How Many Licks Does It Take To Get To The Center Of The CIETC Scandal?

GED recipient and former $368,000-a-year CIETC head Ramona Cunningham with Senator Tom Harkin at the dedication of the "Tom Harkin Learning Center" at CIETC offices in October 20, 2004.

From the Des Moines Register:

The Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium governing board, responding to a demand it repay the state $1 million, is arguing that it's "virtually impossible" for anyone to say how much excess pay was collected by Ramona Cunningham and her former colleagues at CIETC...

...CIETC's governing board has so far refused to pay back the money, saying the state is partly to blame because it failed to adequately oversee spending at the agency.

In a 13-page letter sent to state officials in January, the CIETC board, through its attorney, outlined a broad array of other reasons why the agency shouldn't be required to pay back the money. In the letter, the CIETC board says any attempt to determine the extent to which CIETC executives were overpaid is "premature" given the continuing criminal investigation.

"The mathematical calculations and applications of formulas involved in the financial computations at issue are more akin to art than science," the letter says. "It is virtually impossible to identify an exact dollar amount of any unreasonable compensation at this time."

As CIETC's chief executive officer, Cunningham was paid $368,000 annually. State officials are saying that a more appropriate salary for someone heading the 41-person agency would have been $102,378...

...The fight over the precise amount owed by CIETC could drag on for a year or more.

Your tax dollars, still hard at work.

And the politicians want more money, you know. And that's different from this tax increase, which will allow Des Moines to be a virtual utopia of loveliness and slightly lower property taxes, maybe.