USA Spending.gov sure is an entertaining government website for anyone interested in watching the flow of your tax dollars.
Yesterday, after I wrote about Kentucky’s Catholic Charities stash of cash, I noticed that one of Tennessee’s Catholic Charities had also brought in a large pile of federal dough in 2009 for refugee programs. Yet, Tennessee is way down the list of states when ranked by the number of refugees they resettle.
More interesting is to note what a huge jump in funds this particular Catholic Charities office received compared to previous years. What did they do to deserve that? Would someone in-the-know please write to us to explain (I feel like Glenn Beck must feel with his red phone line to the White House!).
For FY2009 Catholic Charities of TN, Inc raked in $8,539,705 of your federal tax dollars for refugee programs! We will be eager to see how many refugees were resettled in Tennessee in 2009 to warrant that big hike.
In 2008, they received $1,880,242 (847 refugees resettled*) To clarify, we don’t even know if Catholic Charities resettled the entire 847 refugees themselves.
In 2007, they received $194,392 (961 refugees resettled)
In 2006, there is no report (724 refugees resettled)
* You can see here where I get the refugee numbers, check this out for your state too!
Go to this list of State Coordinators and note that Holly Johnson, employed at this Catholic Charities office, is also the Tennessee State coordinator for the refugee program, isn’t that interesting? In many (most, I think) states there is a separate state office overseeing the program.