over the weekend that have some lovely quotes regarding this little ol' race for Congress.

First, from Chris Green with the Harris New Service:

Christian Morgan, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, said Jenkins' financial numbers show that Jenkins' campaign is peaking at the exact right time.

"The 2nd District voters are tired of Boyda's spin and 'do as I say, not as I do' mentality and want a change," Morgan said. "It is clear from these financial numbers that Lynn is gaining speed fast."

Not so fast, Christian, babe:

But Jenny Davidson, a spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party, points out that Jenkins has accepted $73,000 in the last two weeks from mostly out-of-state special interest groups.

"Lynn Jenkins continues to feed us this line about 'new Republican leadership' but then turns around and grabs every single special-interest dollar she can get hands on," Davidson said.

Green also does a breakdown of what it is this race has really boiled down to- and for those out there wondering who has "momentum" on their side this really ought clear that all up:

During the course of the campaign, Boyda has criticized Jenkins for missing recent board meetings for the state's pension fund while it suffered more than $1 billion in losses.

She also faulted Jenkins for taking six years to discover a mistake, initially made under her predecessor, that robbed some counties of fuel tax revenues while overpaying others.

Jenkins has blasted Boyda for walking out of a hearing featuring a general's testimony about progress in the Iraq War and for signaling her willingness to rescind President Bush's tax cuts in a nonbinding vote.

That almost made this writer giggle. OK, it actually did.

And then from the St. Joe News following the last Boyda-Jenkins debate in Leavenworth:

Ms. Boyda, the Democrat who surprised long-time lawmaker Jim Ryun two years ago, worries about the nation’s military readiness as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan spend human and materiel resources.

“We did not have equipment to put those five brigades in for the surge,” she said. “I am very concerned about the safety and security of Iraq. … My number one priority is the safety and security of Americans.”

Lynn did her required song-and-dance on budget slashing and got back-handed by Boyda:

Ms. Boyda laid out a plan to begin balancing the budget, which included stopping oil-company subsidies, controlling the pharmaceutical and health-insurance industries and curtailing tax breaks to companies that move their operations abroad.

“I am not willing to cut Meals on Wheels, I am not willing to cut rural school funding, I am not willing to cut Head Start while we’re paying billions and billions of dollars to big oil companies,” the Democrat said.

And, finally, on taxes:

Ms. Jenkins accused the Democrat of supporting large tax increases and failing to take action in correcting the alternative minimum tax, which the Republican said she would vote to eliminate.

Ms. Boyda countered that Republicans had 12 years of congressional leadership and did nothing to remedy inequities in the tax code. She added that Ms. Jenkins, despite the anti-tax talk, supported a $294 million tax increase while in the Kansas Legislature.

Both of these pieces did a great job laying it all out there and made it awfully clear which candidate is actually qualified and has the right ideas for the district.

AP Analysis: Jenkins' Vagueness Hurts Her

As reported by the Lawrence Journal-World, Lynn Jenkins waved around a piece of paper with two paragraphs of a "plan" to slash $310 billion out of the federal budget during her debate in Lawrence against Congresswoman Nancy Boyda. While Jenkins said during the debate it was her "plan" that she had been "working" on, in reality, the plan was constructed by The Heritage Foundation and would, if enacted, cut billions from federal support for rural school and eliminate Perkins Loans- college loans given to high school graduates who couldn't afford college otherwise.

Since the debate, though, Jenkins has been mum on any new details.

Jenkins provided the outlines of her proposal during a televised debate nearly two weeks ago, giving reporters a half-page summary after the event ended. Since then, her campaign for the 2nd Congressional District seat hasn't filled in more details.

Why isn't she providing details? Two reasons: She probably doesn't have any and, even if she does, she's scared offering them would open her to more attacks from Boyda & the press.

She has reasons not to go beyond the broad outlines, of course. The more details she offers, the more Boyda can criticize what Jenkins is proposing - and the more voters can get lost in the nuts and bolts, pulling their attention away from Jenkins' bigger themes. Jenkins also has limited time and staff resources for hashing out the wonky stuff while raising money and making campaign appearances.

'Course, Boyda & Kansas voters have already caught on to Jenkins' lack of substance.

Boyda, seeking her second term in her eastern Kansas district, dismisses Jenkins' proposal, saying that many voters already have concluded, "There's nothing to it."

"Why doesn't she go out there and put some detail behind this?" Boyda said. "People expected more from Lynn Jenkins. Really, in the long run, it's not serving her well."

A few more kernels from the article:

Which position is more reasonable?

The Republican challenger argues that Congress should make permanent the tax relief pushed by President Bush during his first term. Boyda has said she wants to preserve tax relief for the middle class, but that Congress must consider closing loopholes for the wealthy and big corporations before tackling cuts in spending on important programs.

Pretty clear to us.

And, this golden gem:

Still, Jenkins promises to go through the federal budget, line by line, to find savings, and she says as a CPA, she is trained for such work.

Oh right, Lynn, just like you were SO careful with the Kansas budget...how many millions have we mismanaged? How many millions do you owe Shawnee County? How many extra tens of thousands did you give Riley?

Another County Realizes Jenkins Screwed Them

Newspapers and county commissions all over the state are continuing to turn their attention to the multi-million dollar blunder that has been state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins' management of Kansas motor fuel taxes- today's article comes to us from Sumner County:

During the debate, Boyda said Jenkins should have sorted out the issue long before entering her sixth year as treasurer. And, Boyda said, recipients of revenue sharing had a right to forthright disclosure of the situation.

"Have you contacted the county commissioners to let them know?" Boyda asked Jenkins during a debate last Tuesday night at KSNT-TV.

Josh Hersh, spokesman for Jenkins' congressional campaign, said Jenkins "notified all relevant parties"

Oh, really, Josh? That's not what the good folk of Sumner County would tell you:

According to the latest information from the state, $10,805.29 is owed to Sumner County in fuel-tax revenue, but officials in the County seemed to have no idea of it.

“Really? Oh, I didn’t know anything about that,” said an official in the treasurer’s office.

[...]

Officials in Sumner County aren’t sure when they will receive the money owed them, but assured the public, “We will be looking into this. We didn’t know anything about it.”

Fine, Josh, Jenkins might have told Governor Sebelius and the Republican Party leadership in Topeka about her failings, but she didn't let the people who really needed to know- the county commissioners and the taxpayers of Kansas- until months and months later.

“Basically for six years, (Jenkins) wrote checks to the wrong people. Then, once they finally found out, it took her then another two months to tell counties about it, and even after that, it took her another four months to tell counties how much they were owed or how much they might owe. Even then, when she finally got around to announcing it, she got her numbers wrong. And she told all the counties that had been overpaid that they were underpaid and vice versa,” said spokesperson Tom Seay, an aide for Boyda.

Shocking- particularly coming from a person running based on her qualifications as a CPA- and stunningly irresponsible.

Oh, also- there might be more of a bombshell yet to hit. Remember, this isn't a new mistake, and the amounts paid over and under what were owed only deal with the most recent fiscal year- just wait until we see the total damage for the whole of Jenkins' term.

We'll have to wait to see that, though, because Lynn's office doesn't know what the number is yet.

After the election, right, Lynn?

Lynn Jenkins Campaign Manager Now Speaks for State Legislature, Too

Ever since the story broke that Lynn Jenkins has mismanaged tens of millions of Kansas tax dollars over the course of the last six years, the Jenkins campaign has been desperately trying to blame anyone other than Lynn Jenkins herself for a mistake that has resulted in increased taxes all over Kansas.

So much for the buck stopping with you, huh, Lynn? Is that "New Republican Leadership?"

“Now she’s saying it isn’t her job to make sure $15 million in taxpayer dollars goes to the right counties, despite those funds being specifically under her control,” said Kansas Democatic Party executive director Mike Gaughan. “For an accountant, Lynn Jenkins seems to have zero interest in accountability.”

One of the really scary problems counties face now is what will happen next. Jenkins says her failure will get corrected by state legislature (Why? Why on Earth should the Legislature fix an Executive Branch screw-up?), and that it's all out of her hands. The only facts we actually know are that dozens of counties were overpaid millions by the state, and dozens more are due millions of dollars from the state.

Don't worry to much, though, because today in the Manhattan Mercury, Lynn's campaign manager Patrick Leopold offered some fortune telling that should reassure counties statewide.

Leopold did say, however, that overpaid counties, such as Riley, "can safely assume that they (the state legislature) will not ask for the money back."

How in the world can anyone "safely assume" anything like that?

We'd say, actually, you can safely assume the exact opposite of what Mr. Leopold is saying, and that, in about five months, the legislature will have its collective hand out in front of each of the overpaid counties asking for the funds back- so the state can then turn around and cut checks to the counties still due millions. Counties like Riley and Osage and Wilson and Jackson will get to pay the "Lynn Jenkins Screw-Up Tax" at the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a pop while taxpayers in Shawnee and Douglas and Leavenworth counties might have actually seen lower taxes for the last six years- had Ms. Jenkins been doing her job.

It's obvious the Jenkins Campaign is in overdrive in an attempt to smooth this disaster over, but one thing is for certain: Lynn Jenkins, CPA, let a massive error go unnoticed in her office for six years. We simply can't trust her enough to send her to Washington, DC.

Across the District: Jenkins Misappropriation Costs Counties Millions

Newspapers across the state have exploded with stories about Lynn Jenkins failure to properly manage state motor fuel taxes, and local officials are scrambling to make up for her massive mistake.

From the Pittsburg Morning Sun:

When financial times are tough, as they seem to be nationwide these days, any revenue is good revenue.

So when Bourbon County Commissioner Bill Brittain was told on Monday that his county was recently shorted more than $1,400 in state fuel tax revenue, he was quite concerned.

"This is a very tight budget year," he said. "So any revenue that we can collect that is uncollected... those all add up. We definitely would like any revenue we can get."

Bourbon County joined Crawford County as part of the 65 counties statewide that were shorted during this year's fuel tax revenue distribution from the state. Crawford County is owed approximately $7,900.

On the flip side, Cherokee County was one of 40 counties that received too much fuel tax revenue and could possibly be forced to pay back the extra amount. Cherokee County received roughly $5,400 too much.

[...]

“Ultimately, the Legislature will determine and make a policy decision on the overpayments and the underpayments,” Wagaman said. “It’s clearly a situation the Legislature wants to have hearings and take action on.”

But not a situation that Rep. Julie Menghini, D-Pittsburg, said she wanted to see. Menghini said it was good news that Crawford County didn’t owe money, though she said she wasn’t sure how the Legislature would proceed.

“It’s going to be a delicate balancing act with the counties that were underpaid,” Menghini said. “And hopefully we don’t do too much damage to the counties that were overpaid.

“I don’t see why it’s a Legislative issue when the treasurer’s office made the mistake,” she said.

Rep. Bob Grant, D-Cherokee, was more succinct in his analysis.

“Stuff rolls downhill,” Grant said. “So I guess we’re at the bottom of the hill.”

Grant said he also wasn’t sure why it was the Legislature’s problem.

“We allocated the money, but it was up to (the treasurer) to make the distribution,” Grant said. “I don’t know if leadership is trying to take the heat off Lynn Jenkins at this (election) time or what it is.

From the Manhattan Mercury:

For Riley County, what started out looking like a windfall Friday afternoon might have become a shortfall instead.

According to a report in the Topeka Capital-Journal Saturday, Riley County commissioner Mike Kearns received a phone call Friday morning from Capital reporter Tim Carpenter informing him that the state Treasurer Lynn Jenkins' office had made an error in calculating the shared fuel tax earnings for 2008. According to the reporter, Riley County was due $70,000 in back revenue.

That news quickly turned to frustration, however, when Carpenter called Kearns back later that afternoon. After talking to the treasurer's office, Carpenter reported that Jeff Wagaman, the assistant state treasurer, had misread the spreadsheet and incorrectly told the newspaper that Riley County had been underpaid for its 2008 gas tax figures, when in fact it had actually been overcompensated by $70,000.

[...]

Kearns told the Mercury Saturday that he is "still trying to figure out exactly what side of the issue" Riley County is on, and expressed frustration over the fact that the treasurer's office had not notified the county of the problem themselves.

"You get the money from the state and you bank that they do their bookkeeping properly," he said, adding that he would "not be pleased" if the state asked for the $70,000 back. "I don't know where this will go, but we'll just have to work it out."

[...]

Representatives from Jenkins' office were unavailable for comment.

From the Topeka Capital-Journal:

Shawnee County Commissioner Vic Miller says the state owes Shawnee County about $3 million and wants to know why there is any question about whether the state will pay the money.

"If we had had the money in hand a couple of months ago, we could have given the taxpayers an even bigger refund than we did," Miller said.

[...]

Miller has said Shawnee County was shorted $1 million last year alone. He also believes the county missed out on similar amounts in 2006 and 2007.

He said cities and townships in Shawnee County especially would benefit because more than half of the total owed to Shawnee County would be passed along to the county's townships and cities.

From the Lawrence Journal-World:

Douglas County has been shorted $340,000, and possibly much more, because of an error in calculation of state gas tax reimbursements to counties, officials said Monday.

[...]

Some counties got too much, and some not enough. Douglas County received too little, as did Shawnee County, $1 million; and Leavenworth County, $192,000.

Jenkins’ office said the error was programmed into the system in 1999 -- three years before she was elected state treasurer. Jenkins has praised her staff for discovering the problem.

Democrats, however, have pounced, saying that the issue undermines Jenkins’ assertion that as a certified public accountant she would be able to rein in the federal budget. She should have caught the mistake earlier, they say.

“Now she’s saying it isn’t her job to make sure $15 million in taxpayer dollars goes to the right counties, despite those funds being specifically under her control,” said Kansas Democatic Party executive director Mike Gaughan. “For an accountant, Lynn Jenkins seems to have zero interest in accountability.”

Fine, Lynn Jenkins hasn't increased any taxes since she was in the state legislature directly- but, through her inaction as state treasurer, Jenkins has increased taxes all over the state as counties have had to make up for funds they should have been receiving from the state. It's ridiculous someone who has managed a department this badly would ever ask anyone to trust her with a new higher stress job.

Lynn Jenkins: Can't be trusted with our Kansas budget, can't be trusted with the federal budget.