by Corinne Murdock | Sep 12, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
An audit revealed that the Arizona Department of Veterans Services (ADVS) failed to fulfill a number of key responsibilities. Major issues included a mismanagement of around $88,000 in funds, as well as violations of conflict-of-interest and open meeting laws. The Arizona Auditor General Lindsey Perry published the report at the end of last month.
Department and Commission met some statutory objectives and purposes, such as providing benefits counseling assistance to veterans and policy advice to the Governor, but Department did not comply with several Veterans’ Donations Fund grant award and monitoring requirements or use Gold Star Family revenues to maintain the Enduring Freedom Memorial and the Commission did not comply with some conflict-of-interest and open meeting law requirements.
The audit found that ADVS had accrued around $43,000 in funds meant to update the Enduring Freedom Memorial, which recognizes Arizona’s service members killed or injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom. According to the report, none of the funds were used. The memorial hadn’t even been updated to reflect all service members’ names since 2013: 3 years after the memorial was established.
Just before the COVID-19 outbreak, State Senator Kelly Townsend (R-Mesa) issued a press release indicating that ADVS wasn’t updating the Enduring Freedom Memorial. Townsend said that the families contacted her in the fall of 2019 about the issue. In response, she pushed for language in the budget that would offer more fund sources for ADVS to update the memorial.
Townsend remarked to AZ Free News that this audit confirmed the Gold Star Families’ suspicions. She added that she was grateful that the budget included her language to provide more funds for the memorial.
“One of the key findings of a just-completed audit of the Arizona Department of Veterans’ Services by the Auditor General confirms that the Department had not used more than $43,000 in Gold Star Family specialty license plate revenues to maintain the Enduring Freedom Memorial,” said Townsend. “Fortunately, I worked hard to make sure language was included in the budget to allow the Department of Administration to use money in the State Monument and Memorial Repair Fund to update the memorial.”
The remaining $45,000 that ADVS mismanaged came from uncollected payments from the Arizona American Legion. ADVS rendered has given veterans’ benefits counseling services to the legion since 2014. According to the audit, ADVS failed to collect $45,000 in payments from 2019.
The audit also found that ADVS made a faulty contract with the Arizona American Legion. ADVS agreed to an indefinite contract, State Procurement Code limits state agency contracts to 5 years unless the department head includes a written justification for an extension. Furthermore, the contract required legion payments to be remitted to the Veterans’ Donation Fund rather than the State General Fund, though the legion payments didn’t qualify by statute as gifts, contributions, or other public donations.
The audit also found that ADVS violated conflict-of-interest law by failing to have all committee members complete a conflict-of-interest disclosure form, and failed to have employees and public offices annually update their conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. ADVS also reportedly failed to offer a process to avoid and remediate any potential conflicts of interest.
As for open meeting law violations, the audit revealed that 4 of the 8 meetings they sampled failed to have minutes posted within 3 working days, and 1 meeting which wasn’t posted about 24 hours in advance.
In summary, the auditor general recommended that ADVS comply with the laws on grant management, conflicts of interest, and open meetings; spend the $43,000 in Gold Star Family specialty license plate revenues to maintain the Enduring Freedom Memorial; and collect the $45,000 owed by the Arizona American Legion while reviewing the need for that contract.
At length, the audit did note a number of other issues. These included inadequate safeguarding and exceeding award limits of relief fund monies; noncompliance with legal requirements for awarding and monitoring large and small Veterans’ Donations Fund grants; failure to retain required, proper supporting documentation for some transactions; and noncompliance with Arizona Strategic Enterprise Technology Office (ASET)-required information technology (IT) policies and procedures.
The audit did commend ADVS for assisting nearly 40,000 beneficiaries in receiving around $56.6 million average in monthly compensation and benefits.
According to the state, Arizona has around 504,000 veterans.
ADVS agreed with the audit findings, and indicated they would comply with the auditor general’s recommendations.
Read the entire report here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 12, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The Pima County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday that unvaccinated employees will pay up to $1,500 more in insurance fees – but unvaccinated illegal immigrants with COVID-19 will be given a $2 million quarantine shelter, without facing any penalties for their vaccination status. The supervisors voted for the vaccination disincentive 4-1; only Supervisor Steve Christy voted against it.
Christy argued that this disincentive was punishing people arbitrarily, pointing out that his fellow supervisors are choosing to punish the unvaccinated while ignoring others with significant comorbidities. He pointed out that there are other employees beyond the unvaccinated that present as much or more of a financial burden to the county health care system due to their health conditions.
“[I]f we’re going to penalize employees who don’t take the vaccine because if they fall sick it will cost more on the county’s health care system, is there going to be an examination of all employees with other ailments or sicknesses that cause expenses to our health care system, such as obesity or high blood pressure or diabetes?” asked Christy. “This is a discriminatory segregation of those who have the right to choose what type of procedures they want with their own conscience and their own decision with their medical practitioner – to coerce them with monetary penalties is wrong, and it is definitely […] unconstitutional.”
Following Christy’s remarks, Supervisor Adelita Grijalva quickly motioned to vote on the item. Some of the arguments in favor of the vaccination disincentive focused on the perceived duty that employees owed one another in limiting COVID-19 spread.
Many of the citizens who issued public comment during the meeting expressed their opposition to the vaccine disincentive. They cited the lack of long-term studies on the vaccine, as well as the need to honor religious exemptions and personal medical needs.
Pima County salaries range from as low as $15 an hour ($2,400 a month), to nearly $140 an hour ($22,400 a month).
As for the $2 million to shelter illegal immigrants, the board approved the use of those Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds to acquire a local Red Roof Motel with nearly 180 rooms.
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry explained in a letter that this expenditure was necessary due to other shelters reaching COVID-19 capacity. According to Huckelberry, over 8,400 asylum seekers have been processed since March. Of those, just under 300 individuals were COVID-positive (three percent of the total), while nearly 1,800 received the COVID-19 vaccine.
Yet, Huckelberry emphasized that it would be necessary to obtain additional housing to stop any spread.
“The key to ensuring COVID-19 does not spread significantly in congregate housing is to provide individual housing during the quarantine period,” stated Huckelberry. “A three percent infection rate among the population at risk is not significant.”
Last month, the supervisors voted to give employees a $300 bonus and three extra vacation days as an incentive to get vaccinated. As a result, over 2,140 additional employees got vaccinated. Around 4,430 employees are vaccinated – 66 percent of their workforce.
The earliest that these vaccine disincentives could go into place would be October 1.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 11, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Friday, Maricopa County issued an explanatory statement of two claimed fraudulent votes outlined in a new “ghost votes” theory challenging the integrity of the 2020 election. Failed state representative candidate and “Stop the Steal” leader Liz Harris led the investigation, reportedly executed by thousands of volunteers.
These were just two claims of hundreds of thousands made in Harris’s report. The grassroots effort claimed that just over 173,100 votes were “lost or missing,” meaning that the voters never saw records from the county that their mail-in vote was counted, and that nearly 96,400 mail-in votes were cast by voters who didn’t match the associated residential address or who had moved from the address prior to October 2020 – these Harris called “ghost votes.”
Maricopa County officials explained that they investigated two of the purported “ghost vote” addresses personally. They were able to identify the first address as an existing single-family home built in 2005 and located in Goodyear. According to their investigation, four registered voters resided in the home, three of whom voted by mail in the November election.
As for the second address listed by Harris, Maricopa officials explained that the voter in question had reportedly requested their ballot at a temporary address: the site of a formerly functional mobile home that they’d voted from in the 2016 election. The site in question held mobile homes through part of 2020 before the lot was cleared.
As for the remainder of the information, Maricopa County said that they were unable to conduct a more expansive investigation because Harris wouldn’t provide them with the information she’d gathered. The officials noted that they attempted to contact Harris multiple times about her report, but were unable to connect with her.
“The integrity of election and voter registration data is central to the mission of our Office to serve everyone who calls Maricopa County home. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office have repeatedly asked Ms. Harris to provide details that support the findings of her report,” explained the office. “While we investigate any and all allegations of wrongdoing made, we cannot do so without credible evidence being provided. To date, Ms. Harris has refused to provide the Recorder’s Office or the Assessor’s Office with the kind of information we can use to conduct a full and thorough investigation into the claims made in her report.”
Read Harris’s full report here.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 11, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) never recused himself from voting on the Biden Administration’s Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) pick, David Chipman. This, despite their lengthy relationship.
Kelly hired Chipman in 2016 to his gun control organization, Giffords, which he founded in 2013 with his wife, former Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. Chipman has served as their senior policy advisor for over five and a half years. The description of his role that he posted on his LinkedIn even makes a point to mention Kelly as the co-founder of Giffords.
“Giffords is a gun violence prevention organization established by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly[,] a retired United States Navy combat veteran, test pilot, and NASA astronaut,” wrote Chipman. “Giffords advocates for sensible gun laws, policies and investments that make communities safer. Areas of specific interest include strengthening and expanding the background check system, combating domestic violence homicides, enacting comprehensive laws against gun trafficking and dedicating funding for research about the causes and impact of gun violence.” (emphasis added)
That description of Kelly wasn’t copied and pasted from Giffords, or anywhere else online. That was something that Chipman likely crafted entirely on his own, because that exact phrasing is unique to his LinkedIn description.
Kelly’s organization advocated heavily for Chipman’s approval.
In response to this relationship, State Representative Quan Nguyen (R-Prescott Valley) called for Kelly to recuse himself from the Chipman vote. He published an official proclamation in the Arizona House that received the support of Republican leadership at the federal level like Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ-05).
Kelly never got the chance to vote on Chipman: the White House announced Thursday that they were withdrawing Chipman as their nominee.
In an explanatory statement, President Joe Biden blamed Republicans for their decision to withdraw Chipman. He praised Chipman as a seasoned leader in the ATF and the choice advocate for safer gun policies. Biden claimed that Republicans were intent on using gun crime as an unserious political talking point, and that they were against “commonsense measures” like universal background checks (UBCs).
Biden also alluded that Republicans were against funding police because they opposed his American Rescue Plan, which he says gave cities and states $350 billion for police. The Biden Administration has highlighted the funds as a means of reversing the sharp increase in gun violence that occurred nationwide throughout the pandemic.
Kelly has yet to put out any statements on his relationship with Chipman.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Sep 10, 2021 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Governor Doug Ducey wasted no time to respond to President Joe Biden’s latest COVID-19 update given Thursday evening, calling the vaccine mandate for private employers “big government overreach,” “dictatorial,” and “un-American.” The governor indicated that court challenges would be sure to follow in the coming days. Ducey promised to push back against Biden’s orders.
Ducey tweeted the following while Biden was still announcing his executive order:
“This is exactly the kind of big government overreach we have tried so hard to prevent in Arizona — now the Biden-Harris administration is hammering down on private businesses and individual freedoms in an unprecedented and dangerous way,” wrote Ducey. “This will never stand up in court. This dictatorial approach is wrong, un-American and will do far more harm than good. How many workers will be displaced? How many kids kept out of classrooms? How many businesses fined? The vaccine is and should be a choice. We must and will push back.”
Biden announced that any employers with over 100 employees must require COVID-19 vaccinations or implement weekly testing. The White House estimated that this will impact over 80 million workers.
Furthermore, those employers must give paid time off (PTO) to those employees who choose to get vaccinated. That PTO rule will come from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) use of the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS).
Federal employees will no longer have the opt-out for Biden’s vaccine mandate. Those employed by or contracting with the federal government must now get vaccinated. Additionally, any health care workers whose employers participate in Medicare and Medicaid must be vaccinated. A reported 50,000 providers will be affected – over 17 million health care workers.
Biden also announced that the TSA would increase the fine amount for those who don’t mask up while traveling.
The full list of all the new COVID-19 policies are available here.
As Press Secretary Jen Psaki explained, these new measures are part of the Biden Administration’s “Six Prong Plan” to overcome COVID-19. Psaki promised that these initial updated mandates were only the first to come in a series of new orders over the next few weeks.
The six prong plan is as follows: 1) get more people vaccinated; 2) prepare for booster [shots]; 3) keeping kids safe and in school; 4) increasing testing and masking; 5) protecting our economy; and 6) strengthening our surge response.
Preceding his announcement of updated COVID policies, Biden made a number of claims. He also took aim at elected leadership that opposed mandatory vaccinations or masking.
Biden claimed the COVID-19 vaccine was “safe [and] effective.” He didn’t elaborate on what his standards are for “effective”; the CDC has clarified that the vaccine isn’t 100 percent effective.
“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” stated Biden. “And it’s caused by the fact that despite America having unprecedented and successful vaccination. Despite the fact that, for almost five months, three vaccines have been available in almost 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans that have failed to get the shot.”
The president asserted that certain, unnamed elected officials were “actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19.”
“Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they’re ordering mobile morgues for the unvaccinated that have died from COVID in their communities,” said Biden. “This is totally unacceptable.”
Biden also claimed that having a 75 percent vaccination rate in the country wasn’t enough. According to the Mayo Clinic, it would take about 70 percent of the population who have recovered from COVID-19 to “halt the pandemic.” They didn’t offer a clear estimate of how many individuals would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
However, the CDC stated in a study published last month that vaccination offers a higher protection than prior COVID-19 infection.
Watch Biden’s address here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB1Awuu_DGc
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
