Editorial: When Government Profits

In our age, government has adopted many practices of business. Government workers are commonly unionized, and salaries are established through collective bargaining. A version of standard business accounting has been adapted by government using what are called GAAP rules, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. Government owns property and disposes of its property. What distinguishes government from business, however, is that government is not owned by shareholders with whom it shares profits. Government, per se, does not make a profit.

And yet, government accumulates and spends money. How much it accumulates and how it is spent is decided by the people elected to office; in Sonoma County that’s members of the Board of Supervisors and in the City of Sonoma, members of the City Council. Ultimately, budget approval is the prerogative of those elected, who then pass on responsibility for the spending of money to administrators and managers.

The money accumulated by government is not really the government’s money, of course, but is “the people’s” money, which is why representatives of the people control budgets. If voters are dissatisfied with the budget decisions of those they elect, they can elect different representatives. At least that’s the theory.

In practice, however, decisions about accumulating and spending money are often shrouded in opaqueness, subject to the influence of lobbyists, campaign donors, industry consultants and professional bureaucrats with their own set of spending priorities. Today the public is woefully uninformed about the working of government and who it is that is responsible for how government spends the people’s money.

Government can choose to accumulate money to cover its own growing expenses, or it can choose to accumulate money for civic improvements and benefits. There are examples of both, but the latter is becoming less common. Some past examples of money spent on civic improvements include Class One bike paths, helping to create the Montini Preserve, and supporting the use of city (i.e.the people’s) property for Sonoma’s Garden Park on 7th Street East. It’s been a long time, however, since such grand efforts have been made. On the contrary, the trend is to facilitate private gain.

The best current example of that is what’s  happening to the former Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC). This publicly owned property is in the process of being sold off for private development rather than being put to use for civic benefit. The State’s Department of General Services considers it a duty to sell the land for as much as it can get, in other words, make a profit.

We feel government’s first responsibility is to the community it serves. In the case of SDC that responsibility is being ignored. Moreover, government has  chosen a developer who has almost no successfully-completed projects, but nonetheless has the backing of powerful friends in Sacramento.

The State could, of course, simply turn it over to the State Parks Department for public use, or donate a portion of it to an affordable housing developer, but these civic uses are not getting any traction in an atmosphere of profit-making. We don’t know what the agreed purchase price is, but even if the state receives $200-million-plus for the land, that amount represents a small fraction of less than one percent of the state budget. And yet that’s the path that’s being taken. And what’s worse, the decision-makers in the Department of General Services are not elected and cannot be replaced by voters. We think it stinks.

Sun Editorial Board