Tag: Stimulus
Possible summer school cuts looming for Houston ISD as funding is slashed
by Lynn Walsh on Nov.09, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Texas Watchdog:
Possible summer school cuts looming for Houston ISD as funding is slashed
Wednesday, Nov 03, 2010, 02:45PM CST
By Lynn WalshHow to pay for summer school next year will be the main issue Houston Independent School District trustees will try to resolve when they meet Thursday.
The school system is bracing itself for millions of dollars in reductions in federal and state funds aimed at boosting achievement among poor students and doled out by the state. In response, HISD administrators have proposed slashing — and nearly wiping out — the budget for summer school, from $21 million to just $1.9 million, and making the individual schools largely pay their own way for summer programs.
Media reports of the expected funding changes to summer school in HISD prompted the district to dedicate a new page to its website called “Myth Busters.” According the “Myth Busters” page:
“It is true that there are fewer federal dollars available for summer school next year. HISD is designing a new, more cost-effective summer-school model and will redirect any unused budget dollars and additional federal and state funds we may receive to these programs. While principals may have to pay for some summer-school costs out of their budgets, it will not be anywhere near the $19 million being reported in the media.”
HISD’s chief financial officer, Melinda Garrett, told trustees, Superintendent Terry Grier and other top administrators in an e-mail dated July 22 that funding from the federal program in question, called Title I, “for 2010-11 is down over $19 million from that of the prior year.”
The e-mail was released to Texas Watchdog following a request made under the state Public Information Act.
The cut in Title I funds was mentioned in a presentation given by a top HISD administrator to principals at a series of meetings held July 23-25, slides from which were also released to Texas Watchdog. For this academic year, one slide said, “schools will be required to fund summer school from their current Title I, Part A allocation or other school-based fund.”
In her e-mail, Garrett said HISD is receiving less Title I money for three reasons:
+ Expected funding from the Texas Education Agency is down $5.7 million.
+ HISD doesn’t expect to have any left over Title I money from the previous fiscal year.
+ A state-mandated transportation fund that normally has extra money left over each year is expected to be dried up before this year’s summer school classes even begin.
This is not the first time HISD trustees have had to find funds to cover the cost of summer school programs. The district had to scramble last spring to fill a $20 million hole to pay for summer school after it didn’t get as much federal and state money as it had expected.
Other HISD Title I funds expecting to see decreases in 2010-11 include:
+Campus allocations, $4.9 million
+Parental involvement programs, $130,000
+General staff development, $100,000
Regular funding is not all HISD will be losing next school year.
According to the July presentation given to HISD principals, more than $92 million stimulus funding the district received ends in September 2011. That means all salaries being paid for with these funds — like elementary school literacy coaches — will be eliminated for the 2011-12 school year.
Stimulus-funded positions are not the only positions that could be cut, either. According to the presentation, district-funded positions like high school graduation coaches and middle school literacy coaches will be eliminated.
HISD currently has more than 25 high school graduation coaches who earn between $53,595 and $68,037 a year. You can view the complete list of coaches, their location and their salary rates here.
Where will the money come from? HISD trustees are expected to discuss that and receive a budget update Thursday morning at a board workshop, more than a month later than originally planned.
A Sept. 30 board workshop to discuss summer school funding was cancelled “due to board members attending a national conference where they are being recognized as finalist for the CUBE award,” according to an e-mail from Grier’s chief of staff, Michele Pola. The Council of Urban Boards of Education recognizes one urban school board a year for district-wide academic excellence.
The summer school funding discussion will continue at 7:30 a.m. Thursday at the Hattie Mae White building in Houston. Follow Texas Watchdog on Twitter, @TexasWatchdog, for live updates during the discussion.
What did you think of the HISD District 8 race? Texas Watchdog wants to hear from you. Contact Lynn Walsh at Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
HISD spends $18 million in stimulus cash to pay salaries of 200+ workers it doesn’t need
by Lynn Walsh on Oct.22, 2010, under Investigations, Video, What's New
An investigation for Texas Watchdog:
HISD spends $18 million in stimulus cash to pay salaries of 200+ workers it doesn’t need
Thursday, Oct 21, 2010, 07:22AM CST
By Lynn WalshHouston’s public schools are spending $18 million in federal stimulus money to pay the salaries of more than 200 employees the district admits it doesn’t need.
That’s because the Houston Independent School District is getting more federal money than ever for special education, even though it has nearly one-quarter fewer special ed students than five years ago.
Much of the extra special ed money HISD is getting from the federal stimulus program — starting last school year and running through next year — is paying workers such as teachers’ aides and occupational therapists for special ed students.But while the number of special ed students plummeted in the past few years, mirroring a national trend, HISD didn’t cut employees’ jobs, leaving roughly as many people working in that department today as there were in 2005, when the district had nearly 5,000 more special ed students.
Fever charts“Perhaps that was something that was not looked at over the last several years, and we are trying to straighten that out,” said Sowmya Kumar, HISD’s new assistant superintendent for special education. She spent more than a dozen years as a regional administrator for HISD’s special ed programs before being promoted this summer.
“We have a fresh new team here and some fresh new eyes,” she told Texas Watchdog. “When you take a fresh new look at things, you start to ask questions about data.”
The 200-plus workers will be laid off at the end of this school year, she said. A district-wide special education audit, intended to identify the overstaffing, is underway and is expected to be completed by December.
“We need an overhaul in our special ed department, and we need to be a lot more receptive to what parents need,” HISD trustee Manuel Rodriguez said.
Federal law prevents the school district from spending the extra $18 million on anything outside special education — a sadly ironic situation for school employees, as HISD earlier this year laid off employees in other departments. And a program to try to fix the system’s most troubled schools, called Apollo 20, is still short by $6 million, forcing HISD officials to ask for donations from private foundations.
Kumar isn’t the only HISD official saying that some workers should have gone years ago. HISD’s top financial officer, Melinda Garrett, gave school system trustees a presentation in June, saying stimulus funds would pay for positions in special ed “which should have been reduced based on prior years’ declining enrollment.”
While HISD administrators say the 200 workers aren’t needed, to people in the special education community, having additional staff on hand these past couple of years has been helpful.
“Some people may say it is a waste of money, but these 200 teachers are a drop in the bucket,” said Jimmy Kilpatrick, a member of a Houston-based group that provides national advocacy and research on special education issues.
“You need quality teachers, especially with special-needs children, and it presents an opportunity for less of a workload for the teachers … The problem is, sometimes an autistic child needs three adults around them at once, and that requires a high level of expertise.”
Said Rodriguez: “These past two years have been relatively quiet. I have not been getting the calls from parents who think their child is not getting the proper special education services they need. It could be that the parents have moved on, but I hope it is that the situation has been alleviated.”
More than $11 billion of federal stimulus money went to the states for special ed programs. Calls to the federal Education Department, which distributed the funds, were not returned.
However, DeEtta Culbertson from the Texas Education Agency — which was in charge of funneling the federal education stimulus money to the individual school systems — said the amount of money HISD received was based on a formula set by the feds, not by the state.
(See the HISD presentation on federal funds. June 2010,)
“In looking at the funding that HISD received, it is pretty much based on a formula that was laid out by the stimulus,” Culbertson, a spokeswoman for TEA, said. “We had to just provide the money as it was dictated to us.”
The Houston district’s drop in special ed enrollment, now at about 16,500 students, didn’t factor into it either, Kumar said.
“It is based on the population and poverty of the district,” she said. “Every district across the state received stimulus money; it was a big pot of money that was awarded to the state.”
Nearly four out of every five of HISD’s 202,000 students are considered economically disadvantaged, which the school system defines as qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.
HISD has not been able to create new jobs using the stimulus funds, but as Kumar is quick to point out, creating jobs was not the only goal of the stimulus.
“We were able to save jobs with the money,” Kumar said. “The two goals of the stimulus were to create or save jobs.”
Fewer students in HISD and across the country are being enrolled in special ed programs today, in part because of better screening procedures. At the same time, more federal cash is flowing in to the district’s special ed programs than ever before, Garrett said.
The school system is also using some of the stimulus money to buy big-ticket technology items, like a new computer system to manage special ed student data and white boards.
“We’re buying things that, after we are done buying them, they will continue to create dividends for the district,” Kumar said.
The new computer system will manage student evaluations and assessments made by psychologists, Kumar said. It will be updated and tracked through a student’s entire career in HISD and will help the school system submit necessary data to state and federal education authorities.
In addition to the $42.7 million in stimulus funds, which must all be spent by December 2011, HISD is getting unusually big checks from the main federal program that helps school systems pay for special ed, known as IDEA. This year, the handouts from IDEA are currently running about $1.5 million more than last year.
But the district suggests that the extra federal money will, in the end, save HISD taxpayers money.
In addition to the federal and state money HISD gets, the district regularly uses some local money — largely from property taxes — to cover special ed expenses. Under the law, a school district cannot cut its local funding for special ed unless it loses special ed students or gets a boost in its IDEA funding — both of which have happened.
Aside from the 200 workers being laid off at the end of the school year, there are also 40 positions in special ed currently being funded by stimulus money that Kumar says will be needed next school year — when their costs will be borne by the district and its taxpayers.
Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
oming Monday at Texas Watchdog: Millions of stimulus dollars have been spent to weatherize houses in Texas … See how it was spent
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Video, What's New
A story written for Texas Watchdog:
Coming Monday at Texas Watchdog: Millions of stimulus dollars have been spent to weatherize houses in Texas … See how it was spent
Fri Jan 29 22:11:00 2010 CST
By Trent SeibertIt’s no surprise, I suppose, that millions of dollars in federal tax cash has been spent to weatherize homes in Texas.
The surprise to us was how few houses were caulked and retrofitted and how much was spent on the government bureaucracy to oversee this program. Come back Monday to see how many homes were actually protected against harsh weather… and how much of that money went down the drain.
Stimulus Jobs Cost More in Democratic Congressional Districts in Ohio
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
Stimulus Jobs Cost More in Democratic Congressional Districts in Ohio
Posted by Lynn Walsh on November 17, 2009
Print This Post Print This PostThe average cost to create or retain a job in Ohio with stimulus money is $294,885.07. This is according to the most recent state/territory summary at www.recovery.gov. The site show 28 congressional districts in Ohio that have received stimulus dollars; 10 of those districts do not exist.
Of the 18 congressional districts that do exist in Ohio; 10 are served by Democratic representatives and seven are served by Republican representatives. 83% of the amount of money awarded to Ohio went to Democrat represented districts; 17% went to Republican represented districts.
Total Republican Democrat Districts
According to the last re-districting of Ohio in the year 2000, each of the 18 congressional districts represents a population of 630,730 people. The average cost of the awarded stimulus money per person in a district represented by a Democrat is $366.92; $188.21 for a district represented by a Republican. The average cost per job in a district represented by a Republican is $940,745.24; $1,018,849.92 for a district represented by a Democrat.
Republican Democrat Stiumulus Costs
The 1st and 15th congressional districts were highly-contested races in 2008; the 15th congressional district race was not finalized until December 7, 2008. So far, both of these districts have received the most stimulus money; district 15 has received over $1.3 billion dollars and the 1st district has received close to $1.1 billion. Both of these districts also have the highest average stimulus cost per person in the state; more than $2,000 in district 15 and more than $1,600 in the 1st district.
The 1st district also has the highest average cost per job in the entire state, over $3 million; 50% higher than any other congressional district in Ohio. The 15th congressional district is represented by Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy; Union and Madison Counties are entirely within the district’s boundaries as well as about half of Franklin County. The 1st congressional district of Ohio is represented by Democrat Steve Driehaus; the City of Cincinnati is within the districts boundaries.
Most Stimulus Jobs created in Central Ohio and Public Sector
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
Most Stimulus Jobs created in Central Ohio and Public Sector
Posted by Lynn Walsh on November 16, 2009A total of 17,095 jobs have been created or saved in Ohio thanks to stimulus funding; that is according to the most recent state/territory summaries available on www.recovery.gov. The more the 17,000 jobs cost the government $5,041,060,256 in Ohio or $294,885.07 per job.
Congressional district 15 is leading the pack with 13,212 jobs retained or created, costing more than $1.4 billion. The 15th district is represented by Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy and includes a portion of Franklin County and all of Union and Madison Counties. The 11th congressional district has seen the second largest number of jobs due to the stimulus, 394.5, costing more than $349 million. The 11th district includes the East Side of Cleveland and most of the suburbs of Cuyahoga County; Democrat Marcia Fudge is the representative. The average cost per job in the 15th district is $103,420.23 and $886,547.80 in the 11th district.
More than 80% of the jobs created or retained with stimulus money are located in Central Ohio. When broken down by greatest number of jobs created or retained per zip code, three of the top five are located in Columbus; one is located in Dayton and another is located in Cleveland.
All of the top 20 award recipients are a part of the public sector. The first privately-held company to appear on the list is Pepper Construction Group, LLC; the Ohio offices are based in Dublin and Cincinnati. The Ohio Department of Transportation and the Executive Office of the State of Ohio have both received the biggest percentage of stimulus funding so far, 8% each.
More than Six Billion Dollars going to Phantom Districts Nationwide
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
More than Six Billion Dollars going to Phantom Districts Nationwide
Posted by Lynn Walsh on November 17, 2009The federal stimulus package has created or saved just under 30,000 jobs in 440 congressional districts that do not exist. According to watchdog.org that would double the size of the House of Representatives.
All of the information can be found on www.recovery.gov, a website that operates on an $84 million budget. New Mexico Watchdog broke the story yesterday after noticing money had been distributed to ten congressional districts the state does not have. Ohio, New Hampshire, Kansas, Minnesota, West Virginia, and Michigan have released similar stories of inaccurate reporting by the website.
Ed Pound, Director of Communications for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, told a reporter from the Montana Policy Institute, “people make errors, and we’ve found people are making errors in these reports.” Pound said, “Our job is data integrity, not data quality.” The recovery Accountability and Transparency Board is responsible for overseeing www.recovery.gov.
Ohio Has 18 Congressional Districts…Again
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
Ohio Has 18 Congressional Districts…Again
Posted by Lynn Walsh on November 19, 2009There are only 18 Congressional Districts in Ohio, and this time www.recovery.gov agrees. The most recent state/territory summary page for Ohio lists information for all 18 districts as well as “unassigned congressional district(s).”
Earlier this week, the website, which has an $84 million budget, listed 10 additional congressional districts in Ohio that received federal stimulus money: 00, 20, 21, 99, 69, 87, 85, 49, 54, 56. According to the site these 10 phantom districts created 11 jobs costing a total of more than $5.3 million. Those 11 jobs are now listed in the “unassigned congressional district” column.
After national media pressure, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board began purging www.recovery.org by reassigning the 440 phantom congressional districts nationwide to “unassigned congressional district” columns or correcting the data. The senior White House appointee overseeing the stimulus transparency website dismisses the errors; the problems, “are relatively few and don’t change the fundamental conclusions one can draw from the data,” G. Edward DeSeve said.
Locating the Phantom Congressional Districts
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
Locating the Phantom Congressional Districts
Posted by Lynn Walsh on December 2, 2009Last month, www.recovery.gov listed 28 congressional districts in Ohio as having received stimulus money. After much media scrutiny the most recent state/territory summary for Ohio lists the correct number of congressional districts in Ohio, 18, and a category named “unassigned congressional district.” While the phantom districts have “disappeared,” and are now lumped into a single category, www.recovery.gov lists the money as having been awarded and in some cases creating or retaining jobs.
Ohio Watchdog found a total of 29 stimulus projects located in phantom districts in Ohio. 27 of those projects were located by sorting through three downloadable databases on the federal website. Two other projects were found by viewing all recipients listed on www.recovery.gov. Both awards were listed as being located in the 90th congressional district in Ohio; Ohio Legal Rights Service received one and Center of Vocational Alternatives for Mental Health received the other. Specific information for those projects can be found by following the links above; the other 27 projects identified are listed below.
Phantom Districts
Seven of the 29 projects are listed as contracts and 22 are listed as grants. All of the award recipients are listed as being located in Ohio, but, seven of the projects list California as the “Prime recipient: Primary Place of Performance.” All seven of those are contracts awarded to Midwest Environmental Control, Inc. The company has an office in Toledo, Ohio, where according to www.recovery.gov the contract has been awarded for projects at Edwards Air Force Base and Vandenberg Air Force Base both located in California. A company spokeswoman would not answer questions relating to the contracts over the phone and asked that a letter with any questions be sent in the mail. Midwest Environmental Control “>This letter was sent on November 23, 2009; so far, no response has been received.
A top official at the Ohio Office of the Inspector General, who asked to not be named, said, “investigating money given directly to companies, cities, counties, or non-profits in Ohio from the federal government or a federal agency is beyond our jurisdiction.”
The top official explained that the Ohio Inspector General is only responsible for investigating, locating, and monitoring money coming from the federal government or federal agencies and given directly to the State of Ohio or a State of Ohio agency, “like the Ohio Department of Transportation, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, or the Ohio Department of Health.”
According to the top official at the Ohio OIG, not all American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) money will pass through the the State of Ohio or a State of Ohio agency the office would have jurisdiction over. This seems to apply to most of the money awarded to organizations in the phantom congressional districts.
“The money went straight from the federal government or federal agency to cities/counties/agencies in Ohio. We don’t receive data or scrubbed data. We have access to the it on a website just like everyone else. We’re not responsible for scrubbing that data and making sure it is correct.”
The top official at the Ohio OIG compared their responsibility when it comes to ARRA funds as being the same as any other investigation. The office “cannot look into it without jurisdiction, this is the same with the ARRA money,” the official said.
If it was within the Ohio OIG’s jurisdiction the official said seeing money allocated to fake congressional districts “would probably raise a red a flag but more of just an inquiry. Not sure if it would rise to the level of fraud, waste, or abuse; we would have to have something further: theft or a deliberate attempt to mislead.” While the office cannot discuss pending investigations, the official did give examples of past investigations.
If the Ohio OIG is not responsible for looking into ARRA projects funded directly by the federal government to local entities, then who is? The top official explained that the responsibility falls onto the federal government or the federal agency responsible for distributing the grant, loan, or contract.
In the case of the $300,000 grant that according to www.recovery.gov was “agency reported” to them by the Social Security Administration, SSA; none of the parties involved are on the same page as to where the grant money came from.
After several calls to the Ohio Legal Rights Service Ohio Watchdog was informed that the organization did not receive any stimulus money. After a visit to the office, located in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio Watchdog was told that further questions regarding this grant would have to be addressed to their legal department.
After leaving voice messages with their legal department a response was received from Tim Tobin, the Policy Director at Ohio Legal Rights Service, OLRS. Tobin said, “you had asked whether or not OLRS received any federal stimulus funds and we did not. There possibly could have been maybe some things we might have tried to compete for, or apply for, but we were not eligible for anything directly.” But, according to www.recovery.org, they did receive ARRA money and it was awarded by the SSA.
To figure out whether or not OLRS received stimulus money Ohio Watchdog called the Ohio OIG. Through a voicemail, the Ohio OIG confirmed that yes, OLRS did receive $300,000, but at that time the office was not exactly sure if it was stimulus or not. Ohio Watchdog was told the Ohio OIG was investigating the issue further.
After speaking with someone in the Ohio OIG office, the same official who asked to not be named explained how the ARRA money in Ohio is being accounted for and offered insight into the $300,000 grant awarded to OLRS.
The Ohio OIG official said, “Tim Tobin was confused by the question of ‘Did you receive stimulus funds?’ That is why he answered that OLRS did not.” The official went on to explain that the program OLRS received funds for was a five year program that was going to be phased out if more funding was not received. But, with the $300,000 grant OLRS received from the SSA the program was extended.
“They don’t know if ARRA money is funding the program or not. For five years it has been running on non-ARRA funds. As long as the program is running they didn’t ask any questions,” the Ohio OIG official said.
So, who does know the answer? “Since the SSA filed the report they’re responsible to tell us,” the Ohio OIG official said. After a call to the SSA, the agency requested the questions regarding this grant be put in an MX-3501N_20091202_161158 “>e-mail.
The MX-3501N_20091202_161228 “>response from Mark Hinkle from the SSA Press Office explains that the $300,000 grant awarded to OLRS was not funded under the Recovery Act. It “is a normal grant provided under the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act,” Hinkle said. The project is being overseen by a “grants manager and a project manager.”
According to Hinkle, “Social Security has not awarded any grants using Recovery Act money. Money spent for contracts and paying the Economic Recovery One-time Payments of $250 is reported on the Agency’s Recovery web site.” The response from Hinkle resulted in another sent MX-3501N_20091202_161322 “>e-mail in which no response has been received.
According to the SSA they did not fund the OLRS project with stimulus money. The OLRS is not sure where the money came from they just know that they received funding for the program. The Ohio OIG does not have jurisdiction to monitor this particular grant. And www.recovery.gov lists the program and the $300,000 grant as being funded with ARRA money and reported to them by the SSA.
Calls to both OLRS and the Ohio OIG went unanswered today.
$300,000 Grant Not Recovery Grant Funded Social Security Administration Says
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
$300,000 Grant Not Recovery Grant Funded Social Security Administration Says
Posted by Lynn Walsh on December 2, 2009The Social Security Administration, SSA, says that a $300,000 grant given to the Ohio Legal Rights Service, OLRS, was not funded by the Recovery Act. But, according to www.recovery.gov that same grant was “agency reported” to them by the SSA as having been funded with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, ARRA, money.
Several individuals at the Ohio Legal Rights Service told Ohio Watchdog that the organization did not receive any stimulus money. After a visit to the office, located in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio Watchdog was told that further questions regarding this grant would have to be addressed to their legal department.
After leaving voice messages with their legal department a response was received from Tim Tobin, the Policy Director at Ohio Legal Rights Service, OLRS. Tobin said, “you had asked whether or not OLRS received any federal stimulus funds and we did not. There possibly could have been maybe some things we might have tried to compete for, or apply for, but we were not eligible for anything directly.” But, according to www.recovery.org, they did receive ARRA money and it was awarded by the SSA.
To figure out whether or not OLRS received stimulus money Ohio Watchdog called the Ohio Office of the Inspector General, OIG. Through a voicemail, the Ohio OIG confirmed that yes, OLRS did receive $300,000, but at that time the office was not exactly sure if it was stimulus or not. Ohio Watchdog was told the Ohio OIG was investigating the issue further.
After speaking with someone in the Ohio OIG office, the same official who asked to not be named explained how the ARRA money in Ohio is being accounted for and offered insight into the $300,000 grant awarded to OLRS.
The Ohio OIG official said, “Tim Tobin was confused by the question of ‘Did you receive stimulus funds?’ That is why he answered that OLRS did not.” The official went on to explain that the program OLRS received funds for was a five year program that was going to be phased out if more funding was not received. But, with the $300,000 grant OLRS received from the SSA the program was extended.
“They don’t know if ARRA money is funding the program or not. For five years it has been running on non-ARRA funds. As long as the program is running they didn’t ask any questions,” the Ohio OIG official said.
So, who does know the answer? “Since the SSA filed the report they’re responsible to tell us,” the Ohio OIG official said. After a call to the SSA, the agency requested the questions regarding this grant be put in an MX-3501N_20091202_161158 “>e-mail.
The MX-3501N_20091202_161228 “>response from Mark Hinkle from the SSA Press Office explains that the $300,000 grant awarded to OLRS was not funded under the Recovery Act. It “is a normal grant provided under the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act,” Hinkle said. The project is being overseen by a “grants manager and a project manager.”
According to Hinkle, “Social Security has not awarded any grants using Recovery Act money. Money spent for contracts and paying the Economic Recovery One-time Payments of $250 is reported on the Agency’s Recovery web site.” The response from Hinkle resulted in another sent MX-3501N_20091202_161322 “>e-mail in which no response has been received.
According to the SSA they did not fund the OLRS project with stimulus money. The OLRS is not sure where the money came from they just know that they received funding for the program. The Ohio OIG does not have jurisdiction to monitor this particular grant. And www.recovery.gov lists the program and the $300,000 grant as being funded with ARRA money and reported to them by the SSA.
Calls to both OLRS and the Ohio OIG went unanswered today.
Read more about who is accountable for ARRA money awarded to the State of Ohio here.
Social Security Administration Blames Federal Agency for $300,000 Grant Confusion
by Lynn Walsh on Mar.21, 2010, under Investigations, What's New
A story written for Ohio Watchdog:
Social Security Administration Blames Federal Agency for $300,000 Grant Confusion
Posted by Lynn Walsh on December 7, 2009The Social Security Administration, SSA, says “the information shown on www.recovery.gov under Agency Reporting incorrectly lists the Ticket to Work grants as ARRA funded, which they are not.”
The “Ticket to Work Grant” is a $300,000 grant awarded to the Ohio Legal Rights Service, OLRS, by the SSA. Ohio Watchdog followed this particular grant to monitor where the money awarded to phantom congressional districts was going.
The $300,000 grant awarded to OLRS was listed on www.recovery.gov as an American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, ARRA, grant reported to them by the SSA. But, the SSA said it was not funded with ARRA money in this MX-3501N_20091202_161228 “>e-mail response.
Ohio Watchdog asked for further clarification from the SSA since the federal website, www.recovery.gov, had the grant listed as being funded with ARRA money.
In an MX-3501N_20091207_141022 “>e-mail, Mark Lassiter, with the National Press Office of the SSA, said, “We have not awarded any grants from the ARRA stimulus funding to any organization and have never reported this funding as such.”
So, how did the information become listed as being funded with ARRA money? Lassiter says the information was incorrectly transferred by the General Services Adminstration, GSA to www.recovery.gov.
“We notified GSA of the error and they corrected the mistake on the USAspending.gov web site on November 30, but GSA has not yet corrected the Recovery.gov web site. We continue to work with GSA and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to get the error corrected on Recovery.gov,” Lassiter said.
The OLRS and the State of Ohio Office of Inspector General were not clear as to where the $300,000 grant came from either. According to a top official at the Ohio OIG ARRA money being transferred directly from a federal agency or department to a non-profit or other non-state agency in Ohio is not something the Ohio OIG can investigate because it is out of their jurisdiction.
