Oklahoma Lacks Funding for Stimulus Spending Audits

By Kirsten McIntyre, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The governor has a council in place to keep track of the money, but the federal government is also asking for audits. The problem is they weren't funded, leaving Oklahoma officials wondering how to pay for them.

It's no longer just a matter of how much the state is getting, but when the funding will arrive.

Public schools are getting $287 million to spend on special education as well as programs for disadvantaged students.

Local school districts have been told to expect about half of their money by the end of March.

Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday Oklahoma will receive more than $1.1 million dollars to provide meals for low income seniors. With the money beginning to roll in, many people want to know what's being done to make sure it's well spent.

"There's a lot of reporting requirements probably somewhere the largest in fed history," said State Auditor Steve Burrage.

With Oklahoma set to receive $2.6 billion in stimulus money, Burrage's office has been given the task of performing real time audits to prevent any waste.

"I'm telling every entity that's going to receive this money to number one, know where it came from; number two, know where you spent it and why and then document, document, and document," Burrage said.

Washington is still in the process of letting state agencies know exactly what the requirements are when it comes to spending stimulus money. The president said he doesn't want any money misspent and Governor Henry has said the same thing.

"The governor wants the State of Oklahoma to be an example how you spend this money right in conformance with the guidelines of the federal and he does not what us to be an example how to do it wrong," Burrage said.

The audits will cost money and that's the problem.

"They did provide funding to other states, but states like Oklahoma, as you see, happen a lot in Washington," said Scott Meacham, Oklahoma State Treasurer. "Kind of lost out in that."

Meacham is the money man at the state capitol. With the state budget being tight, he doesn't want to be forced to pay for something else.

"You give us monies in these pots that doesn't help us pay for the auditing expenses that you're also put on us because we can't borrow money from those pots to the auditing expense," Meacham said.

The state auditor has asked the Oklahoma legislature for a budget increase of $3 million to cover the audits, but he's also hoping the federal government will come through with funding.

The auditor is also meeting with state agencies individually to explain to them examples of good spending, verses bad spending.