COLUMBUS (AP) - A contractor getting paid $3,500 a day to oversee faith-based initiatives for needy Ohio families spent some of the federal welfare money on downtown parking, big-screen televisions and a glowing report on the job it was doing, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Gov. Ted Strickland last week asked both the state inspector general and the Department of Job and Family Services to investigate the Governor's Office on Faith-based and Community Initiatives and its $2 million contract with We Care America, the Dayton Daily News reported.
"We've opened an investigation and we'll be reviewing their contracts," Inspector General Tom Charles said Friday, declining to comment further.
The office's former director resigned before the election, and Strickland replaced the rest of the staff in January. The questions were prompted by an internal review by the new staff, said Keith Dailey, Strickland's spokesman.
The faith-based office was created in 2003 to oversee churches and community organizations that get public money to help the needy.
The state set aside $22 million over two years from a surplus in federal welfare funds for a project to strengthen families in July 2005. That September, We Care America, based in Lansdowne, Va., won the contract to manage the project.
The newspaper reviewed invoices, e-mails and other documents related to the contract, and found expenses including $15,000 to buy and install 50-inch televisions in the Columbus and Virginia offices, $125 monthly downtown parking fees and $6,000 to commission a report that said Ohio's faith-based programs should be an example for other states.
Krista Sisterhen, the former director of the faith-based office, said Saturday the agency worked closely with state financial overseers. She left in January and now coordinates faith-based initiatives for the Columbus-based regional office of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
Sisterhen questioned the price tag on the TVs. The office was trying to set up two-way television technology for training for the organizations doing work under the grants, which would save money on travel, she said. The two-way connection never worked, however.
Sisterhen also defended the consultant's report, saying she didn't think the reviewers were unduly influenced by the payment.
"It is reasonable to commission independent, third-party evaluation of the work that you do," she said.
We Care was one of seven bidders for the contract in 2005. Four of them met the requirement to have experience in three areas: helping former inmates re-enter society, marriage counseling and providing mentors to troubled youth.
The Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies met those requirements and submitted a bid at a lower price than We Care - but was rejected because it lacked experience developing Web sites, the newspaper said.
We Care later was allowed to subcontract the Internet work, said Phil Cole, the Ohio association's executive director.
"We had experience in all those other parts and we're in Ohio," he said.
Sisterhen defended the selection of We Care.
"They submitted a proposal that won, and they performed in accordance with the plan they outlined," Sisterhen said.
State Rep. John White, a suburban Dayton Republican who led the effort to create the faith-based office in 2003, said he's confident the office spent money properly.
"I hope and pray everything was as transparent as everyone thought, because clearly this office has done some good," he said.
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