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The Exchange
Issue 9.28: Cunning Lingle
What Linda Lingle said in a Sept. 13, 2002 Honolulu Advertiser was her "One Big Idea" for her gubernatorial campaign:
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January 05, 2006
"I think the most important is to get an [independent] financial audit of the books of the state of Hawai'i and then to—based on what we learned—press forward with performance-based budgeting that measures results."
What she didn't say:
It's now more than four years after Lingle's heady campaign promise, and state Auditor Marian Higa has just announced that her audit of the Lingle Administration has found 934 "unauthorized" positions within the executive branch, according to the Dec. 28, 2005 Advertiser. These positions, which bypassed the legislature but still cost the state $30 million, stem from what the paper calls a very "liberal interpretation" of the word "exempt," which is state hiring-speak for giving latitude to the governor's office to move people around government for special or temporary work. State budget officials say it's all legal because the governor needs "flexibility" to run things "efficiently," but that doesn't explain why Lingle felt the need to fatten the state government so much in the first place.
-Anthony Pignataro
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