Statesman.com
Editorial Board – Published: 6:10 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011
A national audience got a look last week at Gov. Rick Perry’s fundraising prowess. Perry reported raising $17 million in the month and a half since he announced his presidential bid. The showing restored some momentum Perry lost in two debates and a lackluster showing in the Florida straw poll late last month.
But that knack for fundraising has raised both questions and eyebrows when big Perry contributors obtain state contracts. The American-Statesman’s Brenda Bell reported last week that a contract to manage more than $1 billion in federal disaster funds granted to HNTB, a firm based in Kansas City, Mo., is not performing. Bell reported that HNTB has been paid $45 million so far to process infrastructure grants. The amount the firm has collected comes close to depleting the money budgeted for administration and planning. Only 20 percent of the money released to help repair damage inflicted by Hurricanes Dolly and Ike in 2008 has been distributed.
The administrative spending is sounding alarms with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Texas General Land Office has canceled the HNTB contract.
The firm and its executives have been generous contributors to both Perry and the Republican Governors Association, a group Perry has chaired twice. The association, in return, has contributed $4 million to past Perry campaigns. HNTB was also the principal consultant on the Trans Texas Corridor, an ambitious transportation project Perry championed. The project flopped in face of overwhelming public opposition, but not before HNTB collected $109 million in engineering consultant services.
Even those inclined to give the governor every benefit of the doubt on those contracts should want to know why the hurricane recovery funds didn’t reach their intended recipients more quickly.
Perry fundraising raises questions on relief funds
