The Anchorage Assembly budgeted $50,000 of CARES Act funds for a website to explain where the $156 million in CARES Act money went, but the website is not entirely helpful, although it is translated into several languages, such as Vietnamese, Mandarin, Tagalog, and Samoan.
In its own words, the $50,000 was for the Assembly to educate the community and create awareness on the use of Coronavirus Relief Funds. In reality, the Assembly created a low-grade website with superficial information. But $50,000 was a rounding error for the $156 million grant.
You can explore it at this link and give the Anchorage Assembly feedback at links therein:
Anchorage Assembly CARES Act website
The website shows that the municipality has spent $104 million of the $156 million it received in federal CARES Act funding. It must expend all of its funds before the end of the year.
Semi-complete details of expenditures of CARES Act funds
The information made public on the website is not exactly a fulsome explanation. Researchers must go to different places in the Municipality of Anchorage’s website to find out more. Even then, it’s unclear where the money is actually going. That level of transparency is missing.
For instance, the website says there is $14 million set aside for hospitality and restaurants, but only $4.2 million has been granted. It also says $3.49 million was still available earlier this month. A Dec. 13 deadline may have wiped out that amount, but it still doesn’t account for the entire $14 million that the Muni says it set aside.
Tier A businesses — bars — that were required to close down earlier this year, and again in December, were eligible to receive up to $30,000.
Tier B businesses, such as restaurants and breweries, were only eligible for up to $15,000, according to the Muni website.
Small businesses that were not restaurants, bars, or hotels, received $4.9 million, with $1.56 million remaining in the appropriation bucket. 529 grants were awarded.
To learn which small businesses received grants this summer, you’ll have to go to the Acting Mayor of Anchorage’s press release archive in a different location on the Muni website, where the first list was posted in October.
Can you spell mismanagement of public funds. And the left thinks this is great. I hope the assembly members feel some pain in this mess. They sure know how to deal it out.
Oh look, another example of something that could have been done for 1/10th of the cost by a privately owned business. Why is anyone even surprised anymore? Government spends too much money on sub-par projects that the public sector could do better for a fraction of the cost. This has been the case for decades. I really hope the people of Anchorage have the wherewithal to vote these morons out of power.
You gotta wonder WHO got the 50K to put together the website. Is that listed on the website? I mean, that “web developer” got more than a Tier A business all in one month by 20K dollars! What a “Merry Christmas” bonus!
It’s the munis own tech people I betcha
Several weeks ago Felix Rivera posted on a Young Democrats facebook page that he was hiring several people (from that group) to work on something related to the CARES Act. The whole thing was very secretive even when some of us asked Felix for the specifics. I wonder if the young democrats he hired produced this inefficient, unhelpful, and unprofessional website and then charged $50,000.00 for their work?
I do not think the governor should give the muni any more covid funds as they have mismanaged the current funds.
Cut-out the middle man, in this case the Muni. The governor has the mechanism in-place, just issue a direct payment to each Alaskan via the PFD apparatus. Enough with the trail building, property purchases and website contracts for cronies.
Perfectly said
On the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR) web site, we see: …SIGPR Office of Investigation has the mission to be both proactive and reactive in the prevention, detection, and investigation of fraud or corruption involving CARES Act funds and programs within its jurisdiction..
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The whistleblower telephone hotline is (202-927-7899).
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(oversight.gov/sites/default/files/oig-reports/SIGPR-Initial-Report-to-Congress-August-3-2020.pdf)
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Also, whistleblowers with inside knowledge of waste, fraud, and abuse might consider hiring a qui tam lawyer because a successful qui tam lawsuit can entitle them to a hefty percentage of recovered damages.
I noticed no anchorage, eagleriver-chugiak, or girwood churches made this list. Not that the churches ever need government help, churches should put their trust in the Lord, as well as its God who determines which churches stay open a while longer and which churches closes. Natually by natural order churches who hold the most obedient and sacrificial gathering of members and visitors faithfully tithing will have greater chance weathering through this crisis because of its own strength is stronger than another church whose members were weak in the faith of tithing. He is a fool who says there is no God. Can’t expect anything more from this assembly and acting mayor alongside her employees when they know no God and have no respect for the things of God. king artexerses of Persia had respect for a God and a people he didn’t know anything about when he sent Nehemiah back into Isreal to rebuild the Jerusalem walls. Unlike Nehemiah. I think Anchorage city hall has no employees who knows and lives for Christ to leave the same lasting positive impression Nehemiah and Daniel left on their godless king and rulers they closely served that their kings didn’t know God but they respected Him because of His Jewish servants good character.
This extreme fiscal mismanagement would all be rather funny if it were not also cruel, capricious, irresponsible and downright criminal.
When the Assembly and Berky did their first cut of theft of CARES Act money, my poorly informed math told me that they stole 60% of the $157 million. Turns out I was wrong. They got greedy and ended up with 66% (two thirds) of the total and then turned right around and demanded more citing poverty and the lack of help for local businesses. This is the functional equivalent of the Menendez Brothers begging for mercy as recently orphaned from a court trying them for shotgunning their parents in 1989. Cheers –
I love how the “Submit Your Feedback” link is broken on their website.
Giving the Assembly CARES funds is on par with giving your 10-year-old a gift card to Walmart and giving them free range of the store to load up on candy and junky toys from China.
A FULL ” Independent” AUDIT coming ? From an outside entity ?
The individuals responsible won’t have anywhere to run.
The gig is coming to an end.
I think the part of the website under Assembly Department Capacity $175,000., refers to the “additional aide hours” that Felix posted about on the Young Democrats FB page (https://assembly-cares-act-muniorg.hub.arcgis.com/pages/direct-municipal-response-programs).
Above that “Outreach and Education on Use of Cares Act Funds” $50,000. seems to refer to the website that was created. Spending $50,000 to explain how the money was spent should tell you that’s something is not right.
A perfect example of incompetent people, those who cannot manage their own lives, manifesting their personal feelings of ineptitude, by bringing everyone else down to poverty level. No winner in this game but the public sector (public pay-rolled) hypocrites who spin that loaded dice oh so well. Give yourselves a pay raise public employees, it must be very stressful, the thought of bumping into a pi$&ed-off constituent on your way browse Natural Pantry’s organic produce.
It appears that all of my recent comments have disappeared … once again. It’s very discouraging to take the time to formulate and type a nontrivial and well-thought-out comment, only to see them first post, then later disappear. Are others here experiencing this as well? And to be clear, I am NOT talking about the time lag between first posting a comment and then having it approved by Suzanne; I am referring to comments that were already up for several hours to a day or more, only to later disappear.
I feel your pain….
More questions than answers, I’m afraid. Are there no current employees of the Municipality of Anchorage capable of creating a simple spreadsheet to report the expenses used from the CARES Act money? Perhaps someone from Budget, Administration, or even Risk Management. Could the Municipality’s Audit Department not get involve to verify the numbers? Where’s the leadership of the city?
Sounds as though that website is doing exactly what it was designed to do. That is, to obfuscate where and into whose pocket those CARES funds went. Well done, Anchorage. /s
Takes money to hide money..
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