Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Vegas Gets Decorative Rocks
Topline: At least when Charlie Brown griped, “I got a rock,” in the Halloween special, “It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” he didn’t have to pay for it. Federal taxpayers were not quite so lucky after spending $697,000 to place boulders along a Las Vegas highway in 2011.
The Nevada Department of Transportation would have liked to spend its federal grant on something besides highway beautification. But federal regulations dictated that the money go towards “the installation of hardscape landscaping (decorative rocks, boulders, etc.) and native vegetation,” inciting the ire of local officials and taxpayers.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn't stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2011 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth nearly $7 billion, including the money for Vegas’ luxury rocks — which would be worth $997,000 today.
Key facts: The grant money was spent prettying up the Bruce Woodbury Beltway in Las Vegas, but residents interviewed by KTNV ABC 13 saw little point.
The news station lamented that “You're paying for decorative rocks, native plants, some pavement graphics, a few walls, and some great big granite boulders.” A nearby homeowner who watched the construction explained, “They took dirt, they created holes, they moved it into mounds, they moved the rocks back over it and then they set boulders on it.”
The Clark County Public Works department defended the expenditure because “it provided the same sense of community pride, similar to what graffiti removal does."
But the state Department of Transportation admitted, "It's really getting out of hand to where these pots of money have these constraints associated with them and you can't spend money where you want to … We notice that a lot: ‘Hey, my kids don't have this at school’ or ‘I have a pothole in front of my street.’ People are concerned that the money isn't going to the right location."
Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world’s largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: Until 2011, states were required to spend 10% of certain Federal Highway Administration grants on “Transportation Enhancements” that were “designed to strengthen the cultural, aesthetic, and environmental aspects” of a highway.
Coburn tried to block the bill containing Vegas’ decorative rocks project until the 10% requirement was eliminated. He eventually withdrew his amendment in exchange for a promise that states could opt out of the requirement, beginning in 2012.
Summary: With so much of America’s infrastructure in need of legitimate repairs, it would be much easier and cheaper to leave boulders lying in the dirt instead of strewing them along highways.
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