Over the weekend, The Oklahoman reported on a recent federal audit that looked into how our state's agencies and lawmakers have allocated and spent federal disaster funds. The verdict? Not so good.
Via NewsOK.com:
Feds take issue with Oklahoma's handling of disaster funds
A federal audit takes issue with the way Oklahoma handled millions of dollars in disaster relief funds.
The audit by the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was performed because the state received $93.7 million in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery allocations for presidentially declared disasters in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
“The State did not obligate and spend CDBG-DR funds in accordance with requirements,” the Sept. 30 audit stated.
“The State failed to support how it determined activity eligibility, existence, disaster event qualification, reasonableness of cost estimates, prioritization, and fund allocation as required. It routinely did not determine compliance with procurement and environmental requirements.
“Further, it routinely made payments based on incomplete, insufficient, or no supporting documentation.”
Come on, Feds. Compliance? Documentation? Prioritization? Who the hell do you think we are? A normal, functioning state??? Those fancy lawyer school words are for liberal elitists and bureaucrats, not Oklahomans. We prefer to allocate funds the right way via the good old boy network. Leave us alone and let us spend disaster money on what we want to spend it on, like paving roads that weren't paved before the disaster striked:
The audit said the state did not comply with requirements and that resulted in unsupported obligations and expenditures of more than $11.7 million and $4.3 million, respectively.The audit gave examples of instances of problems...
One example involved the resurfacing of a road because of tornado damage.
“The State failed to inspect and verify tornado-related damage before obligating more than $268,000 in funds to resurface a road in Lincoln County,” the audit said.
Auditors got a photo of the road from county officials. Damage was visible around the road, but the road itself appeared to be unpaved.
“Without sufficient evidence of damage, the state should not have approved the activity,” the audit stated.
Should disaster money be spent to pave roads that were not paved in the first place? Probably not, but on a positive note, at least we found a short-term solution to replace our crumbling roads and bridges. Maybe that's why Mary Fallin has been so slow to react on earthquakes. She's waiting for a big one to hit and destroy everything so we can get more federal disaster money to replace it all. It's kind of a smart strategy when you think about it. #OklahomaStandard.
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