'Tennessee on Me,' Metro Nashville Schools COVID contract top conservative group's annual Pork Report
What do airline vouchers, a $1 billion incentive package and a COVID-19 website have in common?
All are featured in the Beacon Center of Tennessee's 16th annual "pork report," released Wednesday, as some of the state's "worst examples" of government waste in 2021.
“It’s a way to show taxpayers what they may have missed during the year,” said Mark Cunningham, vice president of strategy and communications at Beacon, a nonpartisan but fiscally conservative think tank. “A lot of times people are busy, they’re working, they’re not going through every news report, every comptroller report. The waste is bipartisan, it’s not just Republican or Democrat.”
Beacon named Metro Nashville Public Schools’ $18 million no-bid contract with Meharry Medical School as its “Pork of the Year” project. The school system ultimately spent about $14.3 million on the venture, all of which came out of federal relief funds.
Beacon’s report broadly criticized no-bid contracts and said MNPS overpaid Meharry to establish a faulty website with “the visual appeal of AskJeeves.com.”
The Tennessean previously reported the program spent about $5.2 million on establishing a COVID-19 screening and testing plan, developing the website for parents to sign their children up for testing, data dashboards and mobile technology packages for schools. The district spent an additional $1.9 million on mobile thermal cameras.
“Governments should never give out no-bid contracts, especially when $18 million is involved,” Beacon Center said in its report. “Additionally, government contracts should be detailed and transparent. This horrific deal should be audited by the state to see where things went wrong and who is responsible for such a raw deal for taxpayers.”
Some Metro Schools families and community members had long been skeptical of the partnership with Meharry and criticized the cost and whether the district was truly benefiting from it.
A Metro Schools spokesperson declined to comment on the report on Wednesday but pointed back to a June statement from Metro Schools Director Adrienne Battle defending the contract.
"We worked with Meharry, a trusted institution in our community, to develop as robust and comprehensive a plan as possible to enhance the safety of our schools, using federal funding designed specifically for that purpose, and we did so in such a way that no schools had to close down once we started bringing students back into the classroom in February," Battle said in June. "Ultimately, I believe it was a good thing for our schools and helped us to return students to the classroom while many other urban districts kept their doors closed.”
Tennessee on Me travel initiative a 'poorly executed plan'
Gov. Bill Lee’s "Tennessee on Me” initiative also received top billing in the report. The program was designed to provide $250 airline vouchers to the first 10,000 people who booked a two-night hotel stay in Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville or Chattanooga through the Tennessee on Me website.
"His intentions were in the right place, he was trying to recover from COVID, but it was a very poorly executed plan and is really something the government should have no role in," Cunningham said.
The $2.5 million allocation was approved in the 2021-2022 budget as a "marketing project" for the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, but the details and roll-out of the initiative caught many state lawmakers off guard. The state also spent more than $230,000 to advertise the initiative, according to Associated Press reports.
"The government’s role should not be to pay for out-of-state people’s airfare and hotels," Cunningham said. "On top of that, not many people took advantage of it."
Lee's office has not yet returned request for comment.
Major Ford incentive package named in Pork Report
Beacon slammed a massive incentive package to attract Ford Motor Co. to the Memphis Regional Megasite — now called the Megasite of West Tennessee — in Haywood County, a property that has languished for more than a decade with no tenants.
Lawmakers this fall approved $500 million in incentives on top of $384 million for infrastructure projects, workforce development, authority expenses and other services. Ford says the development will lead to nearly 6,000 jobs in the area.
More: Tennessee legislature gives final nod to $884M Ford deal
“That’s something we really need to look at and say is this what the government should be doing?” Cunningham said. “The answer is an obvious no for me. It feels like a sunk cost because they felt like we needed to get something there.”
Other examples the Beacon Center flagged as "wasteful" spending include:
Davidson County's ongoing emissions testing, which Cunningham deemed a money grab under the guise of "fake environmentalism" as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved changes to Tennessee's air quality plan earlier this year. A resolution to end the testing is up for a Nashville Metro Council vote on Jan. 4.
Tennessee's $20 million grant for the construction of a Great Wolf Lodge water park and resort in Jackson.
Shelby County Schools' $25 million air purifier contract to purchase air filtration technology with little independent data to back up the vendor's efficacy claims.
A $2.5 million grant fund for Shelby County workers impacted by the pandemic.
Clarksville's city-funded performing arts center, which the city agreed to lease to a regional theater company for $1 per year. The Beacon Center flagged Clarksville for a subsequent property tax increase tied to other infrastructure projects.
The Nashville Event Marketing Fund committee, which Beacon said spent $3.5 million in incentives for large money-making events such as Americana Fest. Beacon called the group a "slush fund for the well-connected at the expense of Nashville taxpayers."
Johnson City's $13 million plan for a new parks complex in a bid to attract youth baseball tournaments to the city.
Knoxville's $702 million project to offer broadband internet service via the Knoxville Utility Board.
Hamilton County's $16 million land purchase with plans to attract a manufacturing hub. The county purchased 2,170 acres, only a third of which are currently useable.
Reach Melissa Brown at mabrown@tennessean.com. Meghan Mangrum and Yue Stella Yu contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee on Me, Metro Nashville no-bid contract flagged in pork report
