Executive
Waste of the Day: Maryland Health Department Doesn’t Know What It Did With $1.4 Billion
The Maryland Healthe Department lost track of $1.4 billion in federal funds related to the COVID-19 epidemic.
Imagine being in charge of spending for a state’s health department initiatives, including the billions in federal funding received during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now imagine losing track of $1.4 billion.
That’s what the Maryland Department of Health did when it failed to adequately track federal reimbursements it received during the pandemic, leading to more than $1 billion in unaccounted-for funds, according to a recent audit from the state Office of Legislative Audits, the Washington Post reported.
But that’s not the worst of it.
At the end of Fiscal Year 2022, the department couldn’t account for $3.5 billion in reimbursed funds it should have received from the federal government. By April, the office recovered $2.1 billion of those funds, leaving $1.4 billion that should have been reimbursed undocumented.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said the audit “raises significant concerns about how finances were documented and handled at the Department of Health during the previous administration” of Gov. Larry Hogan.
Most of the Health Department’s top leadership changed before the audit was completed, during the transition between Hogan and Moore.
If efforts fail to recover the $1.4 billion, some Maryland officials fear that state taxpayers could be on the hook, the Post reported. But others said maybe the accounting errors could be fixed without dipping into future budgets.
“The Health Department haphazardly filed for reimbursements from the federal government, often delaying those requests for months,” the Post reported. “The agency then failed to keep track of the reimbursement payments it received, according to the audit, leading to uncertainty over whether the state had submitted all of its eligible expenses on time or received all of the federal money it was owed.”
This lack of basic recordkeeping and budgeting skills is shameful and would be a shame to hoist on taxpayers.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) is the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski lives in Hinsdale, Illinois with his wife Kerry and three daughters. He is a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and has finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
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