'Many factual errors': School district hits back at Fox News report on DOGE allegations

Officials at a school district in Utah say they were stunned to find themselves at the center of a Fox News report accusing the district of fraudulently spending $86,000 in COVID-19 relief money on hotel rooms for an educational conference at Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace.

Now, the Granite School District is firing back in a scathing statement defending its use of the money and condemning the network’s journalistic practices. The district also went after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, which first put the district on blast in a social media post earlier this week.

“$393K to rent out a Major League Baseball stadium, $86K in Caesars Palace hotel rooms, $60k in swimming pool passes, and even an ice cream truck,” DOGE’s official X account posted Wednesday. “All of this money was drawn with zero documentation.”

But the district countered on Friday with a detailed accounting of what the money was spent on, and how it benefited the district, while refuting “any impropriety for having our educators participate in this conference.”

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“The Fox News national story contains many factual errors and no one from their organization has ever contacted us to verify the facts of the report,” the district said in a statement Friday.

“The funding in question was used to pay for hotel rooms for 123 educators from our district to attend a three-day professional educational convention hosted by Solution Tree in Las Vegas in 2022,” the district said. It added that a “comprehensive needs assessment was submitted and accepted by Utah State Board of Education” approving what it described as “a successful and beneficial conference for our educators.”

The district also made clear in the statement there has never been an investigation into the use of the funds.

“Granite School District has NOT been contacted or questioned by any state or federal regulatory agency about the use of these funds,” the statement concluded. “We first heard of this concern on social media. As such, we were surprised to be accused of fraud without having some contact from anyone to verify the legitimacy of the expense.”