Executive
Waste of the Day: Massachusetts Pays Up To $31 Per Meal To Feed Migrants
Massachusetts is paying for spaghetti and hot dog dinners at steak or lobster prices
Topline: Most hard-working Americans can’t afford to spend $21 to $31 on dinner every day. If they did, they’d likely expect to get steak or lobster for their money.
Yet that’s exactly how much the state of Massachusetts is spending to feed homeless migrants, according to CBS Boston. The state isn’t even getting its money’s worth: the meals include spaghetti and hot dogs or rice with a single chicken drumstick.
Key facts: The $21 meals come from the Fairfield Inn Boston Dedham, where the state is paying $180 to house homeless families and migrants — even though advertisements show hotel rooms start at $129.
Lunch costs $16, but a family interviewed by CBS Boston said it contains “nothing edible,” such as soup with “just bones” in it.
Taxpayers will spend a total of $7.3 million to feed families at the Fairfield Inn.
It’s part of 17 state contracts worth $116 million that Massachusetts signed to provide free housing to migrants in hotels and motels through June, according to records obtained by CBS Boston. Nine of those, including the Fairfield Inn, are for hotels owned by Giri Hotel Management, which will make $46 million from taxpayers.
When the state hired its own catering companies for migrants instead of relying on hotels, it still overspent. Massachusetts signed a $10 million contract with Spinelli Ravioli Manufacturing Company through a no-bid process that did not ask other vendors to provide cheaper food.
Unprecedented increased demand? Huh?
The state told CBS Boston that the ravioli contract, which ended in March, was justified by the “unprecedented increased demand” for food.
Background: In addition to the hotel expenses, Massachusetts spends about $75 million every month on 7,500 migrant families living in state-run emergency shelters.
Gov. Maura Healey signed a supplemental budget in March that spends $840 million over the next two years for the migrant crisis.
That still wasn’t enough. The federal government agreed in April to help Massachusetts by using Medicaid funds, which Axios Boston says could cost $647.5 million over the next four years.
Critical quote: State Sen. Peter Durant told CBS Boston of the hotel contracts, “This is something that we have been asking the administration for information on, for the better part of a year and have been stonewalled on the information.”
Summary: Something is amiss when taxpayers are spending more to feed those in emergency housing than to feed their own children.
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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