The Government Oversight Committee will meet Jan. 10 to take public comment on a recent state investigation into the destruction of documents and grant funding that may have been manipulated by workers at the Maine Centers for Disease Control.

The Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability, or OPEGA, completed its review of the CDC this fall and presented its report to the Government Oversight last week. OPEGA found a host of problems with the way the CDC distributed millions of dollars to Healthy Maine Partnerships programs last year, including supervisors who ordered the destruction of public documents, funding criteria that was changed during the selection process, Healthy Maine Partnerships funding scores that were changed just before the final selection, a $500,000 tribal contract that seemed to appear out of nowhere and a critical Healthy Maine Partnerships scoring sheet that has vanished.

The Government Oversight Committee will accept public comment on OPEGA’s report at its next meeting. After the public comment period, the committee will hold a work session and a vote on the report.  

The committee could decide to introduce legislation to fix some of the problems OPEGA found, such as the lack of guidance around which public documents should be kept. It could also make its own recommendations to the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, though those recommendations would not have the force of law.

Speakers are asked to bring 20 copies of their testimony/comments for distribution to committee members and for OPEGA’s file. 

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. in room 220 of the Cross Building in Augusta.

The Maine Attorney General’s Office has said it is reviewing OPEGA’s report as well and will determine whether any action by the AG’s Office is warranted. A spokesman for the office said there is no timetable for making that determination.

ltice@sunjournal.com