Where All That Homeland Security Boodle Really Goes

One Kentucky state agency in ky is immune from the budget massacres that have crippled state government: Emergency Management.  It gets tens of millions in federal homeland security money with apparently no strings attached, judging from how the money gets spent.

John Cheves at the Herald:
 

The Kentucky Division of Emergency Management engaged in "waste and abuse at one of the most vital agencies in state government," questionably spending millions of dollars on alcohol, meals, gifts, entertainment, hotel rooms, no-bid contracts and other items, state Auditor Adam Edelen said Tuesday.

Edelen estimated the total for questionable spending from 2007 to 2012 at $5.6 million. But he said his auditors had difficulty determining exactly how Emergency Management spent money because its director, Brig. Gen. John W. Heltzel, and other managers "openly threatened" employees to intimidate them into staying quiet. Simultaneously, spending records were altered or manufactured to conceal where funds went, he said.

For instance, $4,111 paid for alcoholic drinks at a 2010 conference in Louisville deliberately was hidden on a hotel invoice under the description "room rental" at the request of Emergency Management officials, auditors wrote in their report. The true expenditure would not have been permitted under state rules, auditors wrote.

Also, Emergency Management paid $15 each for 63 New York strip steak dinners at the same conference, according to an altered invoice the agency gave to auditors. But the dinners actually cost $41 each, which is $26 more than state rules allowed, according to the original invoice the auditors obtained from the Galt House Hotel and Suites, where the conference was held.

"The report paints a disturbing picture of agency leadership that does not believe the rules apply to it," Edelen said at a news conference.

No, the rules do not apply to it, which is why Heltzel resigning will change nothing.

On Thursday, Beshear said the resignation was appropriate.

"The findings in the recent auditor's report made it clear that new leadership was needed in the agency, given the numerous questions and grave concerns it raised about the proper handling of funds, reliable and transparent accounting, and appropriate work environment," Beshear said in a statement.

"The public's trust is a sacred investment that we all must safeguard, and this change in leadership will help to restore accountability and transparency to this critical agency," Beshear said.

SNIP

Beshear on Thursday named a temporary replacement for Heltzel: Mike Jones, executive director of the Office of Management and Administration at the Department of Military Affairs. Jones' first task will be to draw up a corrective plan for problems identified in the audit, the governor said.

Which will solve nothing, because the problem is not how the money is spent.  The problem is that the feds are fire-hosing hundreds of billions of "homeland security" dollars to state and local emergency management and law enforcement agencies that literally cannot spend it fast enough.


Divert that money to beefing up food stamps, welfare and section 8 housing, then we'll see some real economic growth that ensures emergency management gets the funding it actually needs and no more.