Taxpayer Advocates Are Improving American Democracy

They say, "You can't fight City Hall!" Tax payer advocates across the country are defying the odds, fighting city hall and very often winning. Tax payer advocates stand up and fight for the little guy, the common person in the street, the average tax payer. They are the self appointed representatives of the powerless and the voiceless who have no idea how to fight city hall, but wind up paying the bill every time politicians squander their money. They are changing the course of history and improving American Democracy by holding politicians accountable and making then less likely to foolishly spend money.

Walter Griffith of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania is one of the best in the nation. Walter has gone to bat for the local tax payers on numerous occasions. Griffith completed an exhaustive study of the city of Wilkes-Barre a couple of years ago. Griffith found plenty to reform and change for the better. Walter discovered that the Mayor of Wilkes-Barre pay raises were based on the contracts which the city negotiated with the unions. The mayor received the same raise as the union contracts with the lowest increase in pay. The problem was that the Mayor represented the city in the negotiations and had an obvious conflict of interests. In essence, the mayor negotiated his own pay raise. Despite coverage in the press and serious complaints from the public, nothing was ever done about this.

Next, Griffith turned his attention to city council, and discovered another can of worms. Members of city council work part time and receive full time benefits. They qualify for full retirement benefits if they served on council for twenty years or if they combine their years on council with other employment with the city. Moreover, council members were overpaid for the amount of work they completed. At the time council members received an annual salary of about $12,000 plus health insurance. To add insult to injury, if council members had medical insurance from another source, the city bought them out by paying the market value of the insurance policy. One could argue that city council has a lot of responsibility and should be compensated for this. This council, however, did little more than rubber stamp the mayor's budget. One could argue that members of council stood for nothing, believed in nothing, and did nothing.

This was simply too much for Walter Griffith. So he initiated a petition to reduce the salary and benefits for members of city council. Griffith gathered the required signatures to get the proposition on the ballot, received a lot of positive press coverage, and there was a lot of popular support for the proposal. Unfortunately, the petition had technical problems and the initiative never got on the ballot. We will never know if the voters would have lowered salaries and benefits for member of Wilkes-Barre City Council.

Since that time Griffith has continued to work for the taxpayer on his own time and his own money. He has earned great respect and admiration from the press and the public. The October 20, 2008 edition of the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania demonstrates how powerful Griffith has become. The headline in the newspaper read "Griffith torn over state complaint" and the sub-headline stated that the "Taxpayer advocate says workers urging him not to file a complaint with the state over borrowing to plug deficit." Luzerne County civil service employees were concerned that Griffith's complaint would defeat a county proposal to borrow money to keep the county government operating, and they would be laid off. Griffith said he received calls from county employees imploring him not to file a complaint with the state of Pennsylvania against a request from the county to borrow $5.3 million to cover part of a 2008 budget deficit.

After a Luzerne County judge ruled that the county could only borrow $5.3 million of the $15.9 the county commissioners sought, Griffith said he might challenge the borrowing plan by filing a complaint. During the hearing, Griffith testified against the county and helped reduce the borrowed amount from $15.9 to $5.3 million. Walter said he would reconsider his position since those who prepared and approved the budget deserve to be scrutinized, but rank and file county employees should not be penalized. He also stated that he did not want to shut the county government down because some higher level people did not do their jobs properly.

Griffith did e-mail letters to the Federal Bureau of Investigations and the state Office of the Attorney General and asked the offices to investigate the county's budget process. As of this writing there has not been any response from either of these offices.

Ultimately, Griffith's concern and support for working class people in and outside of the county government convinced him not to file a complaint. He may be right on the budget issue, but his support for working class people is far greater than his right to file a complaint.

That same issue of the Times Leader contained a story about rising taxes in Wilkes-Barre. Mayor Leighton blamed the fireman's union and the union denied it stating that they risk their lives everyday for the city and were only paid what was legally theirs. So the newspaper turned to Griffith for an expert opinion on who was right. Griffith blamed the tax increases on the mayor's inability to curb spending. Griffith stated that "He's given pay raises every single year he's been in office... He continues to spend money at galloping rates for his pet projects." Griffith also blasted Mayor Leighton for blaming the fire-fighter's union. He stated, "For him to blame the fireman's union is just beyond my comprehension, the fact of the matter is we've hired at least 30 policemen and we haven't hired one fireman" during Mayor Leighton's administration.