State failed to take responsibility

Oops.
Everybody makes mistakes. They are inevitable.
But when they happen, the right thing to do is own them, take responsibility for the goof and correct the situation as soon as possible.
That’s a lesson not yet learned by the State of Indiana.
Back in September, local officials were thrilled by an announcement that Jay Community Center would receive a grant of $542,197 to build a senior center addition and the Town of Redkey would receive a grant of $445,000 for a new fire station.
It was great news. Trouble is, the announcement was in error.
Both grants — through the Public Facilities Program — have now been restated at $400,000 each. That’s the maximum amount allowable under that particular federal program.
Someone at the state level had mistakenly used the figures for the entire cost of the senior center project and the entire cost (not including equipment) of the fire station project.
It was a little error of about $197,000.
But efforts to get the mistake acknowledged were unsuccessful.
This newspaper contacted the folks who issued the press release on the very day it was received and questioned why the announced grants were above the normal $400,000 limit.
The response was along the lines of, “we’ll get back to you.”
But nobody ever did.
Instead, the erroneous figures were repeated again and again over a period of weeks and months. Until recently, the higher numbers were still listed on a state website.
Now, however, three months after the original, mistaken announcement, the $400,000 limit has been enforced.
In some ways, that makes sense. You can’t expect state government to simply dip into its pockets and find another $197,000 because of a goof in a press release.
But the public should be able to expect that when a mistake is made, it is promptly corrected and responsibility is taken.
That didn’t happen in this situation.
And ultimately that’s a far bigger failure. — J.R.