Posts by hdcoadmin
Golf resort wants increased funding after significant losses
Penny Brown Roberts of the Baton Rouge Advocate used public records to show that “developers of a swanky Texas golf resort have burned through nearly $30 million in a line of credit from Louisiana’s police retirement system and now say they need more money to make good on promised sales.” The pension system has contributed…
Read MoreRadiologist’s long hours invoke suspicion
Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber of the Los Angeles Times used California’s Public Records Act to show that “Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center paid more than $1.3 million over the last year for the services of a radiologist who said he worked an average of 20 hours a day, seven days a week, during…
Read MoreFired officers earning compensation during long appeals
John Diedrich of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that since 1994, “Milwaukee has paid more than $2.1 million in pay and benefits to 30 fired officers who were not reinstated, including six whose cases were still pending as of Friday.” Fired officers don’t have to repay wages earned while they appeal their firings. Milwaukee firefighters,…
Read MoreFelony, not petty criminals fill jail
Karen E. Crummy of The Denver Post analyzed county data to find that “most of the inmates crammed into the Denver County Jail are accused of robbery, burglary, selling drugs and even violent assaults. Relatively few of them are the drunken drivers and petty drug users whom people often associate with county jail.” Local residents…
Read MoreCity officials spending with little oversight
Jim Davis of The Fresno Bee used city expense reports to show that “Fresno Mayor Alan Autry and the City Council spent tens of thousands of dollars in the past four years on meals, hotel bills and other expenses with little oversight and less public debate.” Autry had the city pay for 422 business meals…
Read MoreCounty workers cashing in on overtime
Mickey Ciokajlo and Todd Lighty of the Chicago Tribune used Cook County payroll data to find that “more than 100 county workers were each paid $50,000 or more in overtime last year, with one industrious nurse pulling down $187,500 in extra pay. Oak Forest Hospital nurse Usha Patel, who earned the overtime on top of…
Read MoreParolees living in state nursing homes
Chris Fusco and Lori Rackl of the Chicago Sun-Times used state documents to show that sixty-one criminals on parole from the state’s prison system are living in 37 nursing homes alongside vulnerable people who have virtually no way of knowing they’re there. “The Sun-Times found an example of this in southwest suburban Bridgeview at Midway…
Read MoreFEMA contracts with criminals
Megan O’Matz and Sally Kestin of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that “government inspectors entrusted to enter disaster victims’ homes and verify damage claims include criminals with records for embezzlement, drug dealing and robbery.” The paper found the names of more than 100 inspectors for the Federal Emergency Management Agency through public and confidential sources;…
Read MoreCity insiders’ tickets dismissed at much higher rate than most
Patrick Lakamp of The Buffalo News analyzed 24,000 parking ticket hearings, finding that most Buffalo residents pay the majority of their fines, whereas as a select few city insiders get their fines dismissed. “They just write letters to the city’s parking enforcement director. Two-thirds of the time, their tickets go away.” A deputy commissioner of…
Read MoreWeb site lists day-care violations, not punishments
Robin Farmer of the Richmond Times-Dispatch used the Freedom of Information Act to investigate licensed day-care centers in Virginia. Parents can look-up online if their child’s center has violations, but the site does not reveal whether the center has been punished for them. The Times-Dispatch found that “nearly 95 percent of 2,600 centers had at…
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