|
|
|
Faith Based Initiatives Blow Fed Money On Big Screen TVs
Posted by Pile
(7609 views)      [E-Mail link]
|
 |
| A contractor getting paid $3,500 a day to oversee faith-based initiatives for needy Ohio families spent some of the federal welfare money on downtown parking, big-screen televisions and a glowing report on the job it was doing, a newspaper reported Saturday. |
Gov. Ted Strickland last week asked both the state inspector general and the Department of Job and Family Services to investigate the Governor's Office on Faith-based and Community Initiatives and its $2 million contract with We Care America, the Dayton Daily News reported.
"We've opened an investigation and we'll be reviewing their contracts," Inspector General Tom Charles said Friday, declining to comment further.
The office's former director resigned before the election, and Strickland replaced the rest of the staff in January. The questions were prompted by an internal review by the new staff, said Keith Dailey, Strickland's spokesman.
The faith-based office was created in 2003 to oversee churches and community organizations that get public money to help the needy.
The state set aside $22 million over two years from a surplus in federal welfare funds for a project to strengthen families in July 2005. That September, We Care America, based in Lansdowne, Va., won the contract to manage the project.
The newspaper reviewed invoices, e-mails and other documents related to the contract, and found expenses including $15,000 to buy and install 50-inch televisions in the Columbus and Virginia offices, $125 monthly downtown parking fees and $6,000 to commission a report that said Ohio's faith-based programs should be an example for other states. |
|
|
|
|
Bumper Sticker Store