“I Didn’t Break It, I Was Just Testing Its Durability”
I used the “Show Me: The Spending” web tool to determine how much money that government agencies in Missouri spent on ”Property Damage Settlements” during the last decade. From the resulting graph, we see that the Office of Administration (in blue) and the Department of Transportation (in purple) are responsible for most of the expenditures. In fact, together they account for 98.92 percent of the total — $10,113,764.76, adjusted for inflation.
Trend of “Property Damage Settlements” by Government Agency (2009 Dollars)
The Office of Administration consistently spends $437,964.86 per year on average. The Department of Transportation’s trend of spending, however, is more volatile. It spent $77,637.71 on property damage settlements in 2007, $2,282,899.37 in 2008, and $6,500.00 in 2009. MoDOT made the largest single payment to a vendor in this category in 2008, in the amount of $1,920,556.60.
“Property Damage Settlements” for MoDOT in 2008
Why are these state agencies spending so much on property damage settlements? What property are they damaging, and why do Missouri taxpayers have to cough up $10,113,764.76 for it?
Sounds like eminent domain compensations to me. Have you checked out how much money MODoT spends on debt service fyi?
Comment by Eapen Thampy — March 2, 2010 @ 2:14 p.m.
Using the “Show Me: The Spending” web tool, I found that MODot Spent $203,971,096.42 on “Debt Service” in 2009. This represents an increase of 10.47% over 2008.
Also, in 2009, MoDOT accounted for 51.49% of the sum total for all Missouri government agencies in the “Debt Service” category. The Office of Administration accounted for 48.11%. The rest of the agencies together made up the remaining 0.41%.
The “debt service” category includes the following spending details: “arbitrage rebate,” “bond principal,” “interest,” and “issuance related charges.”
Would you care to see a graph of the trend over time?
Comment by Christine Harbin — March 2, 2010 @ 2:50 p.m.
No, I’m aware of the numbers and trends for Missouri. I haven’t seen any comparative data for other states though. There might be some interesting data down that path.
Comment by Eapen Thampy — March 2, 2010 @ 4:13 p.m.