Just kidding of course.
However, it occurred to me that trying to buy the Brooklyn Bridge might not be too far beyond Governor Kim Reynolds’ range for bad money management. Particularly if she was told it could benefit a big Republican donor.
You see my governor has a rather poor track record when it comes to COVID-related spending and funding relief.
WHAT’S A FEW MILLION TAXPAYER DOLLARS
Remember in 2020 when hospitals were desperate for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)? Well Governor Reynolds awarded a $1.32 million no-bid contract to a t-shirt manufacturer in Des Moines for 1 million masks. The business was the Go-To for Iowa Republican campaign apparel and the owner, David Greenspon, had recently given a nice political donation to the Republican Party. But at least he openly admitted that his Chinese supply chain (for t-shirts) could only deliver non-medical grade PPE. In fact, according to a newspaper article at the time, a total of $7 million was awarded.
And that was not all of it. As part of an investigation by Iowa State Auditor Rob Sand, investigators found that a total of $45 million in COVID-related contracts was awarded from mid-March through April of 2020. By May, Reynolds was very proud of the fact that she had rebuilt our stockpile and that counties had stopped making requests - because governor, it WASN’T WHAT THEY NEEDED! All that non-medical grade PPE will be awesome though when the next pandemic strikes or if we get a major surge from the current one.
SHE HEARD ABOUT THIS AWESOME THING
Not too long after that, Reynolds awarded a $26 million no-bid contract to TestUtah, a venture consortium, with a partner that had developed a COVID test. As outlined in my earlier post, Reynolds learned of this from a guy who knew a guy and stated that she was very impressed by TestUtah’s presentation. Thus, despite numerous red flags around TestUtah, a Utah doctor calling TestUtah a potential public health disaster, significant problems when it was introduced in Iowa (see here and here and here), and an SEC investigation into TestUtah’s stock price rise, Reynolds continued to defend the decision. Of course, there was nothing else she could do because the contract she signed had no “out” clause, in other words, we owed the money no matter the outcome. And bonus, she could do a solid for her fellow Republican governor from Utah.
GET BACK TO WORK YOU SLACKERS
The mixed Republican message on the pandemic is “it’s not real”, but if it were real “it’s not that bad”, and no matter how bad it is “the impact on business profits is a worse problem than that whole infectious diseases life and death thing”, and besides “it’s basically over now”, and anyone still struggling should just “shut up and get a job”, and to make sure you do “we Republican governors are going to reduce those unemployment benefits back to below poverty level”.
Kim Reynolds was one of those Republican governors who turned down extended unemployment benefits funding that was part of the American Relief Act (see here and here). The Republican handbook after all says you have to shaft workers if you want to keep your membership card.
GET BACK TO SCHOOL YOU SLACKERS
The pandemic exposed a lot of shortcomings in this country, including a lack of preparedness for the current pandemic and those yet to come. One critical element in addressing community spread is widespread testing, tracking and tracing.
Reynolds sent back the money from the American Relief Act that that was to be used for COVID testing in schools saying we didn’t need it (see above re Iowa’s testing program) and besides, we had a state surplus. Of course, the surplus arose after a Republican Party driven tax cut for the wealthy that left us with huge deficits which were taken care of by huge cuts in public spending. And of course, don’t expect Governor Reynolds to actually spend any of our surplus on public needs, like our schools, cause that’s just not her jam, when instead, taxpayer dollars could go to supporting private schools.
So now she and our Republican controlled legislature have prohibited mask and vaccination requirements, and of course, there will be no routine testing program in our schools — testing will only occur when it is clear infection and exposure have occurred. Hint, that is too little, too late. What could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, children could die.
YET ANOTHER QUESTIONABLE CONTRACT
So, the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress initially dropped the ball on the COVID-related eviction moratorium that expired on July 31. Fortunately, that was fixed, at least for a short while.
In this respect, Biden has indicated that one of the next steps in dealing with this is to see why only about 10% of the $46 billion in COVID relief funding that was designated for helping renters has been spent and get it out there.
Iowa has only distributed about 2% of the $195 million in renter aid we were given. According to Debi Durham, Director of the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) and the Iowa Finance Authority (IFA):
...she takes full responsibility for what she described as the premature launch of a program that was supposed to provide immediate emergency rental and utility assistance to Iowans affected by the pandemic.
But then again:
"I would tell you the majority of it is not our fault," Durham said.
Nope, it’s that darn government in Washington. They gave us the local control we always demand, but it’s their fault we failed because they didn’t tell us exactly how to do things.
The failure of course might also have something to do with the state contracting with Unqork, Inc. It seems the state contracted with yet another venture capital firm, this one located in New York City. Wonder how that came about? Who knew a guy who knew a guy?
- The CEO and Founder of Unqork Inc., is Gary Hoberman, former CIO of Metlife.
- The product is no-code software which allows for website development without any coding needed. Think of it like software that allows you to select a pre-coded feature and simply add it to your website.
- Iowa apparently spent $880,000 on this software which is still not meeting our needs.
- The most common problem with no or low code platforms is that, for more complex use cases, they are too rigid and restrictive to produce the desired results. Basically, think of it as you want to do brain surgery and you buy a package of medical instruments. Whereas the package has lots of instruments that are good for surgery, it is missing some really important instruments you need for operating on the brain.
“They promised us the sun, moon and stars … but they couldn’t deliver”, Durham said of the New York contractor, Unqork Inc. However, Durham did say the company has been good about making necessary changes as the program has taken shape.
How sweet! Are we there yet?
And then there’s this:
But the money Congress approved in December in an extension of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act came with no actual mandate that it be spent on rental assistance, and some states have been using the dollars in other ways.
The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency received $150 million to help renters but returned about $96 million to the state treasury, which used it to plug holes in the state’s public safety budget, the Associated Press and Center for Public Integrity found in a recent joint investigation.
Florida spent 60% of its allotment and Montana less than 20% before sending the remainder to their treasuries. New York reported allocating just under half.
Don’t be surprised if Governor Reynolds fails low income and unemployed Iowans yet again, takes the money they were supposed to get and runs.
The governor’s race is in 2022. The media had best not let all of her failures go down the memory hole and may the majority of those who show up at the polls (I will be there) please save us from more of the same!