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Dunstan McNichol of The (Newark) Star-Ledger analyzed data from New Jersey’s School Construction Corporation since 2002, finding that “the six urban projects under the SCC have cost, on average, 45 percent more than 19 schools built without the agency’s oversight during the same period.” One-fifth of the spending is due to massive cost overruns and…
Read MorePatricia Alex of The (Bergen County) Record reports that former New Jersey governor Jim Florio “has stayed on the state payroll, and in the state pension system, thanks to a $90,947 side job at Rutgers University.” Florio, voted out of office in 1993, teaches one class a semester and sits on two advisory boards. Two…
Read MoreDon Lattin of the San Francisco Chronicle used tax and property records to show that a Southern California charity called the Family Care Foundation has “deep, ongoing ties between the organization and the Family, the evangelical sex cult rocked by a recent murder-suicide.” Officers of the foundation are linked to the Family via property records,…
Read MoreKevin Begos and Phoebe Zerwick of the Winston-Salem Journal used details from federal contracts to contractors in Iraq to calculate a basic labor rate of $350,000 a year for a “liaison officer under the contract that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded Charlotte’s Zapata Engineering to help dispose of captured munitions. It’s 10 times…
Read MoreBill Smith of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used tax records to show that “a foundation run by some of Missouri’s top police officials has raised millions of dollars on behalf of charity, but more than 80 percent of those contributions have gone to the foundation’s Texas-based fund-raiser.” The group raised about $3.1 million between 2000…
Read MoreJim Hopkins from USA Today looked into campaign contributions by employees for Google Inc. and found that most of the money donated by employees is going to the Democrats. “Google employees gave $207,650 to federal candidates for last year’s elections, up from just $250 in 2000 when it was still a start-up.” Neither party has…
Read MoreGregg Jones and Gary Jacobson of The Dallas Morning News found that steroids in north Texas high schools are “readily available and commonly used.” In a four-month investigation, “The News interviewed more than 100 current and former high school students, coaches and parents about steroids in high schools.” They found students buy the drugs from…
Read MoreKim Chandler of The Birmingham News used state and local records to show that “an east Alabama lawmaker steered state money to pave the dirt road that led to a subdivision he and his wife were developing.” A $50,000 state grant in 2002 went to the paving project, but was also intended to be used…
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