Big Money Got No Soul

1:56 pm, 4/27/05

Big Money Got No Soul
It's another shocking revelation about the Blagojevich administration. *yawn*

Contractors hired by Illinois to help the state find ways to save money instead found questionable new ways to spend it - including throwing a tax-funded party to celebrate landing the state contract, a scathing new state audit alleged Tuesday.

In an extraordinarily public clash between the state's independent auditor general and Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration, the audit alleges that Blagojevich's campaign to streamline government is itself fat with waste, questionable spending and possibly illegal contract deals.

The audit claims that the Department of Central Management Services, the administration's main procurement agency, reimbursed a few contractors for more than half a million dollars in undocumented or questionable expenses, from cell phones to airline tickets to alcohol. Millions of dollars more in spending was called into question because the contractors were allowed to skirt the usual state rules for contract approval, the audit claims.

Holland wouldn't say whether he believed there was any illegal activity involved, but said his office has passed the audit's findings on to the Illinois attorney general's office. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Lisa Madigan said the audit is being reviewed "very closely."

The Department of Central Management Services disputed most of the audit's findings, and shot back with an attack on the auditor general's office itself.

"CMS takes issue with the draft report ... because it contains inaccurate and misleading findings," the agency wrote in its official response to the audit. "... (The audit) omitted and ignored relevant facts, and contained deliberately inflammatory suggestions of impropriety devoid factual or logical basis."

Mobster #1, Mobster #2.

"I've never seen anything like this in my life," state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, said of the 140-page audit. He called for legislative hearings to look into the allegations. "It's very serious."

However, the Department of Central Management Services did acknowledge about $35,000 worth of improper reimbursement to a contractor and subcontractors, and said it has moved to get it back. Those expenses include money for rental of sport utility vehicles, alcohol, cell phones - and $495 for a celebratory dinner for six staff members of a company that had just landed a state contract to help improve efficiency in state spending.

The contractor in question, Illinois Public Asset Management, issued a short written statement admitting that "some ineligible expenses were passed on to the client" and that some has already been repaid. The statement maintained that the company is "proud of the work we have done to streamline" state operations.

The administration claims that whatever bugs there might be in its "efficiency initiative" with private contractors, the program has saved the state a projected $600 million. Holland, the auditor general, countered that his auditors didn't find evidence of savings of even $100 million.

We can't even have an efficient efficiency initiative. What's Ottenhoff going to say about this one? "We had to destroy the state in order to save it"? Joe Birkett's office issued a statement dubbing the audit "The Magna Carta of Mismanagement". I think it's more like the Constitution of Corruption.