Colorado Homeland Security Funds Failed To Comply With Guidelines

A $20,000 computer server gone missing. A $1 million check left for months in a mailbox. A mobile security field station squatting unused in a Lake City parking lot. Those are just a few of the blunders the governor's Homeland Security office uncovered in Colorado as its auditors sought to track the way the state was spending federal Homeland Security funds in 2008 and 2009, according to a joint study published last week by the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Center for Public Integrity.

Investigators for the CIR / CPI study-- titled "Homeland Security Boom and Bust"-- filed a Colorado Open Records or CORA request to uncover a paper trail of documents (download the pdfs here) that reveal city and county officials as amateurishly haphazard in recording and inventorying purchases and keeping track of large and expensive equipment.

Read more on The Colorado Independent