Manie Turnpike Authority demonstrates Government Waste

The 10 July, 2009 issue of the Bangor Daily News contained an article about the new Maine Turnpike Authority administration building. While the article was a general fluff piece about the building, it got me thinking about the waste in this quasi government agency. Remember that these are the type of organizations that President Obama wants placed in charge of our health care and energy policy.

The Maine Turnpike Authority oversees the operation of the 109 mile long Maine Turnpike which is located in southern Maine. The annual revenue of the MTA is approximately $86 million. The new administration building is 55,000 square feet and was built for $11.9 million. By way of comparison, a new 200,000 square foot Super Walmart building is built for around the same amount of money but of course they do not have two story oak paneled lobbies. The MTA is using the building for its 116 office workers (this is office workers not toll booth workers or maintenance crews). If you break this down, that is over 500 square feet of administrative space per mile of turnpike and more than one administrative worker per mile of turnpike.

I know this story is about a relatively small quasi government agency, but can we really expect more efficiency from government agencies on a national scale. Citizens need to think real long and hard about the efficiency of government before turning over a large sector of the economy like health care to them.