Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Arkansas lawmakers OK plan to audit purchase of $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Arkansas lawmakers are delving into the unusual controversy over the purchase a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Arkansas lawmakers on Thursday voted to audit the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, delving into an unusual controversy that’s prompted questions about the seemingly high cost of the item and claims that the governor’s office violated the state’s open-records law.
The all-Republican executive committee of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee also voted to audit the Republican governor’s travel and security expenditures that were retroactively shielded from public release under a new Freedom of Information Act exemption Sanders signed last month.
The 39-inch tall (1-meter), blue and wood-paneled lectern was purchased in June with a state credit card for $19,029.25. It has become the focus of intense scrutiny in recent weeks and has gained national attention. The Republican Party of Arkansas reimbursed the state for the purchase on Sept. 14, and Sanders’ office has called the use of a state credit card for the lectern an accounting error. Sanders’ office said it received the lectern in August.
Audit we now know for a fact it was purchased on Amazon for 900 bucks.
2 for US$470 Hotel Brown Wooden Rostrum Speech Lectern Church Podium via Guangzhou YZY Hotel Supplies Co., Ltd on Alibaba
and it's even MDF not solid wood.Apologies for link parameters, it's the only way I could bet it to display without Alibaba booting me to the app deeplink.
Edited to add: it's definitely a knock off and not the exact same factory as the hickabee model, but the "have the same one as the white house!" pitch makes it funny enough to leave up.
Damn, they should have used the affirm payment plan. Smaller monthly payments are a little easier to hide.
Well that would explain why it looks like a Sims user-created-addon-pack asset. Got a link?
$19k might have been believable if it was an old fancy historical piece
They may have used a furniture contractor. Our office had some dude who looked like the mafia stooge wearing a gold chain in the Simpsons to demo some chairs for us and they were shit quality and priced 3-4x higher than Amazon. I can see how going through a process like this but completely corrupt could produce a podium 20x the base cost.
It's also possible that they have a contract with the states corrections facilities to only buy furniture from them. WA state has to buy all it's furniture for anything public from Correctional Industries for example
North Carolina has a similar policy, before you purchase anything, you're supposed to check to see if Correction Industries sells it, if so, you need to purchase it from them unless you have a valid exemption (like for instance a medical condition that requires a certain type of chair)
I thought people were joking when they talked bout buying it on amazon, but thats the same one, with different wood!
Wait, that's a picture of the lectern?
I thought it was made from a solid slab or some shit, like those super expensive tables that one guy on Youtube makes. (honestly, it's a bunch of people making those tables, so insert your own favorite)
So yeah, a solid slab of wood is expensive as fuck, and then you add in labor costs... But that lectern looks like shit.
I'm sure it's custom made, but it's also pretty shit.
I can see some differences, but it was obviously made by someone who had looked at that design (or a third design that both are based off of)
The Amazon one looks like fake wood, and the overly expensive one looks like real wood. Real wood drives the price up, but $19k still seems excessive.
Another factor here, the government is informally banned from buying anything not made in America. That informal ban also applies to states buying shit from people and business in other states.
So yeah... A custom lectern, made by someone in Arkansas, made to look like a shitty lectern on Amazon... That's going to be pricey. But not $19k pricey unless they just took the first bid that they got.
Let me preface this by saying I have no love for Sanders or the GOP, but either the picture from the article is incorrect or the Amazon item isnot the lectern in question. While they look vaguely close in design they're definitely not the same item.
The one linked on Amazon probably isn't even worth the $700. It's probably fiber board and veneer.
If they had a custom piece done out of a solid block of aged hardwood with metal finish work in a solid top, It's not hard to hit $20,000 on an artsy piece of furniture, especially when you are client is a politician.
I'm also not saying that it has any place in a governor's briefing room. But It's completely reasonable that quality one-off custom piece of furniture out of good materials is 19 grand.
An all republican committee is going after her? Wow she must be more insufferable than I thought.
Permanently Deleted
Seems totally legit...
I’ve seen a bunch of guys online who can make that for 2k and include real Sanwa joysticks and buttons.
I’m in the wrong business…
Get yer popcorn.