Audit: NC Pandemic Aid Managers Fell Short Keeping Up On $3B

A new North Carolina state audit says Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration failed to thoroughly monitor how $3.1 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds were being used. Thursday's report from State Auditor Beth Wood’s office focuses on federal funds that the state received toward COVID-19 aid in the spring of 2020. The legislature then appropriated those funds. The performance audit’s authors wrote a new Pandemic Recovery Office failed to design procedures to ensure the money was being spent the way the legislature required, thus increasing the risk for misuse. The office executive director and the state budget director say changes are already being made.