Columnist Benjamin Grove: A prime time to dip into the pork barrel

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Nov. 9, 2001 | 4:39 a.m.

Consider the example of Las Vegas resident Willia Chaney's beauty school, and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the state's top breadwinner as the No. 2 Senate Democrat and a key appropriator. Their tale illustrates the old debate: Should federal lawmakers earmark money for local projects -- even if the programs are worthwhile and help people?

Chaney in February had maxed out credit cards, cashed in a few stocks and mortgaged her daughter's land to sink more than $100,000 into a dream: a beauty school for struggling low-income women in a West Las Vegas neighborhood.

It prospered. The school now has 42 full-time students -- with 100 on a waiting list, Chaney said. That's 39 women and three men getting practical skills that will land them jobs primping hair and polishing nails, Chaney said.

"These are people who want to get off welfare," Chaney said. "We put our own resources into this. We believe we had to do something first before we asked for anything. We put every penny in because we believed in what we were doing."

But Chaney eventually did ask for help, from Reid. Chaney called him last year, and when he showed interest, she traded e-mails with his staff. She invited Reid to visit the school last spring. He came and was impressed by the stories of struggle that students told. The students later barraged Reid's office with phone calls, Chaney said.

Student Carmen LaJoy Williams, 30, told me the school gave her a confidence she never had. She is finishing a six-month manicuring program.

"I'm proud of myself," Williams said. "I like making my customers happy. They say, 'Girl, you the best.' I love that. That makes me happy."

Eventually, Reid obliged, slipping $750,000 into the spending bill that sets a $113 billion national budget for veterans affairs, housing and urban development and 20 independent agencies including NASA. Congress passed the bill last week.

About $550,000 of the $750,000 will be invested in a new salon and new jobs for students in Chaney's Expertise School of Beauty, 902 W. Owens Ave. Another $200,000 will be used to expand the 24-hour Smart Start Child Care Center, which Chaney also runs. It serves about 160 children just down the street from the beauty school.

Reid has never made apologies for grabbing pork for Nevada. He planned a visit to the beauty school this weekend to hand Chaney a check.

"You visit there and it brings tears to your eyes," Reid said. "These women will tell you they have two children and they have never had a job. They say this is my chance to be somebody."

Chaney is no stranger to federal money -- two years ago she got into trouble spending it.

From 1993 to 1999 Chaney managed the federally funded Smart Start Summer Food Service Program, which she ran out of 13 low-income apartment buildings around Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. The program served 1,500 breakfasts and 2,300 lunches a day to hungry pupils who were out of school on summer or year-round school "track" breaks, she said.

"Those were the only meals those children had," Chaney said. "We went into drug-infested neighborhoods where parents were selling their food stamps (for drugs) instead of buying food for their children's nutritional needs."

Chaney received federal money for the program filtered through the state Department of Education -- about $2.3 million by 1999, she said. But federal and state auditors found the program had questionable expenditures and sloppy payroll, mileage and nutrition record bookkeeping. For example, auditors found that Chaney and her husband, James, filed for reimbursement for questionable long-distance phone calls; the lease on a new sport utility vehicle; and salmon, steak, hamburger, hot dogs and chicken nuggets -- meat for a neighborhood barbeque to promote the program.

Chaney said she explained the charges to auditors and wanted to make corrections, but the state shut Smart Start down. She hopes the state will help her re-establish the meals program, but Education Department officials are still reviewing records to see if Chaney owes them money.

Smart Start typically filed for reimbursement for everything, Deputy Attorney General Melanie Meehan-Crossley said. "They were seriously deficient in their ability to properly run the program and that includes their ability to properly make claims."

Reid is hardly alone in funneling money to programs back home. Lawmakers likely will slip more pork projects into the federal budget than last year when they secured $18.5 billion for more than 6,000 projects -- including money for opera houses, wood-use research and a Dr. Seuss Memorial, said David Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste, author of the group's annual Pig Book.

Pork spending is thriving this month as Congress finalizes 13 spending bills worth $686 billion, Williams said -- even though lawmakers began an unforeseen spending frenzy after Sept. 11, doling out an extra $40 billion to chase terrorists, then approving a $15 billion airline bailout. Now they are arguing over an economic stimulus package that could cost between $60 billion and $100 billion, much of it likely through tax cuts.

Barely visible in the money maelstrom are the pork projects that fiscal hawks define as programs that win approval in closed-door meetings or without hearings -- or don't have a clear national interest whatsoever.

"Pork is falling way under the radar screen," Williams said. "Lawmakers are worried about anthrax and other things that they should be worried about. But members of Congress are saying, 'This is a good time to make these appropriations -- nobody is really paying attention to all these beauty schools. And the president is probably going to sign off on all this stuff."

Many congressional watchdogs say that if a local program is worth funding, local government should fund it. Others say the federal government has a role to play, too.

So who is right -- the critics who decry pork spending or the local people and neighborhoods that benefit from it? As the debate continues, so will pork spending.

"Anyone who says that this is pork should go see those students," Reid said. "If this was pork, we need more of it. I wish we could do more."