New Jersey Can Hear Everyone Now To Tune of $3.2 Million In Waste

New Jersey has been the butt of many a joke. The news the state is wasting 3.2 million dollars a year on phones it doesn’t use is going to open up an entirely new vein of humor.

The State of New Jersey is no different than many states these days – it is broke. This has led to the typical political brawl over spending cuts versus tax rate increases. It has also led to an audit of the government’s expenses, which revealed something very interesting.

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The State Comptroller has discovered that the New Jersey state government is spending $3.2 million a year on phone services it doesn’t even use. The waste includes land lines that aren’t used any longer and mobile phones that aren’t assigned to anyone. The problem is so pervasive that one in six landlines or mobile phones owned by the state aren’t currently in use, but are being paid for!

The primary problem appears to be that there was no procedure in place for dealing with the communications when an employee left the state or an office closed. In one case, the Comptroller discovered that the mobile phone of one terminated employee remained active for six full years. Talk about waste! The government has responded by going through its telephone assets and turning off all unused lines and phones.

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All jokes aside, New Jersey’s wayward phone problem is hardly unique. The federal government and every state waste our taxpayer money in appalling ways. The only difference here is New Jersey had the nerve to audit itself and report the findings. Good for them.

Now if we could only get the federal government to do the same thing!

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