Budget Line Item for 'Miscellaneous' Now Accounts for 73 Percent of Department Spending

An annual audit of the Department of General Operations has revealed that the budget line item labeled 'Miscellaneous' now accounts for 73 percent of total departmental spending, up from 4 percent when the category was introduced in 2009. 'Miscellaneous is meant to capture small, irregular expenses that don't fit neatly into existing categories,' said departmental budget officer Frank Unspecified. 'Things like replacement stapler pads, emergency whiteboard markers, that sort of thing.' The category currently contains $4.7 million in expenditures. Auditors from the Office of Fiscal Review requested a detailed breakdown of the Miscellaneous line item. In response, the department submitted a spreadsheet in which 61 percent of the entries within Miscellaneous were themselves categorized as 'Miscellaneous.' 'We asked for clarification,' said lead auditor Denise Ledger. 'They created a sub-category called Miscellaneous Miscellaneous. When we asked about that, they created Miscellaneous Miscellaneous (Other).' A deeper investigation revealed that the Miscellaneous category had grown over the years as budget officers found it easier to classify ambiguous expenses as Miscellaneous rather than create new categories, which requires completing a 40-page Budget Category Creation Request (Form BC-12) and obtaining approval from six different offices. 'Creating a new budget category takes about seven months,' Unspecified explained. 'Calling something Miscellaneous takes about three seconds. The math is simple.' Among the items found in the Miscellaneous category: fourteen office chairs, a departmental retreat to Myrtle Beach, two years of subscription to a service no one can identify, and $12,000 labeled 'the thing from before -- Dennis knows.' Dennis has retired.