“And they called it puppy love”

-Paul Anka (Donny Osmond)

 
You can lose touch with reality when you are a state governor.   

If you want to travel by private airplane and limo, you can.  If you want to spend $5000 for a secret office door, you can. If you want to hire your sister-in-law during a hiring freeze, you can do that too.

Yet Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher has taken it one step further: he wants taxpayers to pamper his dog.

He wastes taxpayers’ money.

I wouldn’t care if Fletcher spent $5000 of his own money for a secret door to his office or if he used his own money for his 500-FOOT limousine ride from home to office. Yet I take issue when the people of Kentucky pay  the bill.

When reaching for his own wallet, Fletcher has short arms.

It is the same disease that many corporate executives have. They are theoretically responsible to stockholders, but they treat their corporations like big piggy banks.

All corporate executives give themselves a few perks, but there is a point at which you can go too far--the point where they escort you to jail.    

Ask Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco. Dennis spent $6000 of stockholders’ money on a shower curtain. Must have been a nice one. When he got an eight-year prison sentence, he probably wished that he had shopped at Wal-Mart.    

Dennis and Governor Fletcher have had the same problem: they forgot that they are spending someone else’s money.    

Which brings us back to the governor’s unbridled puppy love.

The governor’s dog has its own stationary, cards, photos, internet video, and book. All of them were bought by the taxpayers of Kentucky.  

When a reporter filed an open records request for the amount spent on pooch pampering, the governor was outraged. He had the open records request enlarged, and he put up copies of it in his office.   

Not only does he want Kentuckians to pay the dog’s expenses, they had better not ask how much. No one has been keeping track.

I don’t see Kentucky’s auditor  doing anything to stop Fletcher.  Many auditors would show interest  when  a public official spends  money on personal items with no record or receipts.

Corporate auditors would. Unless they were the same auditors that Enron used.

Jim Waters of the Bluegrass Institute, a government watchdog group, asked, “How many companies would tolerate the wife of a CEO spending shareholder dollars on the family pet?”

The answer is none. Governor Fletcher is playing by his own rules, using our money.   

If he wants a dog, he should pay for his own dog. Since taxpayers are paying for puppy pampering, he needs to share the dog with all Kentuckians. 

My daughter’s dog would love to spend time with a puppy that has its own video and book. It would be like dating the doggie version of Britney Spears. Since I am helping to pay for the governor’s dog, I would like to see what he can arrange.

I spent much of my life in the investment business. I had a simple rule: if the corporate executives spent too much money on themselves, I did not buy the company’s stock. 

The stock I owned for the longest time was Berkshire Hathaway, run by legendary investor Warren Buffett. I still own some shares. Buffett is known for pinching pennies and not spending corporate dollars on private expenses.

I read the financial reports of Berkshire closely, and I have never seen an expense account item involving dogs.

Fletcher  hopes he can ignore questions by ridicule.  Or if things go too far, he can pardon all the interested parties.   Including the dog.

Fletcher, just like many corporate officers, doesn’t want to live by the rules that the rest of us follow. People like  Fletcher feel that they deserve perks, special treatment, and for their dog to be pampered more than other people’s pets.

I don’t mind the governor’s case of puppy love. I just don’t want the taxpayers of Kentucky to pay for it.

Don McNay is the author of The Unbridled World of Ernie Fletcher and Chairman of the Baord  of McNay Settlement Group in Richmond, Ky. You can write to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or read other things he has written at www.donmcnay.com.   His award-winning column is syndicated on the CNHI News Service.   Don is on the Board of Directors for the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.