Stimulus transparency: Nonprofit group declines to show how it spent taxpayer money

Stimulus transparency: Nonprofit group declines to show how it spent taxpayer money
April 30, 2011|By Kristen Schorsch and Julie Wernau, Tribune reporters

With $5 billion in stimulus money for weatherization projects at stake, federal officials called for an unprecedented level of transparency to ensure citizens knew how their tax dollars would be spent.

It remains a big secret in Illinois.

In denying a Tribune request for records about its contractors and how it has spent millions of dollars, the nonprofit Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County said it wasn't a "public body" as defined in the state's Freedom of Information Act.

CEDA had $201 million in revenue for the 2009 budget year, according to its most recent annual report. About 96 percent was from government grants.
Terry Pastika, executive director of the Citizen Advocacy Center in Elmhurst, said CEDA's response points to a major loophole in the FOIA law, one that the center has been pushing to close.

Many nonprofits essentially perform a government function with public money but don't have to abide by transparency rules, she said.

"There's no accountability," Pastika said. "There's no disclosure. A lot of times the public officials voting to allocate money aren't aware of how the money is being spent."

After CEDA refused to release information, the Tribune requested similar records, including names and addresses of contractors and invoices and receipts, from the state Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, which oversees the Illinois Weatherization Assistance Program.

The state provided contractors' names and addresses after five months, but not invoices and receipts, making it impossible to fully assess how the money was spent.

The Tribune requested similar records from the U.S. Department of Energy. The request, made in November, still wasn't filled Friday.

A look at recovery.gov, a federal website designed for taxpayers to track how stimulus dollars have been spent, revealed little more. CEDA contractors were listed, but there's no information about how much money they have received or how they've spent it.

The information is self-reported by agencies that receive money. Ed Pound, spokesman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which manages the website, said recovery.gov provides more details about the stimulus program than can be found anywhere else.