At least the attorneys are busy

Once again Illinois provides a view into government's use of your hard earned money.  The 4/30/12 issue of the Chicago Tribune contains the following article:

Summer youth job money misspent on community organizing, golf course work

 Everyone's favorite Governor Rod Blagojevich was unable to convince the state legislature to fund a public works project that included a youth job program.  So Blagojevich created the program using the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) budget.  IDOT receives the majority of its funding from the gasoline tax. This gas tax money is set aside into a trust fund that is to be used for transportation projects only.  The summer youth jobs program clearly does not qualify for IDOT funding.  To make matters worse the $7.8 million that was diverted from IDOT was not put to any productive purpose.  The following are some of the details from the above news article:

 The Office of the Executive Inspector General review concluded the $7 million program in which Blagojevich promised to hire up to 10,000 youths for eight-week jobs ended up costing $7.8 million and resulted in only 3,500 youths getting jobs.

The report said transportation officials conducted an audit of the jobs program and findings were referred to Attorney General Lisa Madigan. In December 2010, Madigan’s office “responded to the referral stating that the matter as the subject of an active federal investigation” and would not take action, the report said.

The report said five Chicago nonprofit social service agencies that deal with minority, ethnic and disadvantaged youths administered the program for more than 100 service providers, including neighborhood churches.
Though transportation officials had questioned making a second round of payments because of “red flags” about the jobs workers had performed, one unidentified agency official said “there was considerable pressure from… (Blagojevich’s office) to just keep this program going,” the report said.
An unidentified top transportation official interviewed by the state executive inspector general’s office was quoted as calling the program “a disaster” and “thrown together at the last minute.”

It appears that this has indeed become a jobs program.  Of course the jobs are held by government inspectors and attorneys.