By Maria Carter
Kansas City, MO – A state audit show Missouri's student loan agency, MOHELA, spent millions of dollars in perks and benefits for executives. KCUR's Maria Carter reports.
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Missouri State Auditor Susan Montee stopped at UMKC to present the audit investigating the inner-workings of MOHELA. The audit found that MOHELA executives had hefty benefit packages and lavish perks, including 3 months in vacation time each year, generous car allowances, and annual bonuses for as much as 40 percent of their salary. Montee says these are out of place.
Montee: Basically, Mohela was acting like a public company and paying out to themselves profits, but they didn't have any shareholders they had to answer to. The reality is these are public dollars and public funds and they were just having no oversight.
Student loan officials acknowledge most of the problems and say the agency has fixed itself.