The IRE office will be closed from December 25th to January 5th.
Government (federal/state/local)
Legislators took gifts, trips from lobbyists
Nolan Clay of The Oklahoman used state disclosure reports to find that “Oklahoma politicians, their aides and relatives accepted at least $125,000 worth of meals, drinks, football tickets and other gifts last year.” Many of the freebies were associated with the state’s college athletic programs, including season tickets to football games at Oklahoma University and…
Read MoreEmergency fund used by legislators
Eric Eyre and Scott Finn of the Charleston Gazette examined records of a contingency fund controlled by West Virginia’s governor, finding that “Hardy County received $6.7 million from the contingency fund since 1997 – more than any county in the state – even though the county ranks 42nd out of 55 counties in population.” The…
Read MoreGovernor’s office political dealings in question
Alan Judd of The Atlanta-Jounal Constitution investigated claims that the Georgia governor’s office put heat on the state’s consumer regulatory office over dealings with a major car dealership and donor to the governor’s campaign. “In the Bill Heard Chevrolet case, Hills’ inquiry became a key point in a series of events that, Smith says, undermined…
Read MoreOil tanker regulations ignored, trimmed back
Eric Nalder of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer investigated the inner-workings of a tanker fleet owned by the third-largest oil company in the nation, ConocoPhillips. The series was inspired by a mystery spill in Puget Sound. The company had denied that its ship, the Polar Texas, was the spiller, while the U.S. Coast Guard said the oil…
Read MoreDetroit high on list of top spenders
Kathleen Gray and Marisol Bello of The Detroit Free Press used federal data to show that “Detroit spends more on city government than most of the nation’s big cities.” The city ranks fourth in government employees per capita and fifth in overall general fund spending per capita, “behind New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Chicago,…
Read MoreMayor spends taxpayer money on meals
Joseph L. Wagner and Martin Stolz of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reviewed local records to show that “Beachwood Mayor Merle Gorden has dunned taxpayers for more than $20,000 for meals over four years, including $1,943 for 66 private meals he had with his assistant, Tina Turick.” The mayor of neighboring Solon also spent thousands on…
Read MoreLand swap deals net big profits for brokers
Adrienne Packer and J.M. Kalil of the Las Vegas Review-Journal continue their investigation into land swap deals, finding that “on at least three occasions, land broker Scott Gragson traded property to McCarran International Airport and then reacquired it nearly two years later for less than he originally sold it for…That means the properties depreciated hundreds…
Read MoreCity program accountability questioned
Toni Coleman of the St. Paul Pioneer Press analyzed data on the city’s Sales Tax Revitalization (STAR) grant program, finding that “accountability under STAR is uneven because of the program’s complicated structure. Most projects go through a structured review process, for example, but individual City Council members circumvent that if they want. In addition, some…
Read MoreFOI requests improve, but some agencies still lag
Colleen Krantz of The Des Moines Register and Janet Rorholm of The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette report that a newspaper audit of public records in Iowa shows that “law enforcement agencies in Iowa provided greater access to their public documents during a recent investigation by Iowa newspapers than the agencies did five years ago, yet police…
Read MoreChicago recycling program success exagerated
Laurie Cohen and Dan Mihalopoulos of the Chicago Tribune, along with Gary Washburn, used city records to show that “less paper, plastic, metals and other recyclables were salvaged from Chicago’s household garbage in the last two years than at any time since the program’s earliest years.” The paper’s investigation found that the city “has quietly…
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