Taxpayers vs. Reagan

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors has decided that it is not worth the trouble to pursue collection of a $14,295 bill run up by the Reagan-Bush campaign last year when the President held a campaign rally on the grounds of the County Administration Center.

President Reagan’s campaign committee apparently feels it should not have to pay the rather modest fee of $2 per hour for the work time county employees lost because two buildings had to be closed during the rally and workers given time off. The Secret Service, not the campaign, demanded the evacuation of the buildings, campaign officials say.

Supervisor Paul Eckert, who once said the campaign should pay for all costs associated with the rally, now says that collecting the debt might cost the county more than the amount it is owed. That would be a waste of money, he said.

So what are the object lessons here? It’s interesting that the Reagan-Bush committee thinks tax dollars should subsidize a purely political event. That doesn’t sound like the essence of conservative government to us.

From the standpoint of the county, it was probably a case of a mistake in judgment at the time the rally was scheduled. Chief Administrative Officer Clifford Graves agreed to the rally without consulting the supervisors. Only after questions about the cost were raised by Supervisor Leon Williams did Graves decide to try to collect for the lost employee time. Graves said he felt it was an honor for the President to “grace the grounds of the county building” even for a campaign event.

Finally, we can’t help but wonder about the signals the decision to drop the matter sends to the public. The fact that the three supervisors voting not to pursue the debt are Republicans while the lone supervisor squawking is a Democrat provides a partisan cast to the controversy. And more than one local taxpayer has wondered aloud, “You think if I owed ‘em $14,000 they’d be so willing to forget about it?”

Eckert has now asked Graves to draft a policy that would protect the county from incurring such expenses in the future. That’s a good idea, to say the least.