Tone Deaf

This week's winner of the Tone Deaf award goes to the Maricopoa County Board of Supervisors. For those of you who are geographically challenged, Phoenix is located in Maricopa county.

Hours after learning that they were facing a revenue shortfall of $58 million this fiscal year and $99 million next year, the Board approved the expenditure of $2.3 million for gift cards to be distributed to the county's employees. The cards are given out to employees "...for giving exceptional consumer service, wrapping up a big project or offering good ideas..." In the past most of the 14,000 employees have received cards.

The gift cards are a piddling $25 a pop and looked at from that angle it doesn't seem like a big deal. Like everything in government though, the small becomes large due to the sheer size of the enterprise. Given the fact that most of the employees of the county have job security-a precious thing right now-it would seem that the county might have thought about foregoing this morale booster.

Appearances like size matter.