State Senator John Cauthorn, R-Mexico, today "awarded" a Golden Goose Egg to the state's Department of Conservation for granting more than $800,000 in cash and land to establish a nature center that is overseen by former department managers, is nowhere near completion, may never be completed and has burned through all but $8,000 in funding.

As outlined in stomach-churning detail in a recent state auditor's report, a foundation headed up by a former conservation department director and several former employees hatched plans for a "Missouri Forest Heritage Educational Center" in 1989. In 1995, the department granted the foundation 455 acres of Shannon County land and $192,000 in cash. A year later, the department funneled another $300,000 to the foundation. Since then, the foundation managed to collect another $300,000 in private donations.

"You'd be hard pressed to come up with a more blatant script for graft, patronage and corruption than this sweetheart of a deal," Cauthorn said. "Now here we are, 14 years and over a million dollars worth of cash and land into the deal, with nothing to show for it. No trails completed, no 'educational center' opened and nowhere for this to go but down. All that and the money's all but gone, too. Nice way to treat the taxpayers."

Speaking of taxes, Cauthorn noted he is advancing a Senate measure, SJR 21, invoking a clause that would put the department's eighth-cent sales tax funding stream to a vote of the people every four years.

"This is a tax that rose several years ago, and the time may have come for the citizens of the state of Missouri to have a voice on the continuance of this tax," Cauthorn said. "Voters should have the power to decide whether to maintain this funding on a regular basis. It is my believe that we need to restore accountability within this Department and highlight some of the wasteful practices that have occurred due to lack of attention."

Chairman of the Senate's Government Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee, Cauthorn earlier this year patterned the Golden Goose Egg Award after the actions of a former U.S. Senator who regularly handed out "Golden Fleece" awards to government agencies and entities executing less-than-capable fiscal policy.

"Obviously, this is a humored approach to sobering problems," Cauthorn said. "But if we can cut just a fraction of taxpayer abuse by getting some egg on the faces of state bureaucrats, then it's an egg worth awarding."