The party’s over, now it’s time to face the real music. I’m referring to the boozers at the N.C. Museum of Art who threw a party during museum operating hours for a departing colleague. Troubling by itself, the festivity, more importantly, poignantly epitomizes what’s wrong with state government today: The in-crowd parties while taxpayers struggle to foot the bill for ever-growing state spending.
An investigation by the State Auditor’s Office found numerous violations of personnel policies, security procedures, and most likely of Alcoholic Beverage Control regulations. The auditor who crashed the party estimated that 35 to 40 museum workers, some of them state employees and others members of the Museum Foundation, attended the event. The auditor witnessed many of them drinking beer and wine, some of the alcohol donated by a winery and some of it supplied by the revelers themselves. Several of the workers said they partied and imbibed while they were on the clock. Even the museum’s associate director of administration joined in.
Far from an isolated event, partying at the museum was a common occurrence, according to the tipster who contacted the auditor’s office.
Taxpayers should be furious about this kind of behavior. And they should question why — if the museum can allow so many employees to attend a party during operating hours — it needs a total of 87 state-paid workers and 90 foundation members (according to figures reported by the Department of Cultural Resources at my request) to carry out its mission. Put another way, 20 percent, or one in five workers, was frolicking in a backroom while the museum was supposed to have been serving its patrons. How many companies, or other organizations, could afford to operate like that?
An analysis of the museum’s annual budget shows how comfy things are over there. The state budgeted $3.7 million for operation of the museum in fiscal 2002-03 and again for 2003-04. The John Locke Foundation’s Freedom Budget recommended that the museum could operate efficiently by trimming its staff of full-time state workers and relying more on foundation members for its needs. By doing so, the museum could operate on an annual budget of about $1.6 million, or half of what it now receives.
The party shocked State Auditor Ralph Campbell. “I can’t believe that this sequence of events took place,” he said to the News & Observer of Raleigh. “What were people thinking?”
State Cultural Resources Secretary Lisbeth Evans had a curiously lukewarm response. “Sometimes people make bad decisions,” she said. No duh. Then she said she will launch an investigation and remind employees that such parties violate museum rules.
But another quote attributed to Evans makes us doubt whether she will put a wholehearted effort into the probe or whether she will take meaningful correction action. “These are good employees who work hard, and they made a mistake,” Evans said to the N&O. “And … they were reported on by their peers — which is disgusting in itself.”
Incredible. Evans blamed whistleblowers at the museum for squealing on the cavorting ways of their colleagues. Oh sure, that kind of response by the department’s highest-ranking official is bound to inspire a comprehensive, objective inquiry.
It looks like Gov. Mike Easley, who appointed Evans to office, will have to step in if the state hopes to salvage taxpayers’ confidence in the museum and in the Department of Cultural Resources. Or does he also harbor contempt for whistleblowers?
Richard Wagner is the editor of Carolina Journal, newspaper of the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh.