[Vision2020] And the Hits Just keep On Coming . . .

[Jeff Harkins]

Andreas,

Well, you put your response out to the viz, so I am compelled to 
respond accordingly.

First since we are going to be discussing McClatchy, I would like to 
provide you with the link to McClatchy Terms of Use - here it is:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/186

It is my suggestion that you read it carefully.

Back to the issues at hand.
Yes, your reference to Fiscal Year (FY) 98 Wasilla Financial 
Statements was incorrect.  The proper designation is FY99.  And the 
contingency numbers presented in the financial report do tie with 
items included in your original email.  However, there is no 
indication in the financial report as to what the numbers refer 
to.  You apparently assumed that the material posted by McClatchy 
contributor Bryson was correct.

Had you properly cited that source, you would of course be off the 
hook on that issue.

But you didn't - you posted material from someone else (you have 
acknowledged this) under your name.  That is plagiarism.

Furthermore, the organization of your description of events does 
match rather well the material posted on the Huffington Post - the 
story by Alperin-Sheriff.  Only you know what you did so I am not 
going to comment further on this matter.  If you used the 
Alperin-Sheriff material, in any substantive way (or someone else's 
material) it should have been cited.

For me, an analysis piece normally covers both sides of an 
issue.  But you presented only one side of the story.  There is 
nothing wrong per se with doing that, but it does leave one wondering 
why you chose to present only one theory.  Had you explored further, 
you would have seen the crack in the conclusion by the original 
author.  The financial statements did not provide any explanation 
about the contingency item - other than the fact the original budget 
for 1999 was for $3,000 and the actual expenditures for the year 
totalled $205.  The contingency expenditures for FY 98 totalled 
$3,454.  But there is no indication that the expenditures were for 
rape kits or some other item.  And you have no direct info to the 
contrary - other than the words put together by someone else, who had 
in turn relied on the comments of a police chief who had been 
fired.  See the problem?

Here is something else for you to ponder.  Contingencies are a 
specific item defined by accounting standards.  Here is the 
description from the 1999 financial report defining contingencies as 
implemented by the City of Wasilla:
(15) Contingencies
The City, in the normal course of its activities, is involved in 
various claims and pending litigation and has accrued amounts it 
considers sufficient to cover settlements that may be payable as a 
result of unfavorable outcomes.  The City intends to vigorously 
defend actions against it and pursue claims in its favor, and in the 
opinion of management and legal counsel, the disposition of these 
matters is not expected to have a material effect on the City's 
financial statements.
Amounts received or receivable from grantor agencies are subject to 
audit and adjustments by the grantor agencies.  Any disallowed 
claims, including amounts already collected, would become a liability 
of the applicable funds.  [Wasilla Annual Financial Report, FY99, 
page 31, Footnote 15]
Notice: No mention of any rape kits.  It would be "unusual" to 
include "rape test kits" as a contingency item.  In my opinion, it 
would make more sense to include "rape test kits" as part of the 
sub-object budget category of "Professional Services" or because the 
amount of expenditure is very small, to include it in the "Other" 
category.  But those kinds of expenditure classification issues are 
one of the reasons I find "Accounting" so intellectually stimulating.
Further, to conclude that all the budget and subsequent expenditures 
are tied to rape kits would be indefensible.  The only way to really 
know what was included would be to access the original line item 
budget, presented at the sub-object level - that is usually not 
available - especially after 7 or 8 years.
Also, in the McClatchy article, Bryson attempted to pin the "blame" 
for the rape kits issue on Palin, citing that because she signed the 
Management Report as well as the transmittal letter, she acknowledges 
that she has oversight over that expenditure.  In theory, true 
enough, but I want you to consider this point.  In FY99, Wasilla 
worked under a budget of over $6 million.  The contingency fund of 
$3,000, managed by the police chief accounts for less than 1/20th of 
1% of the city's budget.  You honestly expect a mayor to have that 
item on a radar screen - especially when actual expenditures for the 
period were less than 10% of the budgeted expenditures?
For what it's worth, I do want to take a moment to commend the City 
of Wasilla for its attention to preparing an excellent example of 
high quality financial reporting .  Wasilla has received the GFOA 
Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting 
numerous times (including FY98 and FY 99).  This is a significant 
signal about the commitment of Wasilla officials to be responsible 
and accountable for their responsibilities (a population of approx 
6000 in FY 99). You might be surprised at how few ID small towns 
pursue and/or receive this award.

You raise a couple of issues that warrant my attention.  First, you 
indicate that I have threatened you in some way.  I am not aware that 
I made any threats to you, but if you took any of my comments as 
threats to you, please point them out to me and I will try to clarify 
my intent.

Second, you state:
I'd appreciate even more if you could have civil disagreements over 
issues and facts without threatening your correspondents' careers
I think it is very important for you to realize that I did not 
threaten your career - you did that to yourself.  All I did was to 
point out that there was a problem with the appearance of a 
sole-authored writing under your name.

Also, I referred you to the Student Code of Conduct as well as the 
Law Student Honor Code.  You have chosen to study law at the 
University of Idaho - you have the obligation to follow the standards 
of the program you have chosen to pursue.

Finally, you assert that I am angry with you. Well, I am not.  But I 
am disappointed.  I appreciate the zeal you have for your choices for 
President and Vice President, but I am disappointed that it appears 
you have used poor judgment in making a case to discredit an 
individual running for the party you aren't voting for.  I am 
disappointed that you would, after the fact, have so much concern for 
your own career, without considering how your actions and the actions 
of other like-minded blogsters would impact someone else's career.

In any case, I hope this clears the air on where I stand with this 
matter.  You, and only you, know what you did or didn't do. And what 
you do, or don't do, is entirely up to you.

I trust that we are done now.

Consequently you are At 04:52 PM 9/13/2008, you wrote:
>Jeff --
>
>Actually, what I'm looking at here is FY '98-'99, not FY '97-'98,
>bottom half of the page, page 65 of the PDF, under 'contingency.'  I
>suspect you would know whether a Jul-Jun fiscal year is generally
>referred to by the starting or ending year; I obviously don't. The
>file name starts with '7-1-98', so I used '98.
>
>The contingency budget corresponds with the Frontiersman 'taxpayer
>expense' that the police chief cited.
>
>-- ACS
>
>On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 4:36 PM, Jeff Harkins <jeffh at moscow.com> wrote:
> > When one travels to the 1998 Audited Financial Statements for the City of
> > Wasilla, page 65 you get the Combining Statement of Revenues, Expenditures
> > and Changes in Fund Balance for the Capital Projects Fund.  All police
> > operating activities are presented in the General Fund.
> >
> > This link will get you to the Document Central.  From there just select the
> > 1998 Audited Financial Statements.  It takes a bit for the file to upload
> > (pdf), but then go to page 65 of the official report.  Just to cover all
> > bases, if you go to page 65 of the pdf file (remember page 
> numbering doesn't
> > necessarily agree with official report), you will be viewing the City of
> > Wasilla Library Special Revenue Fund, Statement of Revenue and Expenditures
> > and Changes in Fund Balance for the year ended June 30, 1998
> >
> > http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=136
> >
> > Not only have I downloaded all the relevant documents at Document 
> Central, I
> > have read or scanned all of them.
> >
> > Want to try again?
> >
> > At 02:50 PM 9/13/2008, you wrote:
> >>
> >> On Sat, Sep 13, 2008 at 12:35 PM, g. crabtree <jampot at roadrunner.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Is it your contention that Dr. Harkins CPA,  Professor Emeritus of the
> >> > University of Idaho Collage of Business, Department of Accounting is
> >> > unable
> >> > to read a small town budget report and has the facts all wrong?
> >>
> >> No. It is, rather, my contention that he didn't, or did and then
> >> thought that no one would actually check. I'm not calling him
> >> incompetent; I'm calling him a liar. Again, for anyone that's
> >> interested, you can check the '98 cite on page 65. The contingency
> >> numbers correspond to the police chief's quotations from the
> >> Frontiersman article. As for anything further, I am not going to shout
> >> a full and unnecessary bibliography at Dr. Harkins' departing back.
> >>
> >> > Or, as is somewhat more likely given previous discussions I have had
> >> > with
> >> > you on this forum, did you lift the whole thing in its entirety from the
> >> > huffington post and throw that bit about primary sources in an attempt
> >> > to
> >> > lend a semblance of authenticity and credence to your argument?
> >>
> >> Gee, Gary. If you thought so, you'd think you'd've at least accused me
> >> of doing so before. We've had quite a bit of correspondence, ande
> >> you've actually never accused me of that, which is sort of amazing
> >> given the broad miscellany of personal accusations you've made against
> >> me over the years.
> >>
> >> Again, I'm telling you outright: no, I didn't read 300 pages of
> >> financial disclosures from beginning to end. Rather, I found someone
> >> else pointing at the cites, I looked them up, confirmed that they were
> >> accurate, and sent Jeff directly to the primary source, evading the
> >> inevitable argument about the reliability of a Washington Monthly
> >> comment thread and the 'those could've been cut-and-pasted from
> >> anywhere' argument regarding the snapshots from the PDF. Following
> >> bibliographic chains to primary sourcesis a time-honored research
> >> technique, and one that saves a tremendous amount of
> >> wheel-reinventing.
> >>
> >> I'm hadn't claimed at any point to have done original research, only
> >> that the primary sources supported my argument. Again, you aren't
> >> accusing me of lying. You aren't disputing the facts as they stand.
> >> You aren't accusing me of cutting-and-pasting language from the
> >> article. You're merely making an issue of how I happened to know why
> >> Dr. Harkins was wrong.
> >>
> >> -- ACS
> >
> >
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