Dauphin County commissioners are considering numerous reforms to the county’s gaming grant program, which doles out millions of dollars from casino revenue each year, including how they could claw back money for projects that never happened.
The move follows an in-depth PennLive investigation that showed over the life of the program, a chunk of grant money went to county insiders, for-profit businesses and private developers while some nonprofits and municipalities went unfunded.
Commissioners Justin Douglas and Mike Pries shared their ideas at a PennLive editorial board meeting Tuesday. Commissioner George Hartwick did not accept an invitation to the meeting.
Douglas said his top priority is trying to digitize the entire program by next year’s process, instead of working off paper documents that need to be scanned in, emailed and sometimes printed out again. The efficiencies of working through electronic documents, like most grant programs, will save staff time they can spend on progress reports, oversight and audits, he said…