nbcconnecticut.com · September 6, 2026
Face the Facts: State Rep. Vincent Candelora (R) on increasing oversight on grant money – NBC Connecticut
# Face the Facts: State Rep. Vincent Candelora (R) on increasing oversight on grant money
#### Published 37 minutes ago • Updated on September 4, 2026 at 6:24 pm
NBC Connecticut
Where did $6 million in state grant money go? A state audit found several nonprofits couldn’t provide receipts or other documentation showing how the money was spent. Rep. Vincent Candelora (R- North Branford) joins us to discuss a new state law aimed at increasing oversight.
Mike Hydeck Millions of dollars of state grant money is unaccounted for. Evidence of poor record keeping, little or no oversight, are just some of the findings of a state audit of the Blue Hills Civic Association. They say the nonprofit was actually used to funnel money into dozens of other organizations. So why did this happen, and what's being done to fix it? Republican leader in the House Vincent Candelora is here now to discuss. Welcome back. Good to see you. So first up, total of $6 million was subject to this audit. It's unaccounted for. What's wrong with the way state grants are getting doled out? That's a lot of money.
Vincent Candelora Yeah, I think what we've seen is a systemic problem in the state of Connecticut. I think it started with the COVID ARPA money that came in. We had more money than we knew what to do with, and I think it got real sloppy. The agencies were doling out…
Mike Hydeck Like hundreds of millions of dollars sitting around during COVID.
Vincent Candelora That's right. And you had a lot of third parties administering the money, and so it wouldn't just go to one person; it would go to one organization who would then disperse it to many others, and that's what happened in this Blue Hill situation. And that degree of separation led to a lot of fraud that is now being uncovered. The agencies, you know, didn't have the ability to really properly vet these organizations.
Mike Hydeck That's like a big Brink's truck full of cash shows up, and then there's actually no accountability going forward.
Vincent Candelora That's right, and that's what we saw going on. And you know, there needs to be a systemic change in government. There needs to be more transparency. I know Governor Lamont says he has zero tolerance, but if you have zero tolerance, you shouldn't be issuing no bid contracts. And that's what we continue to see: is agencies will circumvent the processes that we have in place. That needs to stop.
Mike Hydeck The no bid contractor you're referring to is Miguel Cardona overseeing the Education Pathways Program, I think it's called.
Vincent Candelora Exactly.
Mike Hydeck Yeah. Okay. It's $250,000. We've talked about this on Face the Facts before. When it comes to nonprofits, they really do provide vital services throughout the state. We're not trying to cast shade on the nonprofits. It's really about the system that helps to fund them.
Vincent Candelora Yeah. And in this situation, the Blue Hills organization, to be clear, they were dispersing money not just to nonprofits but to also for-profit entities. So this money didn't really have, it had standards, but what we found was the money was going to people that weren't applying those standards. So it really wasn't abuse of the system. It wasn't your traditional nonprofits that you see in Connecticut that are providing healthcare services or mental health services, you know those organizations that are working hand in hand with some of our agencies to administer healthcare and things of that nature. This is sort of a different animal. A lot of the money that went through Department of Economic and Community Development, those grants are almost more discretionary grants, so it's riper for abuse.
Mike Hydeck When you say discretionary, the lawmaker says, "I want to help out this particular entity."
Vincent Candelora Exactly, it's almost a little bit of slush fund. You have local legislators that are pushing projects that they value in their communities, and that's what we're seeing where the abuse is really coming.
Mike Hydeck A Democratic state senator from Hartford, Douglas McCrory, is the subject of an FBI investigation. So is one of his friends or business partners in that situation. So we have a lot to kind of see how that unfolds when the investigation's finished. The other thing about this. Is grant spending different from an earmark? Earmarks have been around a long time, Republicans and Democrats have used them to get a fountain in a park or to get some bridge repairs done, something like that. Should earmarks go away? Do they need to be regulated a similar way, or?
Vincent Candelora They do. They need to be transparent. And fortunately, we did pass a law last session because of this issue to kind of address that, to be able to scrutinize these earmarks, put them out so the public could see them, but also once they're approved, allow the agencies that are administering the earmarks to reach in and say, "Okay, where is this money going? How is it being used? Is it a legitimate public purpose? And that's an important component.
Mike Hydeck There's got to be a, so does that law talk about, is there software that follows, is it software that creates a digital trail? Like, how do you track it? Like, how's it going to be tracked? Yeah,
Vincent Candelora Yeah, I mean, some of the earmarks are open and transparent, and then some are in the back of the budget. It's those back of the budget items that we really need to try to get after. I don't think we've done a sufficient job to do that. But there's always an agency that needs to administer whatever money is being doled out. So ultimately we need to make sure those agencies have the tools to say we're not going to give out money to this organization to pay for their car loan or their rent at their apartment, which we saw from this audit happening with Blue Hills.
Mike Hydeck I wonder if AI can play a role there. We use AI to go through legal documents to find things quickly. I wonder if that could work.
Vincent Candelora Yeah, I mean, we've seen it in the budget process recently. When you have like a nebulous grant going out to a factory of 10,000 square feet with 30 employees, you could run that through AI and identify who that individual is who's getting that money. And so it has been an important tool to bring transparency to the budget process.
Mike Hydeck It's going to be interesting to see if it gets written into laws in the future too to be a check and balance.
Vincent Candelora We're actually working on that too. So there is somebody that is housed in our legislative management, our nonpartisan offices, that are creating tools to help legislators utilize AI in their legislative process.
Mike Hydeck When you get a big budget bill slapped on your desk, you want to get through it.
Vincent Candelora That's right.
Mike Hydeck Vincent Candelora, appreciate your time.
Vincent Candelora Thank you.
Mike Hydeck Good to see you.