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Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity pushes for transparency in county spending

By Zachary Kitts

The Examiner reported in its weekend edition that newly elected Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity is pushing for greater transparency in county spending.  His proposal would create a county equivalent to sites such as www.usaspending.gov, which allow citizens to research and track information on federal spending. 

Perhaps the most important thing about Herrity's proposal is that the information would be interactive.  Like www.usaspending.gov, the viewer would be able to search county spending by contract or grant recipient, by dollar value, or in any number of other ways.  Fairfax County's budget already has a robust presence on-line, but much of the information is not interactive and is therefore not manageable. 

A bill to do the same thing for state expenditures--sponsored by Fairfax County's own Chap Petersen and Ken Cuccinelli--died in a Senate committee this month, the article reports.  

Greater focus on county spending and on county budgets will undoubtedly lead more lawyers and law makers to the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.  Under the Virginia Constitution, counties are administrative arms of the Commonwealth, and can be combined, dissolved, or rearranged at the convenience of the legislature. 

The VFATA, which makes false claims against the Commonwealth unlawful and provides for treble damages, civil penalties, and attorney's fees against those who make untrue "calls on the public fisc," would therefore also create a cause of action for false claims made against a County.  

Any practitioners with comments on why the VFATA is not the single most popular cause of action in the Commonwealth? 

ZAK  zkitts@cookkitts.com
www.cookkitts.com   

  

     




   

Full post as published by Virginia Qui Tam Law on February 18, 2008 (boomark / email).