The Treasury Department is not monitoring if governments are using the recovery money properly, Republican senators charge. They are asking the Government Accounting Office to investigate.
Senate Republicans are concerned that some of the $350 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds for states and local governments is being wasted, and this week, they asked the Government Accounting Office to investigate.
Fourteen Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee wrote the GAO saying there has not been enough congressional oversight of how the money is being used, and that the Treasury Department hasn’t made available detailed information as to whether states and localities are properly reporting how they’re using the money.
The lawmakers cited a Fortune report that said some of the ARPA money is going for “questionable uses,” including: $12 million for renovations of a minor league baseball stadium; $5 million for paying off debts of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate; $70 million for tourism marketing in Puerto Rico; $6.6 million to replace irrigation systems at two golf courses; $2.5 million to hire new parking enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.; and $2 million for a county to help purchase a privately owned ski area.
Route Fifty
By Kery Murakami
JUNE 9, 2022