[Editorial] State Advertising Needs Oversight

April 30, 2008

Gov. Haley Barbour was crying his eyes out Monday over poor, starving, unemployed Mississippians, according to a statement from his office. The Legislature’s failure to reauthorize the Mississippi Department of Employment Security will seriously hurt that demographic, he said.

“The Legislature’s failure to act hits hardest, first, at the very people least able to take the blow, that is unemployed Mississippians whose benefits would not be paid,” he said. This came from the same guy whose Senate surrogates opposed a bill this session allowing a $25 increase on the average unemployment check.

Businesses are breathing harder down Barbour’s neck than the unemployed. Their unemployment payouts go from .8 percent to 6.2 percent if MDES dies.

The House tied language into the MDES reauthorization bill requiring more oversight into how the state hands out its $14 million in advertising money, and the Barbour-controlled Senate didn’t like it. The House thinks companies should bid for their contracts in an open process free of the influence of department heads like MDHS director Don Taylor. The Senate and Barbour want the oversight to be retroactive, with state auditors doing investigations whenever somebody smells dirt. State auditors, though, don’t have the resources to police Mississippi’s method for securing advertising, which is a pity, because if ever a process had the potential for dirt, it’s one dealing with $14 million in ad money.

Take the state’s $1.2 million contract with TeleSouth Communications Inc. in 2006. A 2007 Peer investigation showed the company—arguably the state’s mouthpiece for the Republican Party—snagged a sole-provider contract with the state to carry abstinence advertising to a bunch of 50-year-old white men. MDHS Executive Director Don Taylor said the company was “the only company that can provide these needed services to the Department.” The state Personal Service Contract Review Board didn’t even demand proof of TeleSouth’s lofty designation. They went with it because Taylor said so.

It doesn’t matter that TeleSouth’s talk radio hits low numbers. Their Tupelo affiliate, WXRZ-FM, only gets 1.7 share of the Tupelo audience, according to Arbitron Ratings. Its Hattiesburg affiliate, WFMM-FM, only attracts a 2.4 percent of that share. Heck, the broadcasting company’s talk shows’ biggest numbers, for Jackson’s WFMN-FM, are a paltry 3.4 of that market.

Anybody looking for open government—and careful, wise spending of taxpayer money—shouldn’t fight the idea of an open bidding process for state advertising. Barbour needs to stop the sob statements and open up the advertising process to more sunshine. The taxpayers must demand that our money is not spent on partisan political efforts, or to keep political supporters in the green.

 
posted by on 04/30/08 at 05:18 PM. [printer-friendly version]   

posted by Turtleread on 05/07/08 at 06:32 PM