Executive
Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: Nonprofit Goes Off the Grid, Gets Grant Anyway
Topline: In 2005, the federal government gave a $500,000 grant to music education group B InTune and directed them to report back a year later on how the money was spent.
Throwing a good grant after a bad one
Government officials couldn’t even get in touch with B InTune for years afterwards, but they awarded them another $430,000 in 2008.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn’s Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the $430,000 music grant — the combined $930,000 grants would be worth $1.3 million today.
Key facts: B InTune received the money in 2005 to develop lesson plans about funk music and Nobel Peace Prize winners.
Then-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) earmarked even more money for the group in the 2008 federal budget — so the Washington Post asked the Education Department whether the first grant had been spent efficiently.
The government’s response? “We don’t know.”
B InTune never submitted a spending report, which was due in September 2006.
Officials tried to contact the nonprofit, but its old phone number and email were out of service and its website contained no contact information.
The Washington Post managed to get in touch with B InTune, who then reached out to the Department of Education.
How did they spend it?
To this day, it’s unclear how the grant money was spent. Some of the funds were designated for B InTune to hire former school superintendent Joan Kozlovsky, but she told the Washington Post she hadn’t spoken to the nonprofit in years. B InTune said other projects were carried out with delays after a senior consultant got sick.
None of that stopped Hoyer from filing the earmark in 2008. The Washington Post noted that B InTune employees had contributed $31,000 to Hoyer’s political action committee in the past.
Summary: If a group is going to take a $430,000 handout from the federal government, answering the phone should at least be a required courtesy.
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) was 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 passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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