The Book Augusta Doesn't Want You to Read

I highly recommend every Maine Citizen download and read the the 2007 Maine Piglet Book Published by the Maine Heritage Policy Center and Citizens Against Government Waste. The book is a startling looking at government waste in Maine. Leading the pack, as usual, is the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Probably the most unaccountable and arrogant agency in state government, we have DHHS to thank for blowing $56 million in taxpayer dollars on a medicaid billing system. DHHS failed to do its homework before hiring a contractor to build this system and throwing a lot of (our) money at them. Had they done a little due-diligence they would have discovered this contractor had no experience in building such a system. If this doesn't get your blood boiling check out the section on State Employee Compensation. In most organizations some heads would be rolling if $56 million was squandered. But not at DHHS! Here you'll learn that the top 12 DHHS employees are each making over $143,000/year in salary! More than the Governor! These figures are from 2005 so maybe they've come down some, but I doubt it.