Billions of dollars in federal Coronavirus Relief Funds are pouring into Ohio promising to help taxpayers deal with the aftermath of the economic crisis.
At the same time, new concerns are being raised over exactly how the cash will be spent and how expenditures will be reported by entities receiving an unprecedented amount of money.
"I think it's crucial," says Rea Hederman Jr. with the Buckeye Institute, an Ohio non-profit think tank,"that we know how this money is being spent."
So far, Ohio has received $2.2 billion of $4.5 billion allocated to the state.
Hederman is calling on both state and local governments to report expenditures on public websites to ensure transparency.
"So in the aftermath," says Hederman, "we have a way to trace the spending to make sure the money was properly spent and not on somebody's pork project they've had on the back of their mind for five or ten years."
Here's where some of the money is going:
Senator Sherrod Brown helped create a Special Inspector General for Oversight of Coronavirus Recovery Funds.
"We want to know who is getting the money, when it was spent, how it was spent--we want a report back from them," says Brown.
Additional funding also includes:
"I'm very concerned about oversight," said Brown.
"Congress authorized $2 trillion that could be leveraged into $4 trillion and that's a lot of money to award to people who are deserving," said Brown.
