Golf, Pickleball and cooking classes: State audit reveals funds meant for emergency rent relief instead spent on entertainment
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — An Oklahoma state audit released this week revealed a non-profit the state tasked with distributing thousands in federal Emergency Rent Assistance funds instead spent a large portion of the funds on personal things, including meals and entertainment.
The entire audit report, released by State Auditor Cindy Byrd’s office on Tuesday, is very, very long.
“It's probably 200 pages,” Byrd told News 4.
She said that length is for a good reason.
“Normally we audit between $6 billion and $7 billion,” Byrd said. “This year we audited $13 billion in federal funds, largely because of COVID funds.”
The audit looked at how state agencies spent federal dollars between July 2021 and July 2022.
The audit’s findings focused heavily on questionable spending by the state’s Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES).
Byrd says it is OMES’s job to dole out funds to state agencies, and to monitor and make sure the funds get spent wisely.
But Byrd says the audit found that wasn’t happening.
“As a taxpayer, I get angry because OMES is the one agency tasked with ensuring our money is spent correctly,” Byrd said. “They failed to do that.”
She said one of the biggest failures that her office found had to do with $200 million in federal Emergency Rent Assistance funds OMES was tasked with distributing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Part of that money was given to [Communities Foundation of Oklahoma by OMES], for them to get the money to the people who needed it,” Byrd said.
Instead, the audit found leaders with Communities Foundation of Oklahoma spent a good chunk of those funds on personal things, including:
- More than $1,000 on flowers
- More than $12,000 on gift cards
- More than $18,000 on meals and entertainment, including cooking classes and visits to ‘Top Golf,’ ‘Chicken N Pickle’ and ‘Paint N Cheers.’
“The nonprofit spent money for items that were not allowed per the grant,” Byrd said. “And now we have over $20 million in question cost.”
A spokesperson for the Communities Foundation of Oklahoma told News 4 the foundation denies the audit’s conclusions, and their spending was "in strict compliance with federal guidelines and treasury guidance.”
Byrd says she stands by the audit's conclusion, which found the foundation misspent a significant amount of the federal funds OMES allotted it to help people pay rent.
According to the audit, 80 percent of the foundation's payment claims Byrd's office reviewed "included at least one expenditure for unallowable costs."
She says ultimately though, the buck ultimately stops with OMES.
“They were also supposed to perform monitoring procedures throughout the expenditure of the grant to make sure the money was spent correctly. They did not do that.”
OMES leaders responded to the audit’s findings as well, calling the Communities Foundation of Oklahoma "appropriate as a contractor" and described the foundation’s spending as "necessary expenses for the distribution of the Emergency Rental Assistance funds."