Monroe County responds to audit on mismanagement of COVID relief money
MONROE COUNTY, N.Y. — The results are in on Monroe County’s audit on misuse of COVID relief funds by the Community Resource Collective.
The audit uncovered numerous instances of waste, fraud and abuse.
County Executive Adam Bello says programs that misused American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funds have been paused pending further investigation, and the county will follow through on recommendations from the audit.
These include adding more staff to the rescue team plan; working with financial professionals to calculate costs more accurately; and increasing the budget for audit services.
Bello also wants to add more checks and balances to protect county resources.
“It is difficult to create a bulletproof system that will prevent people who intend on defrauding a system at the outset of a program from doing that. But what we can do is catch it quickly and hold those people accountable,” Bello said Friday.
The county also is preparing to make changes after a program designed to distribute ARPA funding mismanaged more than $200,000. The Neighborhood Collaborative Project was supposed to give out $7 million over several years. It ended up distributing less than $1 million of that.
Bello says the NCP was shut down when the audit process begin earlier this year.
Now, the county will add staff to the rescue plan team — and will continue to work with an exchange group to ensure costs are calculated correctly.
“To anyone thinking they can get away with defrauding Monroe County taxpayers, we will never stop in our efforts to uncover waste, fraud and abuse. … We will not let the intentions of a few bad actors jeopardize the progress that we are making in our commitment to help those who need it the most,” Bello said.
The rest of the money will go to other programs already approved by the county Legislature.