Yesterday, we reported on the Nebraska auditor of public accounts’ finding that the Nebraska Tourism Commission and its Omaha-based agency of record Bailey Lauerman went over budget by $4.4 million over the past three years. The report found that the Nebraska Tourism Commission and Bailey Lauerman effectively misused taxpayer money, failing to properly track expenses and expensing items unrelated to the production of the campaign like booze and cigarettes.
KETV NewsWatch7 spoke with the state auditor of public accounts, Charlie Janssen, yesterday. “I thought it was, in many cases, irresponsible money spent, my tax money spent, and your tax money spent,” Janssen said. Here’s the local news report.
Nebraska Tourism Commission director Kathy McKillip said the expenditures for booze and alcohol “should have never been submitted…we don’t know whether they fell through the cracks, but we know very good and well those are not reimbursable items as a state agency.”
She objected, however, to Janssen taking issue with the Nebraska Tourism Commission spending $44,000 on a keynote speaker for their 2015 conference, saying, “That’s not an uncommon pay-range for a nationally known speaker.”
Now, the state’s Governor Pete Ricketts has weighed in. He told the Lincoln Journal Star yesterday that the entire episode is “appalling,” adding that “people would be held accountable” if he had control over the commission.
The problem is that he can only appoint members of the commission–he can’t replace them, and they don’t answer to him thanks to a 2012 law that made the commission independent:
“They’re not being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars. There’s more accountability if you put it under the governor’s purview.”
According to a story posted early this morning on Omaha.com, Ricketts would like to do just that. And in a completely unrelated development, Bailey Lauerman EVP and general manager Rich Claussen announced that he will be stepping down from his position to join “a pro-entrepreneurship group” after spending a whopping 30 years with the agency.
In other news, McKillip said she had “nothing to do” with the agency’s decision to cast her own daughter as the campaign’s star.
We just hope for the sake of all involved that the work inspires a lot of people to vacation in Nebraska.
[Image via the Governor’s office]