Both sides of this issue are being misleading, which is not surprising.
I will start with this:
Of the 176 energy grant programs offered to Florida, which received a total of $219 million, only 15 were found to have been completed on schedule and with accurate reports detailing how the money was spent.
The state Department of Agriculture reports that 129 projects will be allowed to continue, but it will have stronger oversight to track how the grants are administered. Putnam ordered that 32 programs, classified as “involved in fraud,” be discontinued and terminated.
The audit also found that one company received close to $200,000 in federal funds before declaring bankruptcy
FL: Millions in fraud, waste rampant in federal energy stimulus, reveals state audit « Watchdog News
The phrase "only 15 were found to have been completed on schedule" is very misleading. The rest of the projects did not have a schedule and are ongoing. Projects which include rebates given to people who buy an appliance with an Energy Star rating and things like that. Those continue until the money runs out.
Moving on to this:
Hmm, State audit reveals fraud but a group that lives off of subsidies says there is no fraud.
Who do I believe?
You could read the audit yourself and form your own opinion. I know it's hard, but give it a try.
http://www.freshfromflorida.com/new...-02_Final_Report-Operational_Audit_of_OOE.pdf
I am always grateful when someone provides the source material. Thank you very much.
In that report we find some not so good things. The Watchdog claims of poor monitoring are correct. See "AUDIT RESULTS" starting on page 3 of the report.
We also find that actual returns on investment are far below the returns on investment that were projected. See the charts on pages 21, 23, and 24. Much of this may be the result of the poor track record of reporting and monitoring.
The state of Florida has a serious problem monitoring how the stimulus money was spent and getting the recipients to report their results. This does not bode well for the prevention of fraud.
Also, the number of jobs created is pathetically low and also below what was projected.
Since the inception of the program in 2006, 792 jobs were created or retained, and energy savings in excess of $58 million were realized.
This report combines several government programs, only one of which was the federal stimulus. All of them combined "created or retained" just 792 jobs in the past 6 years! That is certainly nothing to brag about.
Also, they blew about a billion dollars total, and got $58 million of that back for their efforts. Does this make sense?
2006 is many years before the stimulus, so they are really reaching back to try and make the stimulus look good. They also do not distinguish between jobs created and jobs "retained", which strongly suggests job creation has been incredibly weak.
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