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Show Inadequate control resulted in Timp extravagances Area residents are feeling a sense of outrage as details about corrupt business practices and the misuse of funds at the Timpanogos Community Mental Health Center are made public. Questionable practices at the center include top officials of-ficials contracting with themselves to do the work they were hired to do and get paid for the same job two or even three times. They include exorbitant credit card allowances for private purchases. Managers were permitted to charge their travel expenses, then pass their bills along to the center. When the credit card bill came in, the center paid for that, too. In other words, the managers making the trip not only had their expenses covered, but were paid the amount of the trip expense in addition - and the center paid the travel expense twice. One manager bought apartments and then rented them to the center at above-market prices. And instead of assuming the usual responsibilities of upkeep expected ex-pected by landlords, the center paid for upgrading the property as well. And the list of abuse goes on and on, adding up to more than $3.5 million in extra costs at Timp Mental Health since January 1984 - that's state money, earmarked for treatment of the mentally ill, but instead ending up in the pockets of the individuals trusted with the care of the mentally ill. How could it have happened? How did they get away with it for so long? Who should have caught them? How can we make sure it doesn't happen again? Is there anyone who has read this story who doesn't wonder about each of these questions? The report by the Legislative Auditor General, who wrote the report that blew the lid off Timp Mental Health, makes it clear that the practices which ultimately cost $3.5 million started innocently enough. It's common for such facilities to use contracts to fulfill necessary functions, rather than using hourly employees. At some point the contracts were offered to hourly employees as a means to give the employees raises without changing their hourly work agreements. Without proper policies established governing how such contracts were to be administered, the practice became commonplace at Timp Mental Health, with top administrators contracting with themselves to do work that could easily have been considered to already be part of their responsibilities. Each year the amount of money passed along to these managers through contracts grew. In 1987, the management at Timp Mental Health was paid three times the amount earned by their counterparts at similar mental health centers. And there is little doubt the individuals receiving the inflated paychecks feel they were worth the money they paid themselves. That's the only way such respected individuals could justify such questionable practices. The report says the use of contracts, made in secret, hid the hefty incomes of Timp Mental Health's top managers from the independent auditor who didn't probe deeply enough, and who accepted questionable documentation with no hesitation. The report also lays the blame at the feet of two other public bodies - the Timp Mental Health Board, made up of one member of the commissions of Utah, Weber and Summit counties, and the State Division of Mental Health. These public "watchdogs," through inaction, allowed the managers of Timp Mental Health to take from the very poor indeed, the mentally ill, so they could pay themselves lavishly. The entire episode reflectes poorly on the commitment com-mitment of these professionals to care for the needs of their patients. It also demonstrates the necessity of established procedures where public monies are involved, in-volved, even when such procedures seem to be more of an annoyance than a safeguard. The Timp Mental Health Center can survive, because underneath this top heavy layer of high paid administrators ad-ministrators there is a core of dedicated workers who want to serve the needs of the mentally ill. But proper policies must be established and followed regarding all the areas uncovered by the legislative audit. And the people we elect, in good faith, to look after the public's welfare must take that responsibility seriously enough to look closely into such operations. Annual audits that would strike fear into the hearts of any administrator must be a matter of course. The abuses of public trust uncovered at the Timp Mental Health Center are an example of what can happen when public funds and government contracts are not painstakingly protected. Otherwise, the opportunities for abuse are too many, and the safeguards for the public are too few. This doesn't happen on regular basis Columnist Russell Baker, in his excellent autobiography "Growing Up," discusses the day he found he had a talent for newspaper writing. Fresh out of college, Baker was in the newsroom on rewrite assignment. assign-ment. In a daily newspaper, the rewrite man is the poor slob who has the responsibility of taking the details from a reporter on the street and turning it into a news story. The story will carry the reporter's byline, not the writer's, because in this business, it's how you get the news, not how you write it, that counts. Baker tells how he found he had two things going for him as a rewrite man - he could type very fast, and he was very good at stringing cliches together. After all, he says, that's the art of newspaper writing - string cliches together in a way people expect to read them. Baker claims that his success was built on this uncanny ability. As you might guess, not all of us are equally adept at using cliches. Believe it or not, I sometimes have a dickens of a time finding the right cliche for a given story. But that's the way the cookie crumbles, as they say. So last week, as I was writing the editor's column By MARC HADDOCK another fine example of journalistic excellence for one of our editorial pages on the benefits of scouts cleaning up the Adventure and Learning Park. I really blew it . It was a natural mistake Anyone could have done it. (How many of you noticed it? How many of you even read the editorial, after I worked my fingers to the bones typing it? Just as I thought All that work when right down the toilet.) Anyway, I was working my way through the first paragraph, thinking about those poor scouts working their way through park paths littered with debris from the trees and bushes that line the paths - and I wrote this: ". . . the park has fallen into a state of disrepair that was disconcerting to many who use the park on a regular branches " Now of course, what 1 mean to say was. "on a regular basis." one of those cliches that makes working lor a newspaper a piece of cake. But my brain thought one word, and then got intertwined with another thought about the litter, and in place of basis, I typed branc hes At first I figured this is the kind of thing that makes newspaper writers cringe. II you can't get your cliches accurate, who will trust you to get anything right"' I figured I could simply apologize in this week's newspaper, admit that as the editor I don't have an editor, and so mistakes slip more naturally into my copy than into others. Or even admit that it was past deadline, and I didn t take enough time to prootread the editorial. ) could fall back on that old adage: "In this newspaper, we try to provide something for everyone. Since some people are always l(Kking lor mistakes, we try to include in-clude a tew of those, too" . . . and we do it in a regular branches, if vou will Then I decided to be an innovator. Alter all. what's a cliche but a shopworn expression that a lot of people picked up on because it mounded so good the first time? okay, so "on a regular branches" maybe doesn't sound so good even Ihe first time, hut I figure if it us used a lot. it might catch on. Someone droning on in the Utah State Legislature might pick up on if. and say it a lew times. There it could pass into the mouths ol us common folk. And then, at least retrospectively, my editorial won't contain an inaccuracy, but an innovafion.gOf course. I have to remain impartial, so I can't overuse this new term. But anyone who would like to help is invited to join in. Look at it as an opportunity to help a living language grow -or at least mutate. II you do. I promise not to make any mistakes ever again. Or at least not to do it on a regular branches. I cried when the ride died in mid-stride It was my idea oi a nightmare come true. Despite the efforts of a lifetime to avoid such a situation, here I was, high atop a man-made steel hill, waiting in the freezing rain for the roller coaster to start up again. We'd come to Lagoon. And although our friends and oetters had tried to tell us it would be too crowded on opening day and the weatherman had tried to warn us that there was a 60 percent chance of rainfall, we'd been having a great time. The crowds were light. The weather, while not really warm, wasn't too bad with a jacket and a little perseverance. . The younger kids were all with Daddy so it was just me and the bigger ones. (Actually it was just Steven and I as a pair.) He and I had been working up to the big one. "I'll ride the Colossus at 4:00, okay?" I told Steven as we came in the gate at noon. "By then, I'll have my courage whipped up." He agreed and we carefully picked out the rides along the way. He doesn't like the round and round and upside down ones. I can handle just about everything but the ones that show me the ground as I'm rushing towards it. I practiced on some of the lesser roller coasters and developed some life-saving techniques. Holding on tight helps. So does jamming my toes as hard as I can into the floor. Shutting my eyes very tight keeps me from facing reality. I can pretend I'm only three feet off the ground even when the roller coaster Water- Continued from front page outh ot Alpine, water-level declines in this area and throughout the state are probably the result of below normal preciptation and increased ground-water withdrawl for irrigation, municipal and in- tidbits Copyright Sharon Morrey By SHARON MORREY is 10 stories up. If I look, my stomach plummets and my brain says, "You have to be scared now." So I don't look until we're going round and round. I tried it all out on the JetStar 2 and my method of handling intense fear worked fine. I liked it even though my daughter says she had more fun watching my face during my rides than riding herself. (She tells me my hair sticks out straight behind my head and my jaw jutts forward while my eyes bug. ) By the time 4:00 came, I was ready. We trooped up the stairs and strapped ourselves into a waiting car. I grabbed the bar and closed my eyes. My carefully calculated approach worked perfectly here too. I told myself I wasn't that far off the ground and during the loops I just didn't allow myself to think about hanging upside down over the cold, hard ground at all.' ' When we braked into the station. I grabbed Steven's hand. It s getting colder and I see lightning in the sky. so let's go again mm More they close il." I suggested "Okay"'" We ran back through the maze of flairs and got in line again. This time we would be second Inim Ihe Iront Two guys in lank-tops, lank-tops, earrings and long hair had dibs on the car ahead o us The wind was starting to blow and we shivered The tars arrived We stepped in. The "Fire Dragon started up the ramp and I was intently shutting my eyes. Steven was trying to distract me by describing just how high we really were getting "We re at Ihe top of Mount Kveresl. Mom." he leased "Look down, look and see'" I was muttering. "Only three feet off Ihe ground Only three feel up." when the dang thing stopped Stopped dead And we were more than three feel off the ground. We were way up there I had to open my eyes. I looked around. We were two inches from Ihe edge of the precipice, as high as I could ever remember being in my whole short life. "Oh no." I think I said. "She better not tell us to exit the cars to the right," I joked to Steven. He didn't answer. It was freezing and the wind was icy this high up. The tough guys in front of us wanted to borrow a coat. Steven was huddling hud-dling down into his hood. I sat there and blinked against the rain and tried to be calm. How could this be me? Sitting in the sky in a thunderstorm rocking in a flimsy roller coaster car. I had six children who needed me - well, five if Steven and I didn't both survive. I peered over the side to analyze the possibilities of climbing down. Boy oh boy. I braced against a blast of cold wind. This was awful. Then the phone at the top of this man-made mountain rang. "Answer that," I said to the tough guys in front of us. "Tell them to get us down from here." They didn't even smile but the car jerked and in another second or two, we were off again, barreling suddenly sud-denly at 55 miles an hour straight down the incline and around the loops. The rain stung, it was bitterly cold and the faster we went, the colder it fell. My long, wet hair flapped in the breeze. I was more than glad when it was over. As I staggered out of the car from the loading platform came another eager customer. "This looks fun," she sang as she approached our car. Then she stopped and looked at me. bedraggled and ruddy-laced from the ride as I climbed crookedly from the car. "On second thought, maybe not," she said and backed away looking as if I was a creature from outer space. "It's okay," I said to her. "It's really not bad as long as you keep your eyes closed, you hang on tight, and you don't stop in the middle! Then it's a bit rough in places." She went away. I don't know why she decided not to ride. dustrial uses. The largest water-level rise was 15 ft. in a well in the shallow artesian ar-tesian aquifer in the Sevier Desert north of Delta. The rise in this well is probably related to a decrease in pumping due to tne availability of greater than normal supplies of surface water for irrigation. Copies of the maps can be obtained ob-tained at the offices of the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, Room 1010 Administration Building. 1745 W. 1700 South, Salt Lake City 84106. The maps will be included in a report. "Developing a Slate Water Plan, Ground-water Conditions in Utah. Spring of 198H," which will be released later this year. Bureaucracy is part of the battle Some time ago I came across this bit of information that should stir our thinking. It is called the "Tea Party Tempest." "On the morning of December 16, 1773. Samuel Adams called a town meeting in Boston and said, 'Gentlemen, it's settled. We'll disguise ourselves as Mohawk Indians, board the British ships and dump their (expletive deleted) tea into the harbor. Any complaints?' "Yes, Mr. Chairman, I must warn "Please state your name and affiliation.' .....' "Blue, William Blue, Environmental En-vironmental Agency. I must warn you that anyone participating in this affair will be cited for polluting the waters of the harbor.' "Mr. Chairman. Chief Long Knife, American Indian Movement. Speaking for all my brothers, we consider your impersonation of a Mohawk Indian to be an insult and an injustice to every red man in America.' "Mr. Chairman, Marvin Knitpick, Brotherhood of Dock Workers of Boston. Hiring scabs to unload carbo abrogates our contract. We must insist you use only union labor.' "Mr. Chairman. Jason Outrageous, Occupation Safety and Health Alliance. Since your men will be lifting crates weighing over 50 pounds, be advised our regulations stipulate that they must wear steel-toed shoes.' "Mr. Chairman. Officer O'Heilly, Boston Police Department. The donning of a disguise during the perpetration of a crime increases the legal consequences.' "Mr. Chairman. Perry Cour-tright, Cour-tright, American Civil Liberties Union. British seaman have a constitutional right to bring cargoes into this country unmolested. You can't discriminate against them becasue of race, color or religion.' "Mr. Chairman. Thomas Jefferson, Jef-ferson, Continental Congress. You're not going to listen to all this browsing fs M . . . By TOM GRIFFITHS B horse hockey are you, Sam?" You know the rest of the story. We should indeed be grateful for those wise and brave men who founded America. If they would have had to battle all those bureacrats we have today we might be still paying tribute to the King of England. In many ways we are at the mercy of government bureaucrats. Many are for our good and welfare. For example, this story was in a recent farm bulletin: "Henry," spoke the farmer to his hired man. "Have you scrubbed the cows with soap?" "Yep." "Have you sprayed them with Florida Water?" "Yep." "Are you sure there isn't a fly in the barn?" "Yep. Those triple screens are working fine." "Is the milk pail ready?" "Yep. It's been in live steam from the boiler since noon." "Have you taken the temperature of the cows hourly all day?" "Yep. There's the chart." "Perfectly normal, eh. Very well, Henry, put on your Palm Beach suit and milk them." Next time you buy milk you may think of this story and feel good about the milk. C letters to the editor Up with consumer rights Editor: National Consumers Week is April 24-30. Sponsored by ihe U.S. Office ol Consumer Affairs, this week is designaled lo recognize and promote the vital role ol consumers in our free enterprise system as well as consumer activities and programs. The Consumers' Bill ol Rights, endorsed by President Reagan, locuses on the consumers' right to choice, information, safety, con sinner education and the right to be heard. Upjohn IlealthCare Services advocates that consumers exercise these rights, particularly in the area ol health care. We urge everyone to make informed choices by selecting health care providers who will ensure their basic consumer con-sumer rights. Upjohn Healthcare Services, Inc. Becky L. Anderson Administrator I enjoy 'Browsing' Editor: 1 surely enjoyed Tom Griffiths' account of his recent adventure in the hospital. His comments reminded me of whal Red Skelton said about hospital gowns. He said. "In the front they look like mini skirts, and in the back they look like you." I aiso enjoy reading Mr. Griffiths' tales of his life in Wales. I hope he keeps on recounting those stories. -Wanda S. Petersen |
