OK — I know there’s no such thing as free parking, but San Francisco International has had its hands slapped for giving away free passes valued at $31 bucks a day. Read about it here. They Cut back from 5000 freebies in the 90s to 300 to 200 and now are rethinking the entire program. The mayor doesn’t want the appearance of impropriety.
I don’t have a problem with free passes for some people and the new programs lets vendors and volunteer workers park for free. However there is one more category on the list that does bother me…"government employees traveling on government business." Does that include Senators, Congressmen, and local and state officials…The two biggest abusers of the free parking were state representatives.
One way to handle it is to track usage and bill back the parking fees to the offices of the "government employees traveling…" That way accounts will be charged and expense reports will be duly noted. Oh, the money will still be spent, but at least we’ll charge the funny stuff back to the right account.
JVH
