A story by Michael Jamison of the Missoulian (Missoula, Mont.) shows that the contracting scheme the federal government is employing to award stimulus contracts favors large corporations over small- and medium-sized firms.  In an effort to speed up the bidding process, the federal government is using indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, or IDIQ, contracting.  “An IDIQ is a broad and open-ended agreement, in which the government essentially creates a sort of long-term, all-purpose contract under which specific tasks can later be defined. The scheme moves projects quickly - which is a priority for economic stimulus jobs - but critics argue it’s anti-competitive, because only a handful of large firms can afford to engage on such undefined and unrestricted terms.”  In Montana, a local contractor successfully completed four federal border stations over the last several years.  Stimulus money is funding the erection of several more ports, but the contract was awarded to Parsons Corp., a California company.  Parsons is not new to federal contracts, and is linked to several failed building projects in Iraq.

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The investigative team of KTVT-Dallas/Ft. Worth recently revealed that  Saxon Mortgage could receive more than $400 million in federal funds under the Home Affordable Modification Program despite an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau for hundreds of customer complaints. The story followed one homeowner who was promised a no-fee loan modification only to  be charged more than $1500 in fees. When the homeowner missed payment on a  $20 fee, the company reported her to the credit bureaus, knocking her credit rating down by more than 100 points. The homeowner took Saxon to court and won a $4500 judgment.

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A $3 billion municipal bond loan program run by an ex-politician in Tennessee was overcharging Nashville and two other cities by hiding fees within reported interest rates, The Tennessean’s Brad Schrade reported. The multi-story investigation used federal bank filings, audits and other public records to expose problems with the non-profit loan program, including lack of disclosure, secrecy of the president/CEO’s pay and conflicts of interest involving consulting deals with the program’s chief financial partner, Bank of America, and other businesses.

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Mark Fazlollah and Joseph Tanfani of the Philadelphia Inquirer examined the city’s flawed Board of Revision of Taxes. The board, among other things, allowed backdoor tax cuts that cost the city millions. According to the article, “Decades of such deals and persistent mismanagement by the BRT have left Philadelphia with one of the most unfair and chaotic property tax systems in the nation.” The board introduced a new set of proposed “actual values” last week in an attempt to fix some of the long-standing problems, but, “an Inquirer review of dozens of commercial properties found that many new numbers still bear little resemblance to recent sale prices.”

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“Hackensack University Medical Center has pulled advertisements from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, and has banned the newspaper from hospital property following publication of a story about its governing board,” reports Mary Jo Layton of NorthJersey.com.  The article addressed questionable practices of the hospital’s board members and trustees.

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A 10-month investigation by producer Lauren Sweeney and reporter Melissa Yeager at WINK-Fort Meyers helped change policy at Florida’s Department of Juvenile Justice.  A worker at a juvenile justice center for kids with drug abuse and mental problems blew the whistle on his supervisor for obtaining a prescription for powerful painkillers from the staff doctor. Two separate agencies investigated and substantiated the claim, but the supervisor was not reprimanded or criminally charged because the Department of Juvenile Justice had no policy prohibiting his actions. After the Call For Action investigation, the Department of Juvenile Justice wrote a new policy blocking employees from utilizing professional staff for personal reasons.

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Cary Spivak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that hundreds of loan brokers in Wisconsin have criminal records, including ex-drug dealers, armed robbers and a killer. In his latest installment of the ongoing “Easy Money” series, Spivak mined state and court records to find that many of these license holders have gone on to defraud home buyers and sellers.

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An analysis of bank financial statements by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University and msnbc.com, sheds new light on just how dangerous conditions have become in many banks across the nation. Information is available on the BankTracker site and a related msnbc.com story by Bill Dedman.

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BusinessWeek’s Brian Grow, Keith Epstein and Robert Berner detail efforts by the banking industry and its lobbyists in Washington to delay, dilute and obstruct attempts to rescue homeowners. The story describes how those efforts continue, and tracks campaign contributions by financial institutions and large lobbying expenditures by TARP recipients.

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“Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications.” Frank Bass and Rita Beamish of the Associated Press reported that visa applications submitted by banks increased by nearly a third in 2008 as the economic crisis worsened. The average salary for positions filled by foreign employees was $90,721.

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