By GARRETT BERGQUIST
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
The state’s top economic development leadership on Wednesday voted to release a long-awaited audit once a final legal review is complete.
The forensic audit of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC) is a response to controversy over how it used taxpayer dollars to fund its economic development projects, such as the LEAP District near Lebanon. LEAP stands for Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace.
Republican Gov. Mike Braun ran on addressing IEDC concerns during the 2024 election and ordered the audit in April.
Braun’s office said Wednesday that lawyers will need to make some redactions to the report to comply with state law. Officials said those redactions should not be significant and the report should become public by the end of next week. The governor’s office said auditors did not find evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
At Wednesday’s quarterly IEDC board meeting, Braun said he has already implemented some measures meant to address concerns about the IEDC’s operations. All votes now must happen before the full IEDC board. In addition, Braun said, he will wind down the Indiana Economic Development Foundation, which he said has not accepted any new donations since April.
“The audit confirmed a need for increased transparency and accountability for how taxpayer money is spent,” he said. “My focus is on solutions and we’re fixing these issues to get better results for Hoosiers.”
Rep. Ed DeLaney and Sen. Fady Qaddoura, both Indianapolis Democrats who serve on the State Budget Committee, said lawmakers have struggled for years to get answers on the IEDC’s internal operations. They both told News 8 they want to see what the audit uncovered about possible conflicts of interest involving IEDC leadership. Qaddoura said he especially wants to see how money flowed from the IEDC to any entities created by that agency, especially Elevate Ventures and the limited liability companies, or LLCs, that worked with Elevate Ventures. He said lawmakers have noticed IEDC leaders benefited both from state salaries and from compensation through those LLCs.
“I would like to see a full accounting and tracing of dollars from the state into any entity that received dollars from the IEDC,” Qaddoura said. “I would like to see specific investigation or the outcomes of the investigation of any conflict of interest between agency personnel, key leaders of the agency and the board members of the Indiana Economic Development Foundation.”
Qaddoura said even if those actions did not violate the letter of the law, the conflict-of-interest situation is serious enough to warrant investigation.
DeLaney said he hopes the report includes information on the IEDC’s use of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and other confidentiality agreements. He said NDAs are sometimes necessary to protect sensitive business negotiations but he believes the IEDC has abused them to hide information from state lawmakers.
“When you’re passing out this kind of money from the state budget, and we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars, I think the legislature needs to be allowed to know better,” DeLaney said. “I don’t know the scope of the audit, so I don’t know how much to expect.”
Both DeLaney and Qaddoura said the changes Braun has already announced are a good start.
This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/politics/redacted-audit-of-indiana-economic-development-corp-to-be-made-public.
