I just saw another news article revealing a state agency that had wrongfully withheld information from attorneys working on behalf of private citizens would be heavily fined for its misconduct.
Over the past many decades I have seen and read countless news stories about some public agency fining another public agency for wrongdoing. The amounts are usually significant when they become worthy of publication.
The logic of this particular mechanism continues to escape me. No public agency creates the money it uses. All funds are obtained from taxes, service fees, etc. How does one public agency imposing fines on another agency punish or act as a deterrence when the public is the source of the funds?
The remedy for the public agency whose funds are used to pay the imposed fine is to merely add a line item to its books and plead to its governing authority or to the public it needs to increase its revenues through assessing higher taxes or charging higher service fees. Where is the stick when carrots are essentially in limitless supply?
Wouldn’t a better way to keep agencies and their staffs in compliance with laws and regulations be to punish the individuals responsible for the misconduct through loss of position or criminal charges in extreme cases? It seems obvious an “agency” doesn’t make the decisions to break the law or ignore legitimate regulations … people do.
Fining agencies without making the perpetrators of the misconduct responsible for their actions accomplishes nothing but burdening the public … again.
James R. Pressley
Lake Stevens
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