State should be more thorough with state background checks before doling out money
State government officials on Wednesday announced a $9.1 million tax credit for Richard Short thinking his fledgling company, Renewable and Sustainable Cos., would bring 765 jobs to Flint.
Hours after Gov. Jennifer Granholm made the announcement, news surfaced that Short, 57, is a convicted scam artist with a long history of jail time and embezzlement.
He was on parole in Genesee County and building the business out of the bedroom of his friend’s mobile home.
Background checks seem like a simple and effective way to make sure incidents like this don’t happen.
Yet somehow, officials failed to take such protective action.
For a state that had to temporarily shutter government work to balance an overdue budget last year, it’s baffling that millions of dollars would be just given away without so much as a simple check and balance.
This is a huge embarrassment, and state officials need to be 100 percent sure of where taxpayer money is going.
Short’s criminal record is atrocious.
According to the Detroit Free Press, he has a long history of embezzlement and serving jail time, including a 6-year sentence for stealing money from a Muskegon County business.
He has been in and out of prison since then for multiple parole violations and owes the state nearly $100,000 in restitution for the damage he has caused.
So while our elected officials are giving tax breaks to felons, the state’s educational level is brutally on the decline, families are literally living off unemployment and young people are leaving the state as soon as they can for lack of work.
Instead of putting the money where it needs to go, government officials are blindly giving money away without as much as a second thought.
The real kicker in the situation is that Short was discovered by Flint city process server Patrick Clawson and not the government officials that made the initial mistake.
“I unraveled this guy’s past in 15 minutes with an Internet connection. Why in the hell couldn’t anyone in the state do this in months of negotiating a tax credit with this fellow?” he questioned in the Free Press article.
It’s a good question that our state’s bumbling leaders can’t seem to answer.
If the government is planning to dole out millions of tax dollars to individuals in the state, they should first check into where the money is actually going.
State officials who approve the tax breaks should perform comprehensive background checks.
The government needs to check all current businesses that have received huge tax breaks and government funding.
With this big of a debacle, it’s not farfetched to think other companies or people are scamming money as well.
This is another sore eye for Michigan. Politicians in Lansing shouldn’t have to be reminded how to do their jobs but apparently, that’s not the case.
Stop being inept and think before you spend.
The promise of new jobs and growth in Michigan is always heartwarming.
But if this is the state government’s approach of hoping for the best, citizens can only expect the worst.
