Insert your favorite cliche about being shocked.
The state of Texas has quietly outsourced the management of more than $1 billion in federal disaster recovery funds to an engineering firm with close ties to Gov. Rick Perry’s administration, paying the Kansas City, Mo. -based firm HNTB $45 million so far to process infrastructure grants for communities damaged by Hurricanes Dolly and Ike.
The company’s billings threaten to exhaust the amount budgeted for administrative and planning costs, while only 20 percent of the first round of money released to Texas to aid disaster recovery grants has been spent three years after the storms. Based on the state’s original timeline, at least half those projects should have been completed by now, federal officials say.
The problems have caused officials with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to voice alarm and begin quarterly reviews in an attempt to get the program back on track.
Hiring a private firm to handle what has been termed the largest public works project in the state’s history is unusual, federal officials say.
[…]
[HNTB] was the principal consultant for Perry’s first — and largest — pet project as governor, the proposed $184 billion Trans-Texas Corridor, which succumbed to widespread public opposition in 2010. Since 2008, the Texas Department of Transportation has paid HNTB $109 million for engineering consulting services, according to records with the state comptroller. Ray Sullivan, communications director for Perry’s presidential campaign, has been a lobbyist for HNTB.
The firm is one of 139 major “crossover donors” identified by Texans for Public Justice who have contributed substantial sums to Perry and the Republican Governors Association, which Perry has twice chaired. According to campaignmoney.com, HNTB and its executives have given more than $500,000 to the association, which has sent $4 million to Perry’s political campaigns.
Business as usual. I’m so inured to this that the only aspect of it that’s making me raise an eyebrow is that this was an out of state firm. What, there’s no one in Texas good enough for Rick Perry to funnel government money to? I don’t know what else to say. Read the whole thing, and kudos to the Statesman for putting it together. Forrest Wilder, who’s written before about our disastrous hurricane relief efforts, has more.