State House Candidate, Team Blunt Father Fleeced Federal Grant Program for Thousands Paid to His Wife

Mike Lair, a Republican candidate for the open Seventh District House Seat and father-in-law to former Blunt bagman James Harris, paid more than $23,000 to his wife from the coffers of a Federally funded education grant program of which he was the director over the last four years, according to official documents.  These payments, supplemented by regular reimbursement of travel per diem costs paid to Ms. Lair, represent a clear violation of financial standards promulgated by the United States Office of Management and Budget and raise serious concerns that Mike Lair violated federal law.

In 2004, the Chillicothe RII School District applied for and was awarded a federal grant for a program called Teaching Traditional American History.  The grant application, on which Mike Lair --a Cillicothe history teacher-- was listed as the program director, asked for more than $892,000 in federal Department of Education funds to finance a program geared toward continuing education of history teachers in northwest Missouri.

On that grant application, Lair described a number of positions that would be hired to help administer the program, including one position titled "promotional assistant."  Though Lair included lengthy curricula vitae for a number of academics who would be involved in the project in various capacities he curiously made no mention of and provided no work history for any individual who would fill the "promotional assistant" role.  This was apparently out of fear that someone might take objection to what was obviously his plan: the hiring of his own wife to do a "job" that would be paid with federal funds administered by him.

Documents provided by the Chillicothe RII School District (see page 19) demonstrate that Mike Lair, under the auspices of the federal education grant program which he was being paid (some $30,000 annually) to administer, was paying thousands of dollars each year to his wife.  From September 2004 through at least May of this year, Jeanne M. Lair was paid $500 monthly out of federal grant money allocated to the school district for the project.  Over that period, Ms. Lair raked in $23,500 in pay that, presumably, she would never had received had her husband Mike Lair not been program director for the federal grant project.

The payments made to Jeanne Lair through the program administered by her husband fly in the face of guidance provided in the federal regulations for the administration of grant monies.  Department of Education standards state (emphasis added):

(b) Procurement standards. (1) Grantees and subgrantees will use
their own procurement procedures which reflect applicable State and
local laws and regulations, provided that the procurements conform to applicable Federal law and the standards identified in this section.
    (2) Grantees and subgrantees will maintain a contract administration system which ensures that contractors perform in accordance with the terms, conditions, and specifications of their contracts or purchase orders.
    (3) Grantees and subgrantees will maintain a written code of
standards of conduct governing the performance of their employees
engaged in the award and administration of contracts. No employee, officer or agent of the grantee or subgrantee shall participate in selection, or in the award or administration of a contract supported by Federal funds if a conflict of interest, real or apparent, would be involved. Such a conflict would arise when:
    (i) The employee, officer or agent,
    (ii) Any member of his immediate family,
    (iii) His or her partner, or
    (iv) An organization which employs, or is about to employ, any of
the above, has a financial or other interest in the firm selected for
award. The grantee's or subgrantee's officers, employees or agents will neither solicit nor accept gratuities, favors or anything of monetary value from contractors, potential contractors, or parties to
subagreements.

Mike Lair, as an employee and agent of the grantee (Chillicothe RII School District) violated the terms of these standards when he effectively awarded to his wife a contract, supported by federal funds, for "promotional assistant" services.  This is precisely the sort of situation that represents a conflict of interest as defined by the standards.

Beyond Lair's egregious violation of conflict of interest standards, his behavior in administration of the taxpayer-funded federal grant dollars, as documented, also illustrates a heavy disdain for good financial stewardship.  For instance, Lair repeatedly subsidized his wife's travel by claiming per diem travel expenses on her behalf and being reimbursed for those expenses.  Expense reports listed on page 30 of the documents provided by the Chillicothe Schools show that Mike Lair claimed $30 overnight per diem expenses for five straight days for two people in connection with a trip to Washington DC from November 29, through December 3, 2006.  Similarly, Lair claimed per diem expenses (p.38) for two people over a four day stretch related to a November 29 through December 4 trip to Tempe, Arizona in 2005. 

Perhaps someone can answer me this: could Jeanne Lair actually have a been an arm's-length contractor to the program run by her husband if he was the one submitting and collecting expense reimbursements for her travel?

The bottom line, of course, is that Mike Lair has already proven himself to be someone in whom the public trust is not well vested.  As the steward of taxpayer dollars, he chose to shuffle a significant number of those dollars to his own wife in flagrant defiance of explicit conflict of interest guidance.  Now he wants a seat in the Missouri General Assembly, from which he expects to again spend the taxpayers' money in whatever way he sees fit. 

Rumor has it that at least one mid-Missouri businessman has reached out to the United States Attorney's office with a request that investigators look into financial improprieties by Mr. Lair in the administration of his grant.  Prosecutors should take a hard look.  But the wheels of justice often turn slowly.  In the meantime, voters in Missouri's 7th House District should go ahead and make sure that they do not put Lair in a position from which he can do even more harm. 

A few votes well-cast now might save us from having to watch yet another state legislator dragged from the capitol by the long arm of the law.