Topline: While tens of thousands of our nation’s soldiers were serving in Afghanistan, the Department of Veterans Affairs was spending money on a deserted monkey house and hundreds of other vacant buildings.
The Government Accountability Office said the VA spent $175 million in 2010 — $252.3 million in today’s money — on maintenance at unused buildings, including a pink, octagonal monkey house used for storage in Dayton, Ohio.
The VA claimed it was only $34 million, but either way it’s money that should have been used to more directly support combat veterans.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname "Dr. No" by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn't stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn's Wastebook 2010 included 100 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $11.5 billion, including the money spent on abandoned VA facilities.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Key facts: FOX News reported in 2010 that 314 of the VA’s 5,507 buildings were completely abandoned.
Reporters visited sites around the country and found rats, fungus, “barrels of unidentified chemicals” and more.
The Edward Hines Jr. VA Medical Center outside Chicago, which the VA spent $20,000 per year to maintain, had been empty for 15 years and was flooded with chemical-laced water.
Complex federal rules made it difficult for the VA to sell the buildings, which were meant for housing, psychological support and more for veterans. They were supposedly too expensive to demolish.
Outsiders thought the properties could be put to better use.
"You got dormant buildings? You want to give them away? Refurbish them! Use them!" Larry Van Kurant, a spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars, told FOX News.
Summary: It took the VA until 2017 to announce that it would demolish or restore all of its unused buildings. It appears that no one has quantified the total amount of money wasted in the years before then.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by CEO & founder, Adam Andrzejewski, with Jeremy Portnoy. Learn more at OpenTheBooks.com.
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