The media are reporting that the Massachusetts House of Representatives has already paid over $378,000 to the law firm of Gargiulo/Rudnick for working on the Federal corruption case against former House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi.  The law firm was awarded their contract with the House by DiMasi when he was Speaker, shortly before he resigned in disgrace.

The only reason the issue made the news, however, is because four Representatives stopped House business to demand an audit of the charges by the law firm.  In this matter, these four deserve thanks for taking  a stand for transparency:

• Matthew Patrick, (D) Falmouth
• William G. Greene (D) Billerica
• Thomas M. Stanley (D) Waltham
• Lida E. Harkins (D) Needham

Their stand has forced the current Speaker, Robert A. DeLeo, to propose an outside audit and examination of the charges to the House by the law firm selected by the former Speaker.  If that audit ever happens, it will be a a victory…but one which may cost the taxpayers even more.

What is lost in this discussion, however, is that it took an internal House argument to bring this matter to the light of day.  This case represents a relative handful of transactions out of tens of millions each year — what else don’t the people know about?

The people would never have known that a disgraced politician was still costing them money.  If we had transparency in government, the charges to the House — and therefore the taxpayers — would have been available for all to see and ask about.  Access to that kind of information by the general public and the media could allow for more calls for audits of such spending.

Of course certain details need to be kept from public view to protect people’s privacy, security and ongoing investigations and such, but there is no reason the people could not see $378,000 in total charges from a vendor to the Commonwealth and see that the project code had to do with the DiMasi investigation.

The state has no reasonable argument for keeping secret its financial dealings.  Every single transaction should be visible in some reasonable level of detail to anyone who wants to see them — online, when they happen, and for free.  The people deserve total transparency in all matters of their government.

Tags: Audit, Government Spending, Transparency

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.