State auditor wants to set aside ARPA money to ensure pandemic relief programs are not exploited

The windfall of billions of dollars of federal pandemic aid sent to Massachusetts represents a significant opportunity to improve the lives of residents, but also creates a situation ripe for waste, fraud and abuse, state watchdogs said Tuesday.

Auditor Suzanne Bump and Inspector General Glenn Cunha made their case to lawmakers Tuesday morning that they should set aside some American Rescue Plan Act money into a reserve account to fund audits, investigations and other oversight activities to make sure that the state's $5.3 billion ARPA money is not wasted.

"The urgency of getting relief dollars into the hands of state and local governments, businesses and individuals necessitated the lowering of some of the normal barriers that regulate eligibility for government contracting and relief programs. Through these openings flooded identity thieves and fraudsters," Bump told Ways and Means Committee members holding their final planned hearing on how to spend ARPA aid.

The auditor said her office is unable to devote staff exclusively to auditing pandemic relief programs "despite the high level of risk associated with these programs" because no funding is available specifically for that purpose. The reserve fund she and Cunha proposed Tuesday would also allow the attorney general and state comptroller to access funds for pandemic relief oversight.

"The reserve fund that we're proposing is modeled on what the Legislature created for addressing the Hinton Lab drug testing scandal. That fund enabled multiple parties to access the funding that they needed in order to conduct their respective investigations," Bump said. "We believe it to be a workable model that would support our efforts in the current situation."