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Lucy Morgan of the St. Petersburg Times reviewed the annual financial disclosure forms filed by Florida state legislators, finding that “while 22 of the 160 legislators report their legislative salary as their principal income, a review of annual financial disclosure forms shows that 37 House members and 16 senators reported net worths of more than…
Read MoreLance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle used federal and court records to investigate a claim by a former employee of the firm, that the company was tipped off prior to security decoy tests. The tips allegedly helped the firm secure a 90 percent success rate with the tests. “That success rate helped the Chicago…
Read MoreHartford Courant reporters Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman won a month-long legal battle for release of the contracts between University of Connecticut mens’ and womens’ basketball coaches Jim Calhoun and Geno Auriemma and Nike Inc. Over strenuous objections by the coaches’ lawyers, the state Ethics Commission decided that the contracts were public documents. A Courant…
Read MoreBrent Schrotenboer of the San Diego Union-Tribune reports that “more than $1.5 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent subsidizing a lightly attended college football game played annually at Qualcomm Stadium since 1999.” The Gold Coast Classic continues to receive government support despite a series of unpaid bills during the past several years. “The city…
Read MoreLeon Fooksman, John Maines and Chris Kahn of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel used state and federal data to show that “in Florida, the rate of car crashes for drivers between ages 15 and 19 dropped 23 percent from 1996 to 2003, the last year of available statistics. The crash rate has declined for everyone, but…
Read MoreMichael Cooper of The New York Times found gaps in New York’s campaign finance laws. “Local parties can still accept unlimited corporate donations to their so-called housekeeping committees, which have few restrictions on how they can spend the money.” The Times uncovered a growing number of corporate donors topping the $100,000 mark, well above the…
Read MoreDunstan 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…
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