Tom Warne Report, 4 May 2012
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Illinois executive inspector says the state transportation department paid $3.1 million in road funding toward a summer jobs program in Chicago under pressure from Gov. Rod Blagojevich during his administration. State transportation Secretary Ann Schneider says she approved the payments as Blagojevich’s Transportation Department finance director under urging from the governor’s office for rapid payment of the $3.1 million to five nonprofits participating in the jobs program.
She said she approved the checks from the state’s highway fund despite proof that participants were performing ineligible, non-transportation-related tasks such as rearranging furniture and working at golf courses. The $7.8 million program was part of Blagojevich’s response to an increase in Chicago shootings in 2008. The governor’s Department of Human Resources was in charge of the program and used IDOT’s road fund to pay for it.
“We were trying to slow it down to make sure there were commonplace safeguards in place, but there was a great deal of pressure to get this done in a very short timeframe,” Schneider said in an interview with the Associated Press. Auditors agreed to a repayment of $644,000 – largely from unpaid payroll taxes -, saying that while much more money was likely misspent, proving it would mean long legal fights over individual timesheets.