By GREGG MONTGOMERY
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
A redacted audit released Thursday found the Indiana Economic Development Corp. did not adequately address conflicts of interest.
Investigators with the state government’s leading economic development agency, sometimes known by the acronym IEDC, said they found 30 entities in which a board member or an employee had a conflict of interest.
They also found donors to the IEDC often received loans or tax incentives from the state.
Auditors also found the IEDC did not consistently use competitive bidding practices when it chose a real estate developer for the LEAP District in Boone County. LEAP stands for Limitless Exploration Advanced Pace.
The primary developers so far in the LEAP District are the tech company Meta, for a massive data center that the Lebanon City Council advanced in September, and the pharmaceutical developer Eli Lilly and Co., for the $4.5 billion Lilly Medicine Foundry that began construction in May. Neither company was named in the audit.
State Rep. Ed Delaney, an Indianapolis Democrat, told News 8 on Thursday night that the audit was a good start, but there needs to be more.
“It reveals what we always knew: that there would be conflicts of interest in the IEDC. It reveals the scale of those conflicts, but it doesn’t put any dollar figures. It doesn’t say who gained or how much from the conflict of interest, which is absolutely critical.
“Or more importantly, how much the taxpayers lost because of these conflicts.
“It doesn’t tell us there’s an indication that some contracts on the LEAP Project were overpaid, shall we say. It doesn’t say how much they were overpaid, or who got them.
“So, it’s a great starting place because it lists the names of the players. That’s something we haven’t had before.”
This story was developed from a script aired on WISH-TV and was originally published at wishtv.com/news/politics/audit-reveals-conflicts-of-interest-within-indiana-economic-development-corp.