Governor gets sweet deal on lease for his home

A signed lease between the governor and Craig Hospital Foundation pays him $2,500 a month until December 2010 for his house, plus a $5,000 damage deposit. The lease becomes renewable annually if Ritter wins a second term.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10634641

As of right now there is no indication of any serious conflict of interest (i.e. no legislation that Ritter has supported that directly benefits this hospital). The problem is that the hospital is paying more than twice the amount they would pay for houses closer to the hospital in the not quite as nice neighborhoods immediately surrounding the hospital. Given the fact that the hospital lobbies for favors from the government and the fact that they could provide this type of housing for a lot less money than what they pay the governor it does raise some concerns.

I guess the real question would be, if a non-politically connected neighbor of the governors approached the hospital with a similar deal would they have accepted it, given the relatively high cost and long distance from the hospital? The article indicates that they did not even seek out any alternatives or price shop in any way, and signed a four year lease. That is a pretty sweet deal for the governor, no matter how you slice it.

The other thing that bothers me about the deal is that the hospital stated that they have received more donations since renting out the governors house. This makes me wonder if that is not where the conflict of interest comes in, was there a deal made by a donor who is directly benefiting from Ritter’s actions to funnel money to Ritter through the hospital via the rental arrangement? It is impossible to tell because the donor to the hospital could remain anonymous.

The only real solution to this kind of problem is to separate the government from so many functions. This would not be an issue if hospitals operated as private businesses and were not directly benefiting from government contracts.