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Tag: Government Accountability

Colorado’s homelessness and housing funds recorded $153 million in phantom federal money, audit finds
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s homelessness and housing funds recorded $153 million in phantom federal money, audit finds

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado wanted more control over its share of federal pandemic aid before the money hit its federal spending deadlines. So in 2024, the state moved it. It pulled hundreds of millions in American Rescue Plan money back out of four state programs, three of them tied to housing and homelessness, and replaced it with state general funds, so it could spend the federal dollars elsewhere before the deadlines ran out. Then the Department of Local Affairs set those funds up in the state's accounting system as if they were still federal. Every time the department spent a state dollar out of the four programs, the system automatically booked a federal reimbursement that was never coming. By the end of the fiscal year the departm...
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Colorado’s contract reports were off by as much as $2.1 billion. The next is due Sept. 30
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s contract reports were off by as much as $2.1 billion. The next is due Sept. 30

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice By Sept. 30, Colorado's Department of Personnel and Administration is due to produce its annual tally of contracts covered by the state Procurement Code — the number awarded, the initial dollar amounts recorded, and the share that went to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses.  The last three tallies were wrong by hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, the state auditor has found. And this year, the department has said it does not plan to send the report to lawmakers at all. The Office of the State Auditor laid it out in Report 2556P, a performance audit of the state's contracting goal for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, released in May.  The audit's stated purpose was to f...
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Gaines: Will Jena Griswold fail upward again?
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Gaines: Will Jena Griswold fail upward again?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project I well remember how I felt when Jena Griswold got her second term as Secretary of State. She ran against a Republican who, though eminently qualified not to mention competent, was about as plain-Jane as they come. She was boring. Oh, and she said all the right things for Trump-avoidant voters about elections and voting machines.And yet, Jena won handily. When I woke to those election results I kept asking myself how Jena continues to fail upwards. It is a mystery to me. I get party line voting, something many engage in and parties depend on, but even at that how does Jena Griswold survive primaries and contests with people who are obviously better?I read the story linked below about Griswold recently which brought...
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Audit Finds Denver Oversight Failures Added Millions to 16th Street Project
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Audit Finds Denver Oversight Failures Added Millions to 16th Street Project

By Nicole C. Brambila | The Denver Gazette Surprise historic sewer discovery delayed completion a year, cost $18M The Denver Auditor recently found significant oversight and contracting problems with the $175.6 million 16th Street Improvement Project, including an $18 million contract increase and a nearly one-year extension that bypassed City Council review. The report also found that inadequate planning for historic brick sewers contributed to the overruns, even after one of the three qualified contractors withdrew from bidding because of utility risks. The city proceeded without fully investigating those risks, which later contributed to the $18 million increase and nearly yearlong delay. “Because the city did not consider the sewer while planning...
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Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Put Years of USAID Waste and Fraud Under New Scrutiny
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Just The News, Approved, National

Trump Foreign Aid Cuts Put Years of USAID Waste and Fraud Under New Scrutiny

By John Solomon | Just the News House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer says Democrats have a pecuniary interest in keeping foreign aid going because nonprofit recipients of federal largesse are big Democrat donors. A half-billion-dollar fraud and bribery scheme conducted by a USAID contract officer and three conspirators that went undetected for a decade. American-bought equipment stolen by a terror group. Millions of dollars in food that spoiled in warehouses. These are but a few of the wasteful — if not corrupt ways -- millions of USAID dollars have been lost. While President Donald Trump has sharply cut foreign aid from the auspices of USAID and shifted what remains to the State Department, the massive abuse of America’s generosity to foreign countries ove...
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A change order, not an amendment: How Denver moved $18 million past City Council
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

A change order, not an amendment: How Denver moved $18 million past City Council

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice A contractor digging up 16th Street hit a brick sewer the city hadn't mapped. The cost of Denver's signature downtown project jumped by $18 million, the finish line slid back nearly a year, and City Council found out after the deal was done. That sequence sits at the heart of a new audit from Denver Auditor Timothy O'Brien, released Aug. 20. The report walks through how the 16th Street Improvement Project grew from a $149 million council approval in 2021 to a final cost of about $175.6 million, and how the single biggest change along the way never came to a council vote. How $18 million skipped the council The Department of Transportation & Infrastructure (DOTI) hired PCL Construction Services to rebuild the roa...
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The death count and the fame: what Fauci wrote when no one was watching
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Self-Evident, Approved, Commentary, National

The death count and the fame: what Fauci wrote when no one was watching

By Connor Boyack | Commentary, Self-Evident On May 21, 2020, in his newly released pandemic diary, Anthony Fauci opens his daily entry with a ledger. Global COVID-19 cases. New cases. Deaths. Italy’s toll, now past China’s. The American numbers underneath. Then a line about the task force meeting, and a note that the press conference went well. Then, with no transition whatsoever, the subject changes. A flattering profile has run on the front page of The Washington Post. His fame, he writes, has become explosive and unimaginable. It would not be hyperbole, he assures himself, to say that he is now “the most famous and talked about person in the country.” (This, in addition to calling himself “the most credible scientist in the world.” ) He was wri...
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El Paso County’s public safety tax returns to the ballot with a change to oversight
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, Local

El Paso County’s public safety tax returns to the ballot with a change to oversight

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Heads up El Paso County: you've got a tax to vote on in November and I believe you can speak up about it in your local Grey Book! Per the Tribune article linked at bottom, El Paso County Commissioners approved a ballot measure to extend a sales tax whose proceeds go to help fund the sheriff's office. The tax originally started in 2012 and has been extended a few times since. In its current iteration, it is slated to end in 2029, but commissioners approved a ballot measure which would extend it to 2037.  If you live in El Paso County, take a minute to carefully review the ballot measure. There were a couple things in the article that would have raised an eyebrow for me if I were voting on it. Quoting: "...
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White House Pushes Congress To Strengthen Welfare Fraud Laws After Task Force Findings
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The Federalist, Approved, National

White House Pushes Congress To Strengthen Welfare Fraud Laws After Task Force Findings

By: Breccan F. Thies | The Federalist Welfare programs were created in a ‘high trust’ America that no longer exists. THE WHITE HOUSE — Vice President J.D. Vance has been leading the charge against billions in taxpayer fraud. But to mobilize the entire federal government in combating the theft, Vance said Wednesday, Congress needs to create harsher punishments for fraudsters and force states to share data for welfare recipients. Vance hosted a roundtable with members of Congress at the White House midweek, attempting to hammer out plans for legislation to strengthen the executive branch’s ability to investigate fraud and expand prosecutors’ options to penalize Americans and illegals committing fraud. Since the start of Vance’s anti-fraud task force, the gr...
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Bennet Agrees To Settlement Over Improper Campaign Spending On Travel
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Bennet Agrees To Settlement Over Improper Campaign Spending On Travel

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet’s gubernatorial campaign has agreed to pay a $7,433 fine for using his Senate campaign account to pay for gubernatorial campaign travel expenses. The July 31 settlement includes an admission by Bennet and his campaign that they violated state campaign finance laws. The settlement is tied to multiple complaints filed last year. The complaints said Bennet traveled for his gubernatorial campaign in 2025, paying for it with funds from his U.S. Senate campaign account. READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT COLORADO POLITICS
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