I don't doubt there's waste to be found, but nothing significant has been documented so far. It appears the definition of fraud being used by those in charge is fraudulent in itself. Where's the promised transparency...
I have managed 2 phases of a multi-phase municipal road improvement project. Both phases have exactly the same construction scope. The 1st phase was paid for with a state grant, the 2nd phase with a federal grant. The design fee for the 1st phase was around eight percent (8%) of the estimated construction cost. Due to the hoop-jumping required for the federal grant, the design fee for the 2nd phase was about sixty percent (60%) of the estimated construction cost. The 2nd phase had about 75% more roadway length than the 1st phase but due to the bureaucracy of the federal grant, the time required for the design of the 2nd phase was about 400% of the 1st phase. As an example of the waste, the project was basically curb and sidewalk replacement through a 3000 foot length of single family residential properties, generally measuring 50' by 100' and originally built in the 40's or 50's. We were tearing up the old and putting in the new in the same place. This work would not require establishing property lines as we were putting stuff back exactly where we found it. However, the federal grant required the right-of-way line to be established by survey so the design fee included deed review and boundary survey for about 100 properties. This extra cost was further exacerbated by the federal requirement to give some of the work to a Disadvantaged Business Entity (DBE). Because DBE's are guaranteed work, and they are limited in number, they don't need to be particularly competitive in their price or quality of work. As such, their involvement can raise the design price as they typically charge more than we do. Plus, we need to add a percentage of their fee to ours to check/fix their work before blending it into ours.
With respect to construction, part-time inspection was performed for the 1st phase. Inspection is billed hourly for our inspector's time on site. Inspectors typically cover multiple projects every day and don't stick around to watch something that is not particularly critical. For example, in the case of curb replacement, we don't normally need to watch them rip up the old curb or install the new forms, but we will stop in to check the completed forms and subgrade before they pour the concrete. In the 2nd phase, full-time inspection was required under the federal grant. If there is anybody doing anything on site, an inspector is required be there to watch and to prepare a report on the activity. This would include a lone laborer is stapling "Emergency-No Parking" signs to the telephone poles for the next day's work. This, among other bureaucratic requirements, pretty much triples the cost of the construction administration/inspection part of the project.
The only reason that municipalities apply for the federal grant is that it pays for the entire project (Design, Construction & Construction Administration) where the state grant typically pays for a substantial portion of the construction cost and sometimes pays for a piece of the construction administration cost. They would never be re-elected if they were this wasteful with the municipal budget.
I am responding with caution to your transparency question as to not get the thread shut down. What I will say is that the administration has been in place for a month, so I think your expectations are a a bit high.
