State Auditor Doug Hoffer hasn’t gotten a satisfactory explanation for two sparsely detailed invoices totaling $160,000 the state received, and paid out, to economist Johnathan Gruber, Hoffer said Friday.
Gruber was hired by the state to model the impact of the governor’s shelved single payer proposal. He agreed to forgo $240,000 of his original contract, because the state said his impolitic on-camera remarks devalued his work.
But Hoffer says the invoices Gruber submitted for the work he was paid for leave serious questions. The invoices bill for identical rounded numbers of hours, and they don’t include a breakdown of when those hours were worked, or what work was performed. They also do not identify how many research assistants worked the 500 hours, nor do they list the names of the assistants.
“I asked the administration to request information from Mr. Gruber. His response was forwarded to me and it did not contain the documentation I wanted,” Hoffer said in an email.
Hoffer said he will now communicate with Gruber directly, and he did not rule out using his subpoena power if Gruber doesn’t produce the information he wants.
