How have we allowed plundering of taxpayers' money go on?

could it possibly be that the citizenry has become complaint to what the mainstream politicians tell them??

could it be that when someone questions the expenditures of the elite elected officials they are BEATEN down by a news media organization for being a "MOONBAT"??

One only need to look in the mirror Ms. Sarah Overstreet and to where this article was printed to discover the answer.

Funny I thought the newspapers had INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS, to write about this type of stuff.

KUDOS to Doug Burlison and the members of the Libertarian Party of Greene County for getting this subject on the forefront. Many thanks to the individual members of the police department, firefighters, and concerned citizens of Springfield.

There are two crimes I really can't understand:

a.) Serial killing. I've watched documentaries titled such as "The Mind of a Serial Killer." It's like I'm watching videos voiced in Farsi. Nothing computes.

b.) Embezzlement. I have to keep my bank account current (by subtraction, mostly), or My Good Friends Who Gave Me the Toaster to Sign Up With Their Bank will charge me a hefty fee for overdrawing.

So doesn't that beg the question, "How does someone in public life get away with it so easily, if the Gestapo at the bank are looking at every jot and tittle of my finances?"

Easy. In public life, sometimes no one's watching. The emperor has no clothes. No one wants to say anything, lest he or she be pilloried for pointing it out or suggesting we need CPAs, too.

Just a couple of examples — from the most current to the mists of history — where there were no checks and balances in southwest Missouri's past.

Some $1.2 million disappeared from the Springfield Municipal Court between Jan. 1, 2000, and June 13 of this year.

This is the court where we pay our fines for all the sins we commit, from driving transgressions to having our dogs roam at large. These tickets are not inexpensive. Look at the city's record of keeping watch of the money, and all you can do is get sick. The City Finance Department told News-Leader reporter Jenny Fillmer earlier this year that the city does not regularly check to make sure the money that gets deposited into city bank accounts balances against the money it collected.

What happened to the money, before and now? "It would be very difficult for us to know," the city's director of finance, Mary Mannix-Decker, told Fillmer. Again, since the city's Finance Department doesn't check the dough to see where it goes, they dunno. Why?

The official excuse the city has used is that it doesn't have the money to look after our money, even after a state audit showed in 2000 that "vulnerabilities" have existed in our Municipal Court for years.

And how long has this kind of thing been going on?

That would be a great game-show question.

At least since the late 1980s. That's when ex-Greene County Collector's Office employee Lois Long, former Collector Gene Wickliffe's head bookkeeper and cashier, took an estimated $94,000 from the office.

It seems like every few weeks, there's a new news release about a local embezzlement: a Springfield PTA treasurer, a children's basketball organization's treasurer, lawyers for private trusts, all kinds of bookkeeping burglary in private industry.

It's reprehensible when parents and supporters sweat buckets to plump up children's activities and someone steals it. It's gut-wrenching when crooks rob old people who think they're making investments that will take them through their lives. When employees are allowed to plunder from the taxpayers. Why have we let it go on so long?
Are we NUTS?