Put teeth into accountability for vehicles

Ever since Missouri's state auditor, Claire McCaskill, issued reports showing what a loose grasp state government has of its vehicles, boats and airplanes -- all purchased with tax dollars -- a lot of taxpayers have been grumbling about more government waste.

They have now been joined by an interim committee of the Missouri House of Representatives. At hearings earlier this week, committee members got a glimpse of how helter-skelter accountability is in various state departments when it comes to keeping track of all those vehicles. Even Attorney General Jay Nixon's office was unable to give the committee an accurate count of vehicles within his department.

McCaskill has suggested centralized fleet management for the state's vehicles, aircraft and boats. This would require the creation of more government bureaucracy, and there's no guarantee all the accountability problems would be solved.

Why not have clear standards of accountability within each department that can be reviewed by the regular audits performed by McCaskill's staff. If anything else is needed, perhaps it's some teeth to enforce such standards.