The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Government (federal/state/local)
Union workers double-dip costing taxpayers over $1.6 million
An investigation by David Andreatta of the Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, N.Y.) revealed that “more than $1.6 million in taxpayer money was paid last year to municipal employees in Monroe County for work they performed strictly for their unions, including dozens of labor leaders who have not toiled in their government jobs in years.” Many…
Read MoreFort Wayne series tracks federal spending in region
The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne, Ind. published the first section of a 12-part investigation into how federal dollars are spent the northeast region of the state. The Journal Gazette, using numbers from the Census Bureau and the Federal Procurement Data System, tracked the $5,618,386,731.89 the government spent on goods and services in 11 counties…
Read MoreMortgage crisis fueled by financiers’ lack of liability
While reckless mortgage lending threatened the American economy, the Bush administration, Congress, free marketers and industry lobbyists protected the responsible parties from both civil liability and government investigations. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Eric Nalder reveals in a series “Green Light for Greed” a little-known battle where Wall Street financiers and lenders were protected from civil liability…
Read MoreAtlanta-area school districts fail to enforce vaccination requirements
While most schools in the Atlanta area meet the Georgia state standard for vaccination requirements, Alison Young of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that at least 99 schools’ kindergartners and 81 schools’ sixth-graders failed to meet that standard during the 2007-2008 school year, with many of the schools in Atlanta’s Fulton County. Before Young’s investigation, the…
Read MoreDeceased voters cast ballots in Harris County, Tex.
An analysis by TexasWatchdog.com matched information from Harris County, Tex. voter rolls to Social Security death data and found ballots had been cast in the names of dead people more than 40 times since 2004. They also found more than 4,000 people currently on the voter rolls who, according to the Social Security death data,…
Read MoreLarge firms awarded small business contracts by U.S. agencies
An analysis by The Washington Post found “U.S. government agencies made at least $5 billion in mistakes in their recent reports of contracts awarded to small businesses, with many claiming credit for awards to companies that long ago outgrew the designation or never qualified in the first place.” The Post looked at sample data from…
Read MoreLAPD paying too much in overtime
Jason Kandel of the Los Angeles Daily News reports that overtime pay for Los Angeles police officers has increased almost 150 percent in the past decade. According to department records, the LAPD has spent more than its allotted overtime budget by an average of nearly $6 million a year since 2002-03. The report comes on…
Read MoreRefugee programs struggle under increasing demand
The Salt Lake Tribune looked at the federal resettlement system that provides financial and social support for refugees relocating in Utah and throughout the U.S. The Tribune found the system quickly abandons refugees soon after their arrival. People coming from poor African nations and some parts of Asia, particularly those who have lived for a…
Read MoreHidden wells, dirty water
An investigation by Leah Beth Ward of the Yakima Herald-Republic (Yakima, Wash.) reveals that evidence of area groundwater contamination has long been ignored. “A little noticed scientific study six years ago found that one in five of 195 wells tested outside five Lower Valley communities contained levels of nitrates above federal safety limits…Responsibility for keeping…
Read MoreMissouri, Illinois lack meth clean-up laws
Christine Byers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has found that Missouri and Illinois have some of the highest numbers of known methamphetamine labs, yet both states fail to ensure that former labs get decontaminated when properties are seized. Additionally, there are no laws mandating that new residents are notified of potential contamination before moving into the…
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