Once a week we discuss in this column some aspect or another of the big money, the billions expended by the state of Israel on various causes, more or less justified. This time around we will devote our weekly column to a rather small expenditure, amounting to no more than several million shekels a year. And although it is only a matter of a few millions, it is an annoying and even infuriating expenditure. 

The issue under discussion is the budget allocated to the Israeli parliament members for covering expenses necessary to what is called “sustaining contact with the electorate.” Each Knesset member may use this annual budget for purchasing articles needed for his activity in the amount of as much as NIS 49,000 [roughly $13,223] a year and expend another NIS 19,000 [just under $5,130] on renting a parliamentary bureau, where a “parliamentary bureau” is defined as an office that enables the member of Knesset to maintain contact with the electorate in his place of residence. The prime minister and cabinet members are entitled to a fully furnished and equipped bureau, along with a staff, and they may thus purchase equipment in the amount of only NIS 25,000 [nearly $6,750] a year. By the way, a Knesset member who has not spent the full budget allocated to him in a certain year may draw as much as NIS 12,000 [about $3,240] of the unspent allocation in the following year. What’s more, Knesset members who are not reelected to the next Knesset may keep the articles they purchased in return for a much reduced price  and make use of those articles even once they are no longer serving in parliament.

So much for the bare facts. Now, let’s have a looks at some of the peculiar uses to which our elected legislators put the public funds entrusted to them. And just to show you how careless they are about it, let’s start with an especially maddening case (all data are presented courtesy of the Israeli Knesset website and are accessible to any interested party). 

[Former] Kadima Knesset member [and faction head] Dalia Itzik, who previously served as Knesset speaker, bought in 2012 no less than four computers for the total amount of NIS 22,066 [just over $5,957], as well as so-called complementary “computing equipment” for another NIS 3,248 [around $877], drawing on the “sustaining contact with the electorate” budget. All this would not have been so infuriating hadn’t that same Dalia Itzik already purchased in 2011 another computer for NIS 4,474 [close to $1,208] and associated computing equipment for NIS 3,285 [some $887].