Byron Donalds bill would impose audits on state and local governments as condition for federal funding

If Washington is opening up the checkbook, then U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds says governments in cities and states need to open up their books for scrutiny.

The “Tax Dollar Accountability Act“, introduced this week in Congress, would require subsidiary governments to show the Comptroller of the Currency how the money is used, by granting total access to records.

Detailed budgets, expenditure reports, vendor contracts, and grant distributions would have to be presented after every fiscal year to show compliance with the terms of the appropriation.

The bill was filed in the wake of widely-reported misappropriations of Medicaid and COVID-19 funding in various states.

Donalds explained the bill during a Fox News hit on Saturday as a necessary corrective for $200 billion of “misallocated payments” identified already.

“If any local or state agency gets federal dollars, and the documents around those federal dollars have to be made available to the federal government so that they can be audited at any given time,” he said. “I believe local jurisdictions have a responsibility that if you’re going to get taxpayer dollars, then your books need to be open and subject to audit by the federal government.”

Florida already is working to root out fraud on its end.

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Friday a Medicaid integrity initiative that will strengthen screening of providers, use technology to drill down on fraud, control enrollment for high-risk provider categories, and revalidate active Medicaid providers.

If elected Governor, Donalds vows to continue what DeSantis has begun.

“We will ‘DOGE’ all local governments and all state agencies. There will be no sacred cows because the taxpayers deserve to make sure that their dollars are being spent efficiently and transparently. We are going to continue that standard here in Florida,” the Naples Congressman vowed.