I wasn’t sure whether to feel angry or flabbergasted when I read the Saturday article, “Waste alleged in ferry system.” Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond stressed that the $6.4 million wasted on reimbursements was only a part of the $215 million budget, as if misappropriating any part of only one-third of the budget is acceptable behavior because they didn’t steal all of it.
I warmed up the old Casio calculator to see if I could make some headway on the reality of those figures, but I think I broke the machine. OK, so a deckhand only makes $59,000 per year, but that isn’t enough to survive on. He needs a bit more. How about an additional $72,950 — that should just about do it.
The rate of payment is a generous 55 cents per mile; how many miles might that be? Is that 132,636 miles? No, let’s try it again, I must have hit the wrong button. Yep, sure enough. So we divide by 365 days and that’s about 363 miles every day, seven days per week. I suppose if you drive from Mukilteo to Edmonds by way of Astoria it is feasible.
How about $6.4 million by 55 cents per mile. My calculator doesn’t do that many digits, so I’ll guess: About 15 million miles. The deckhand could go around the earth a little over five times, and the total budget allowed for reimbursements could fly to the moon and back, ah, 30 times or so.
So what manager accepted the 132,000 miles, and who is that person’s boss? Work your way up the food chain until everyone responsible, including the Legislature and governor, who just now decided to take a look at the problem, and they’re all fired. Don’t even get me started on state employee unions and their manipulations in assuring top salaries and perks.
If you vote them out every term, that’s called term limits. The one the courts wouldn’t allow.
Andrew Evich
Everett
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