The Grant Shuffle? Our Spider Sense Started Tingling.
The Grant Shuffle? Our Spider Sense Started Tingling.
Sometimes you notice something that doesn’t quite fit.
Maybe it’s nothing.
Maybe it’s coincidence.
Or maybe it’s just pattern recognition doing what pattern recognition does.
Over the past several weeks, we’ve started hearing from organizations that have provided disability respite services for years who say their funding was reduced or eliminated.
At the same time, we’ve noticed grants being awarded in categories where, according to conversations we’ve had, some recipients either don’t currently offer those services or weren’t even aware of the specific program they had received funding for.
Now, before anyone gets excited…
No, we’re not saying anything improper happened.
We’re saying it raised enough questions that we started asking more.
Because that’s kind of our thing.
The Question for IDHS Illinois Department of Human Services
If organizations with existing infrastructure lose funding…
…and organizations receiving funding don’t yet have the infrastructure in place…
…what happens to the people who rely on those services during that transition?
Who fills the gap?
Is there a gap?
Or is there an explanation that simply isn’t obvious from the outside?
Those are questions worth asking.
So We Started Calling.
We’ve spent the last few days making phone calls.
Some conversations left us scratching our heads.
More than one organization told us they either don’t currently provide the service they were awarded funding for or weren’t familiar with the specific program.
Again, that doesn’t prove anything.
Organizations can absolutely expand services, build programs, or subcontract work.
But if that’s what’s happening, we’d like to understand how those decisions were made.
So We Did What F’nAround Does.
We started filing FOIAs.
We’re requesting:
Every applicant.
Every score.
Every reviewer score sheet.
Every evaluation rubric.
The complete rankings.
The identities of successful and unsuccessful applicants.
The point totals that determined who received funding.
If the process was fair, transparent, and followed the published criteria, the records should show exactly that.
If they don’t…
Well…
We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Why We’re Curious
Illinois has been here before.
Many readers probably remember the cannabis licensing controversy, where litigation revealed problems with the scoring process, including allegations involving grading procedures and conflicts of interest. Those events raised significant public questions about how competitive state awards were evaluated.
That history doesn’t mean anything similar happened here.
But it does mean transparency matters.
Especially when taxpayer dollars and services for people with disabilities are involved.
We’ll Follow the Evidence.
Maybe we’ll discover there was a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Maybe we’ll discover the highest-scoring organizations won exactly as they should have.
Great.
We’ll happily report that.
Or maybe we’ll find something else.
Either way, we’ll publish the records.
Because at F’nAround, we prefer documents over rumors.
We’ll keep you updated as the FOIA responses start coming in.
Until then…
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and doesn’t give a duck…
…it might just be Illinois polititricks.
Or it might just be a goose having a really weird day.
Let’s all be patient and see what the records say.
But if we learned anything so far… when F’nAround starts knocking file cabinets start locking and the people who talk shit about F’nAround usually do because we have receipts of their crimes.
