Documents: Connecticut city used COVID relief funds to hire a marching band

West Haven also spent CARES Act funds on holiday decorations, documents show


West Haven officials spent tens of thousands of dollars in federal COVID relief funding on Christmas decorations, payments to a city councilman’s business — and a marching band that performed at the city’s Memorial Day parade, according to records reviewed by the CT Mirror.

All of those expenditures were paid from the more than $1.1 million in federal CARES Act funding that West Haven received last year, according to city invoices, receipts and payment vouchers.

West Haven’s use of that federal relief funding is already at the center of an ongoing financial scandal. Two West Haven employees, including former state Democratic lawmaker Michael DiMassa, were arrested by the FBI in the past month for allegedly funneling more than $636,000 in federal aid to a shell company they controlled.

The records, which The Mirror obtained through a request under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, document how the city spent the remainder of its CARES Act money.

Read more: https://ctmirror.org/2021/11/05/documents-ct-city-used-covid-relief-funds-to-hire-a-marching-band/