City of Chicago Denies Request for Records on How $57M Was Spent on Migrant Shelter Staffing
Chicago has spent over $100M to care for illegals arriving in the city thanks to Joe Biden’s broken border. But officials won’t provide transparency on how the money is being spent.
NBC Chicago reports that the city of Chicago’s finance department has denied NBC 5 Investigates’ Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for copies of a year’s worth of invoices. The invoices are related to more than $57 million spent on a staffing company that has a contract with the city to provide staffing in shelters.
The city claims, “The burden of redacting records ‘outweighs public interest in the information.’”
The Gateway Pundit reported in May that, while Chicago burns with rampant crime and violence, the City Council approved $51 million in aid for illegals. In July, it was revealed that most of those funds, $47 million, would be used to pay for a national staffing firm that provides personnel at shelters receiving illegals arriving in the city.
In February, CBS 2 revealed their FOIA request, on how the city has spent the more than $100 million, was also denied by Chicago Office of Budget & Management.
In the denial letter to NBC’s recent FOIA, the city said the request for 498 payment vouchers (that would require redactions) was “unduly burdensome” and would impose “immense burden on the department’s time.”
What’s curious about that denial letter is that the city already provided NBC 5 Investigates with two invoices – showing last December that a nurse at the High Ridge YMCA shelter earned than $20,000 in a week.
During that same week, a shelter manager made $14,000. Both figures did include overtime.
NBC 5 Investigates also received a spreadsheet showing a total of $57 million covering 498 payment vouchers. What’s not clear from the spreadsheet is how many employees that covers, how many hours were billed and if certain shelters billed the city more than others. Some invoices were for more than $500,000, the spreadsheet shows.
