Banner Graphic, Volume 12, Number 37, Greencastle, Putnam County, 20 October 1981 — Page 7

An eye on your money State Board of Accounts 'best bargain in town/ chief examiner says

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) For $lO a day, Bud Renner's accountants will comb through your financial records, straighten out the mess, tell you if any money’s missing and give you a written report on what they’ve found. "We're the best bargain in town,” the mustachioed Renner boasts. But not everyone can avail themselves of Renner’s bargain The service is available only for the guardians of the public purse. As chief examiner for the State Board of Accounts, Renner directs a cadre of 210 professional accountants who are charged with the responsibilty of auditing 6,000 governing agencies in the state of Indiana. Their turf covers everything from the local school board and library district to the halls of the Statehouse and beyond. The Board of Accounts has been in business since 1909 one of the oldest agencies in state government. Over the years, its auditors have uncovered a wide range of mismanagement of public funds, ranging from sloppy bookkeeping to outright thievery. The biggest case on record was the 1965 poor relief scandal in Lake County, where corrupt officials skimmed more than $3 million from the ac-

Can global summit slow Africa's backslide into hunger, poverty?

(c) 1981 The Baltimore Sun JOHANNESBURG—Binin, Botswana, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Rwanda, Somalia, the Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Upper Volta. Twenty-one of the world’s 30 poorest countries, as defined by the United Nations, are in Africa. None of this continent’s 51 independent countries is without major development problems. Even its industrial giant, South Africa, is divided into First World and Third World. The ruling whites enjoy probably the world's highest average standard of living. But its majority blacks, while living marginally better than their brothers in black African countries, still are plagued by typical Third World problems. And instead of making development gains, most of Africa is sliding back into an abyss of hunger, poverty and overpopulation. The situation is becoming so bad that Edem Kodjo, secretary general of the Organization of African Unity, publicly

Once again, familiar theme of near-divine rights of 'lmperial Presidency'

By TOM WICKER c. 1981 N.Y. Times News Service NEW YORK Life is being breathed once again into the Imperial Presidency by a Nixon-Carter-Kissinger Doctrine that is simple, appealing and wrong. No matter how the president decides a foreign policy question, this doctrine holds, Congress and everyone else must accept it or his authority will be undermined. Richard Nixon, of course, struggled for six presidential years to maintain that kind of authority. So it was fitting that his first major foreign policy statement since leaving the White House supporting President Reagan’s decision to sell sensitive AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia should sound an old familiar theme: “Defeat on AWACS,” Nixon’s statement said, “would be a serious embarrassment to Reagan, both at home and abroad ... If he loses ... everyone loses ... Those who worry about the deal ought to trust the president, the secretary of State and the secretary of defense...” Henry Kissinger is equally an old hand at proclaiming the near-divine right of a president (advised, of course, by his secretary of State) to dictate foreign policy. Writing in The Washington Post in support of the AWACS sale, he too proclaimed the old-time religion: “For Congress now to overturn a new president’s recommendation on a matter of such magnitude would ... jeopardize the entire design of our foreign policy ... Congress must not undermine the

Reagan's attack on street crime, narcotics isn't backed by funds

c. 1981 N.Y. Times WASHINGTON Like the four previous administrations, the Reagan administration has launched a legal and political war against street crime and narcotics trafficking. President Reagan appeared before the International Association of Police Chiefs last month to decry “the suffering caused by those who consider themselves above the law with the right to prey on their fellow citizens.” The day before Reagan’s speech, FBI Director William H. Webster appeared before the same group with the same message: “The fear of crime is a fear that is diminishing our freedom and the quality of our life.” Much of the Reagan rhetoric and most of his goals had been stated before by Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter, all of whom, to varying degrees,

counts meant to help the needy. Renner, then a field examiner, was part of that investigation. “We actually think much more money was involved than $3 million, but why keep beating a dead horse?” he asked. “Everything you touched up there was very scandal-ridden.” Most recently, state audits led to the firing of Jerry Maynard as director of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, pointed up $4 million budget overruns at Wishard Hospital in Indianapolis, and exposed the fact that Marion County Clerk Bud Gohmann kept $1 million in tax funds in bank accounts that didn’t bear interest. In most cases, audits show nothing is amiss. “At any one given time, we may have 180 audits going. If we have five or 10 cash shortages in those audits, it’s unusual,” he said. “Most of our audits come out clean.” Renner, who was appointed to the state examiner’s job this year by Gov. Robert D. Orr, concedes he has adopted a hard line for his agency when cash shortages are discovered. “We go into an agency and make a cash reconcilement. If we find that there’s cash necessary to balance we tell the official, ‘You pay it right now. If you find the money later, it’s yours.’ Why should

opinion

LARRY GIBBS Publisher

has referred to Africa as a “dying continent.” Thus, this week’s global development summit in Cancun, Mexico, which will be attended by President Reagan and other major world leaders, is significant to this continent. Few analysts expect any major breakthroughs toward solving this continent’s problems at the two-day summit. Nevertheless, the conference of NorthSouth leaders—the “North” countries generally representing the industrialized world and the “South” the undeveloped areas—is seen as a recognition of the unbalance of global development.

president’s authority in international affairs by a rejection of the sale...” Who would have expected that Jimmy Carter, the least assertive of presidents, would join this imperial chorus? But there he was, at a Washington news conference, saying of the AWACS sale:

waged their wars against crime. However, there is one major difference between Reagan’s anti-crime program and programs of other administrations: Reagan thinks he can decrease the street-

Chicago street gangs like Mafia of 1920 s

(c) 1981 Chicago Sun-Times CHICAGO Modern Chicago street gangs are comparable to the Mafia of 50 years ago in sophistication and organization, police Supt. Richard J. Brzeczek said Friday. Comparing today’s gang activities to those of the bootleggers and gangsters of the 19205, Brzeczek said the gangs are beginning to take over some of the illicit activities once dominated by organized crime. Among those ac-

we find the money for the official when it’s his responsibility?” Renner asked. This hard line causes a problem when there has been a change in leadership in an agency. Then one official may be saddled with the misconduct of his predecessor. “At some point, you've got to start somewhere,” Renner said with a shrug. “Why penalize the taxpayer for malfeasance in office? ” Cash shortages start innocently enough, he said. “The biggest problem we have now is that the economy is bad and people are using public money to supplement their income,” he said. “I don’t think anybody ever started out to steal money. They take S2O out of the cash register with the idea they’re going to pay back the money tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and they need another S2O. It goes on from there.” The Board of Accounts has no enforcement power of its own. Audits are referred to the attorney general’s office and the local county prosecutor for legal follow-up. “We don’t try to make our minds up up here that people are guilty of a criminal violation. We let the local grand jury make that decision,” he said. “We don’t want to be the judge, the jury and the

ERICBERNSEE Managing Editor

And, if the Cancun conference ends on a negative note, “that would be a terrible setback,” says Dr. Gamani Corea, secretary genral of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, For the most part, delegations from black African countries (South Africa’s Foreign Ministry said it had not been invited to the meeting) will go to Cancun with great apprehensions. There is a feeling among many of those delegates that the industrialized North is experiencing growing doubts and reservations about the whole concept of global negotiations, preferring regional talks instead.

“I can make a good case either way, but once a president makes a commitment it’s important that it be fulfilled. ” Of course it is, and no doubt Ronald Reagan will be embarrassed and even undermined if the Senate follows the House and rejects his AWACS decision. But

crime rate without providing any significant itew federal funding for police, courts, prosecutors and prisons. In the past 15 years, the only time the FBI crime statistics took a marked dip

tivities, he said, are prostitution and drug sales. To combat the growing sophistication of street gangs, he said, the newly created Bureau of Gang Crime Suppression will cooperate with the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service. The new gang-crime bureau, announced Thursday, will comprise 4(H) officers drawn from other gangfighting assignments.

The Cancun conference also comes only weeks after the meeting in Washington of the World Bank and the Internatonal Monetary Fund, where positions were polarized even further and President Reagan told the developing nations that, without putting their own houses in order, no amount of aid would produce progress for them. 1 The Reagan message may not have been a particularly diplomatic one, but there is truth to it. Many of Africa’s problems may be due to chronic underdevelopment and poverty—which some writers attribute to colonialism—but many also are results of bad policies, wrong priorities and poor administration. Two cases in point are Zambia and Tanzania. Zambia has wrecked a booming agriculture and Tanzania, which is one of the highest per capita recipients of international aid, has little to show for it other than a nation that is growing steadily poorer. Despite their lack of progress, such countries often have considerable political clout among other developing nations.

Reagan and Secretary of State Haig should have thought of that before they picked up an unannounced “decision in principle” by the Carter administration and proclaimed it as a full-blown national commitment without consultation with Congress or the appropriate committees, without debate in

was from mid-1975 to mid-1977. Most experts attribute that decline to the impact of an annual SBOO million which was being pumped into local and state law enforcement by the Law Enforcement

Tax laws can be used to thwart big gangs, Brzeczek said in taping two radio interviews, police might ask the IRS to seize assets of gang bosses who falsify tax returns, much as federal agents dealt with such old-time mobsters as A 1 Capone. He estimated that about a dozen sophisticated Chicago gangs run organized criminal activities. Memberships in these gangs run into the thousands, he said.

prosecutor.” When a county grand jury does decide to investigate, the field examiner who handled the audit will go in and explain it. Renner said audits lead to indictments in 75 percent of the cases referred to local prosecutors. “Of course, you must bear in mind that you don’t get indictments in some areas because the little old lady in charge of the money has worked there all her life. They don’t want to hurt the little grandma. They’re willing to forgive and forget,” he said. When Renner took office in January he found himself with a three-year backlog of audits and a shortage of 10 accountants from the board’s full strength of 220. Now, he’s fastened upon an innovative way to cut the backlog and save a little money by hiring retired examiners for $75 a day, 60 days a year. Renner said he will hire 10 retirees and spend $30,000 on them. “I’m sacrificing two fulltime, young examiner positions for 10 old, experienced examiners,” he said. “They know the ropes and they’ll be able to give us a very instant reduction in our backlog.” As another money-saving measure, Renner is

To make matters worse, few of the African countries agree on how a new international economic order should be achieved. The basic document for Cancun, a 1980 report by an international commission headed by Willy Brandt, a former West German chancellor, advocates an emergency program “for survival.” Such a program would increase official aid to developing countries by $4 billion a year for the next 20 years, double the World Bank’s lending and create a worldwide food program. “We also believe that development policies should include national population programs aiming at a satisfactory balance between population and resources and making family planning freely available,” the Brandt commission wrote. Not only do most African countries reject any outsider’s right to dictate their family policies—and particularly tie them to economic aid—but some of the most ideological and radical governments of this continent also reject the emergency program as not fundamental enough. Their view was summarized by Jimoh Omo-Fadaka, writing in the London-based

last fall’s campaign, without any public discussion and with no consultation with allies. Obviously, not even an adequate Congressional head count was taken. Similarly, at his last news conference Reagan announced a breathtaking national commitment to defend the Saudi Arabian regime against external or internal aggression; again, no consultation, no debate, no discussion outside the administration a presidential fiat, for which public and Congressional support may well be doubted. Commitments of almost equal import are apparently now being made to Egypt and perhaps to the Sudan all, of course, coming on top of Carter’s most sweeping act of foreign policy, his pledge to defend the entire Persian Gulf region against any and all aggressors. From the Nile to the Euphrates, the cops on the beat are once again Americans. The wisdom of these commitments is not alone at issue. Almost equally important is the question: Should the mere fact that such promises have been made by a president, acting alone and without prior discussion, bind Congress and the American people to keep them, regardless of their wisdom? Kissinger and the ex-presidents’ club would say yes; Congress is too unwieldy and too political and the public is too ignorant of foreign affairs, so only the president can conduct foreign policy. But the problem is that no president can do it effectively without public and

Assistance Administration. LEAA was established by President Johnson but was not heavily funded until the end of Nixon's first term. It financed new facilities, technology and personnel in state and local criminal justice systems, and made it possible to raise salaries for existing personnel. But Reagan is not talking dollars and cents when he talks about crime-fighting. When he mentions the prison problem, for example, he talks only about “closer cooperation” between federal and state officials and making unused federal facilities available to the states. When Nixon talked about prison problems, he emphasized providing new “personnel in terms of teachers, parole officers, psychiatrists, social workers (in order) to change the American prison into a system of effective correction ... It will require millions of dollars."

October 19,1981, The Putnam County Banner Graphic

encouraging a shift to a four-day work week for his examiners. They work 9*/2-hour days, Tuesday through Friday. Since examiners are paid mileage from their home base to wherever they’re going to examine books, a four-day work week saves one round-trip in mileage to and from the examiner’s home. In any given year, examiners travel 310,000 miles. Of the Board of Accounts’ $7.2 million budget, $700,000 went for travel and $6.4 million went for salaries, he said. Renner has plans to ask the Legislature to raise the board’s daily fee from $lO to S3O. But even with that increase, the charges won’t begin to compare with the rates private accountants earn. Last year, the $lO fee earned $600,000, which was turned over to the state general fund. With the state facing tough economic times. Renner said the Board of Accounts has to do its part. “Where else would you go but to a bunch of accountants to tell you how to save money?” he said. “We feel like we’re doing the taxpayers a service by looking out for their money.”

monthly, New African. He said a new international economic order could not be achieved through the recommendations of the Brandt report because “the production strategy of developing countries cannot bloom while under the influence of the ‘free world market’—a market conditioned almost exclusively by the demands of Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan. “What is required is an equitable distribution of the world’s resources, not interdependence as defined by the Brandt commission report,” Omo-Fadaka wrote. Even such moderate African states as the pro-Western Ivory Coast want a restructuring of commodity prices. In the case of the Ivory Coast, the commodity is cocoa, a ton of which sue years ago bought 147 barrels of oil. This year the same amount is said to buy only 60 barrels. Unless commodity prices are increased, says the Ivory Coast’s 76-year-old president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who will attend the conference, the industrialized nations of the north are “gambling with the lives” of the people of the developing world.

Congressional support. Witness Vietnam. Witness, so far, the AWACS sale. A president’s task, therefore, is not to issue imperial writs but to build support, or at least understanding, for the foreign policy steps he wants to take. He doesn’t necessarily have to have a public consensus or a Congressional majority before he can act; but in a system of divided powers, in which the people will make themselves heard later if not sooner, a president will be most seriously embarrassed and undermined if he gets too far out front of those whom he needs to follow him. Reagan has not even bothered to make a foreign policy address, or to outline a general context into which the AWACS decision clearly fits. The fact is that the administration so far has failed to make a convincing case for the sale on its own merit; and to say that the president and the Saudis will be embarrassed if it doesn’t go through is a poor substitute. Surely Congress is entitled to ask if the commitment to sell was sound in the first place. As for the trust of which Nixon spoke, nothing is more crucial to any president’s ability to carry out a successful foreign policy. But Congress and the American people know they have cause to be wary of those who seek trust by decree; and they’re not likely to give theirs to Ronald Reagan until they think he’s earned it

When Reagan talks about local police, he praises them as “the thin blue line that holds back a jungle." When Nixon talked about the police, he praised them too But he also pledged that the government would help police departments increase the pay and other benefits. Reagan has taken the themes, philosophy and goals of the Nixon ad ministration in his war against crime. But he has declined to make a substantial federal funding commitment to help the states reach these goals Since the President’s Crime Committee Report of 1965, money has been considered an essen tial ingredient of any plan to reduce crime. If Reagan can reduce street and narcotics crimes without spending any additional money for more personnel, equipment and lacilities, he may have pulled the hat-trick of the decade as far as the law enforcement community is concerned

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