...The November news report showed Pollard had racked up more than $70,000 in travel expenses since 2013, averaging 13 trips over the prior two years. Included in the sum were thousands spent on upgrading seats and carrying extra and overweight baggage, according to NBC4...
Inspector General’s Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Montgomery College President
Inspector General's Report:
https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/OIG/Resources/Files/PDF/IGActivity/FY2017/mcoll_pres_exp_adv_memo_31_may_2017.pdf
The IG has just concluded that
ReplyDeleteAccusers can go take a hike
Due to the Harvard on the pike
The property taxes will spike.
As a matter of fact, evidence in Montgomery county is an elusive, if not mythical, concept indeed.
ReplyDeleteThe MC IG is usually pretty thorough, however, the IG is only looking to see if laws were broken, not if it was the wrong thing to do. Could some of that $70,000 have been better spent to help MC students? ...probably. Should President Pollard have flown coach more often? ...yes!
ReplyDeleteAnd what's up with all the "overweight baggage?" Hopefully, there were no flights back to the U.S. from Columbia or Afghanistan.
No, the IG is not thorough. He works at the pleasure of the County Council and does what he is directed to do. This is not an independent office.
DeleteOn other matters, IG's and the FBI from other states have looked at the exact same activities as the Montgomery County IG and found wrongdoing. Our IG, looking at the same matters, finds nothing.
The report clearly states the audit was not thorough. The Board is appointed by the governor. Email the governor & tell him to appoint board members who are actually responsible, independent & will assert independent oversight.
DeleteThe report says that the audit was not complete as, "We did not obtain sufficient documentation to perform a full audit of the President's travel expenses because we anticipated that the special auditor would perform this work." But the Board -appointed by the governor- said that was unnecessary. Also the weekly reports are "confidential," so the public & taxpayers funded this travel Can't find out what is really going on.
ReplyDeleteAnother classic example of
ReplyDelete"The less you do the more you make."
The county is very generous with our property taxes:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Beat/2017/Take-A-Look-At-Montgomery-Colleges-Vision-For-Four-Story-Student-Center/
'The county' consists of people that the voters elected. It is the residents of the county who are so generous and so encouraging of this spending. Elections are coming up. In the last by-election only about 20% of registered voters bothered to vote. If you want more of the same don't bother to vote. If you want a change spend a few minutes reading about the candidates and their voting records. Watch what they do, not what they say.
DeleteI would take it a step further. Request that a referendum be introduced to eliminate
Deleteambiguous, vague and weasel words from the candidates' records.
There is no such thing as 'requesting' a referendum. To get a referendum on the ballot you need to get a large number of signatures on a petition. And because the current office holders and their predecessors wanted to keep the power to themselves it is an onerous process. The Term Limits group's success was remarkable but does show it is possible. Again, this is up to the voters.
DeleteBy the time we figure out the process either the problem will go away or it will be forgotten.
DeleteI bet this guy passed his 'background check' with flying colors as well:
ReplyDeletehttp://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-college-employee-accused-of-stealing-school-vehicles
You lose that bet.
DeleteYou mean he was hired because he failed the background check?
Delete