[imc-st.louis] City Won’t Reveal Lead Finances Unless Forced To

[Don Fitz]

Gateway Green Alliance


          P.O. Box 8094


          St. Louis MO  63156

*E-mail: fitzdon at aol.com, www.gateway-greens.org*

Contact: Don Fitz, 727-8554


            City Won’t Reveal Lead Finances Unless Forced To

_June 24, 2009 – St. Louis, Missouri._  After a much anticipated audit 
of the Lead Safe St. Louis program, on June 23 State Auditor Susan 
Montee acknowledged that the City had not been forthcoming in spending 
until forced to by the impending audit.  Even the data which the City 
supplied to the State Auditor was suspect.  St. Louis is reportedly 
among the 10 worst cities in the nation in terms of numbers of children 
affected by lead poisoning. 

On page 11 of the auditor’s report, the City is quoted as trying to take 
credit for a 74% drop in childhood lead poisoning rates, which are part 
of a nationwide trend due to removal of lead from gasoline and have 
nothing to do with the St. Louis programs.  When challenged for 
including this information in the report, Ms. Montee distanced her 
office from the City, disclaiming any responsibility for the statement. 

The auditor’s report was sprinkled with responses from the City but did 
not contain a single statement by the Gateway Green Alliance, the 
organization which gathered the thousands of signatures that sparked the 
audit.  The Greens are holding a press conference to respond to the 
problems skirted in the official auditor’s report:

1:00 pm, Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Rotunda, St. Louis City Hall, 12th & Market

Ms. Montee minimized the importance of over $100,000 of misuse of 
federal grant money which the City spent before receiving grants.  Such 
actions by the City could threaten millions of dollars of lead money 
urgently needed.

The report (p. 5) noted that elevated blood lead levels triggers home 
inspections.  This confirms what childhood lead poisoning activists have 
long suspected concerning lead removal: The City waits until after 
children are poisoned in order to take action.  This strongly 
contradicts the City’s public relations statements that it prevents 
poisoning by removing lead from homes before poisoning occurs.

The State Auditor’s report released on June 23 appeared to go “soft” on 
the City.  In November 2007, the Greens met with representatives of the 
State Auditor’s office and provided them with a list of concerns that 
sparked the petition.  Virtually all of those issues were ignored by the 
audit, which raised more questions than it answered. 

The first question the Greens posed to the State Auditor in 2007 was the 
“total sources and expenditures of lead poisoning prevention money.”  
Ms. Montee was unable to answer this basic question and the answer did 
not appear in the report.  The audit examined only lead money during the 
2007–08 fiscal year and relied on the City’s internal audit for previous 
years. 

This was despite recognition that the City had not been transparent in 
making information open to the public and despite years of scandals 
involving lead programs.  When challenged on the refusal of her office 
to go back several years, Ms. Montee commented that she “did not want to 
play a blame game” now that the problem was corrected.  This 
contradicted her comments during the September 2008 release of the first 
audit reports, when she said that irregularities could result in 
auditors’ looking at data for several years previous.

-30-p

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