Executive
Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Vermont Counts Its Chickens
Topline: There are plenty of proven methods for conducting demographic surveys. Questionnaires and systematic census interviews work just fine.
The Vermont Barn Census
Asking Americans to run around Vermont and count the number of barns in the state seems a bit less effective, but that’s what the National Park Service decided to spend $150,000 on in 2008. The money would be worth nearly $219,000 today.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn’s Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the $150,000 for Vermont’s barn census.
Key facts: The Vermont Division for Historic Preservation launched the “barn census” in the hopes of collecting pictures of and stories about every barn in the state.
Challenges quickly arose, as reported by the Bennington Banner, even though the state provided “workshops on barn census taking” for volunteers.
Some barn owners didn’t allow census takers onto their property or simply weren’t home. Others spoke endlessly about their barn’s history, taking up hours of volunteers’ time.
Census takers also said there were few reliable methods for determining a barn’s age “aside from it simply looking old.”
Amusing photographic records
The photo records are even more amusing. One graduate student at the University of Vermont participated in the census as part of her coursework and needed the help of 12 classmates to snap a photo titled “That’s A Barn!” The picture is, in fact, of a barn.
The census continued sporadically for 11 years until 2019, at which point it had documented only 2,800 of the estimated 10,000 historical barns in Vermont.
Summary: At least counting chickens before they’re hatched is free. Why should it cost $150,000 to count barns?
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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