VT Dept of Health Terrorism Funds Audit, Part II

TIMES ARGUS - MONTPELIER — The state's hospital association mishandled and misspent money meant to prepare for possible biological terrorism in the state — and the Vermont Department of Health let the fiscal missteps happen — according to an audit expected to be released today.

The review by State Auditor Thomas Salmon found several troubling problems in the handling and use of as much as $900,000 in federal biological terrorism preparation grants that went through the health department and were spent by the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems.

In one case, more than $300 was spent on a meal for four at Aquitaine, a French bistro in Boston's South End, including $76 on drinks. State employees in a similar circumstance would be limited to spending $18.15 per meal, but similar limits did not seem to be followed in the use of the bioterrorism money.

Audit finds bio-terror funds were misspent
August 24, 2007 by Louis Porter, in the Barre/Montpelier Times Argus

VT Dept of Health Terrorism Funds Audit

Where and how does the DoH spend its money? The audit has been underway since April, but the story was in today's Free Press.

"We've got some important lessons to learn from this audit," Moffatt said. "I think the state auditor's office is helping us work through those lessons. The most important thing is we, the Health Department, take very seriously the responsibility for the strict monitoring of these precious resources, be they state or federal." ...

There is some question about appropriate accounting of how the money was spent," Gibbs said.

What lessons? What's going on?

Thabault said that since 2004 the Health Department had received $5.7 million in grants as part of the National Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program.

This money is given to second-tier funded sub-recipients

Recently there was the announcement that the tech assistance program for Town Health Officers was being cut from the departmental budget. These programs are crucial to the smooth running of public health programs in smaller cities and rural towns.