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Speaker 1: It's wild to think we have an entire layer of

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Speaker 1: government in our state that really doesn't do much, certainly

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Speaker 1: doesn't do anything that somebody else couldn't do, and yet

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Speaker 1: it garners so many bad headlines, and our politicians are

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Speaker 1: so weak they're just like, yeah, let's keeping.

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Speaker 2: Let's just keep doing that. Is it wild to think

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Speaker 2: about that or is it super frustrating?

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Speaker 1: Well, it's super frustrating. Right. So, what we're talking about

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Speaker 1: is township government, and there are more bad headlines as

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Speaker 1: it relates to township government. And this comes out of

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Speaker 1: a story. We've actually talked about this on this program before.

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Speaker 1: It is in Columbus, Indiana, the Columbus Township trustee. This

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Speaker 1: guy's name is Ben Jackson. Now the Republic down there

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Speaker 1: has the stories, all sorts of news outlets have covered this.

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Speaker 1: He's now going to face up to sixty four and

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Speaker 1: a half years in prison after entering a guilty plea

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Speaker 1: on Monday.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he stolen misused over one point one two million

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Speaker 2: dollars some township funds over eight years.

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Speaker 1: And this isn't an issue of whether this guy was

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Speaker 1: totally corrupt and unethical and doing illegal stuff. And obviously

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Speaker 1: he hasn't now admitted he was. There are bad people

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Speaker 1: in all levels of government. But what happened with this guy?

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Speaker 1: When you look at the amount of money that he used,

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Speaker 1: I mean he was a lot of this was personal expenses.

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Speaker 1: He was paying with the township's credit card that he

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Speaker 1: was misusing in an illegal manner. And the amount of

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Speaker 1: time went on and the amount of money that he

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Speaker 1: that he used, you realize there was just basically no

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Speaker 1: oversight going on here, right, There was no checks and

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Speaker 1: balance at all. He was doing this personal piggy ban.

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Speaker 1: See monumental amount of money over eight years, whatever that is?

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Speaker 1: What is that almost one hundred and fifty thousand a

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Speaker 1: year a little bit less than that on average. And

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Speaker 1: who was overseeing this? The answer is basically nobody. There's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be a board that does this. But I

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Speaker 1: can tell you, having dealt with these boards before they

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Speaker 1: meet a many, like a couple times a year. You're

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Speaker 1: lucky if somebody reads the documents. And these trustees basically

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Speaker 1: have the rule of the roost, and because they have

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Speaker 1: so little to actually do, you see these sort of

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Speaker 1: things that can take place.

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Speaker 2: He spent money on personal trips to ten different countries,

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Speaker 2: retail purchases, personal utilities, home improvement projects including a deck

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Speaker 2: and landscaping, carpenting, plumbing, electric work, flooring, and children's tuition

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Speaker 2: and school expenses as well.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you're talking one point one two million, I think

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Speaker 1: was the number and the bigger conversation though, whether you

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Speaker 1: live in this guy's I mean, if you live in

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Speaker 1: that community, he just stole your money, basically, And that's

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Speaker 1: why they could have gone to the schools, the fire departments, police, whatever.

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Speaker 1: But the issue is that we have this layer of

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Speaker 1: government at a time where everybody's screaming about property taxes

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Speaker 1: and everybody the schools are saying they don't have enough money,

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Speaker 1: and people are saying we're paying too much money. We

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Speaker 1: have this layer of government that for almost twenty years

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Speaker 1: in the state of Indiana, dating back to when Mitch

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Speaker 1: Daniels was governor and had them under in his sites

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Speaker 1: and commissioned that kerninan Shepherd report done by former Democrat

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Speaker 1: Governor Joe kernan Republican Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: Randall Shepherd, and one of the things they said out

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Speaker 1: there is get rid of this layer of government. This

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Speaker 1: is not eighteen forty two anymore. These people don't do

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Speaker 1: anything that another layer of government already existing couldn't do

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Speaker 1: and save everybody a whole bunch of money. Now, they

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Speaker 1: recommended many things, but this was front and center. And

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Speaker 1: here we are almost twenty years later, and these things

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Speaker 1: still exist because the politicians are too cowardly to take

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Speaker 1: them on.

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Speaker 2: So it's a real good example of the misuse of

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Speaker 2: public funds for nearly a decade. But keep in mind,

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Speaker 2: not only was he stealing the government funds, was collecting

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Speaker 2: his salary on top of it for eleven years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and there have been many, many cases of these

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Speaker 1: trustees doing rotten stuff and getting away with it for

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Speaker 1: periods of time, just because there is such a lack

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Speaker 1: of oversight going on in these in these townships, and

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Speaker 1: at a time where we're saying we need to find

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Speaker 1: ways to free up revenue to go to these various

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Speaker 1: government entities who are now singing the blues over Senate

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Speaker 1: Bill one. It is ridiculous that our state government allows

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Speaker 1: this to exist in its current form and allows this

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff to continue. It's just they just waste

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Speaker 1: they just waste tax payer money, I mean, like and

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Speaker 1: they're pretty vocal about I think the townships where I

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Speaker 1: live that make up Brownsburg, I think doesn't mean correct

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Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, but I think both of them

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Speaker 1: are sitting on a million dollars in their fund.

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Speaker 2: They're rainy day fund.

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Speaker 1: If they're not doing anything wrong with it. They're just like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we don't anything do with this, Like it just sits

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Speaker 1: there and collects interest. Shouldn't that go back to the

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Speaker 1: people at the very least, couldn't we disperse it amongst

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Speaker 1: the entities to fill some of their espoused short shortfalls.

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Speaker 1: The you know, the towns, the cities, the fire departments,

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Speaker 1: the schools sort of help them out so that they

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Speaker 1: don't have to be doing referendums or whatever. Why does

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Speaker 1: all of this exist If they have so much money

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Speaker 1: that they can't even spend it would require effort. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're right,