Stimulus Money for School Supplies

Remember the FREE MONEY!!!!! for New Yorkers to buy school supplies for their kids. Well, you will be as shocked as I to find out the money is not being used for school supplies.

Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks said the state school supply grants handed out to New York State food stamp and welfare recipients are not being used as intended by many families. She said the program has “widespread, rampant abuse.”

“There were better ways--You don't have to support families to buy school supplies by giving them cash,” she said.

Brooks said the county has been overwhelmed by reports, some of them from store owners, of people using the money to buy TVs and other luxury items.

“We actually received a telephone call from WalMart on Hudson Avenue suggesting that there was welfare fraud, and indicating they were going to call the FBI because people were going in and buying X-boxes, Wii systems, flat-screen television sets,” said Kelly reed, the county’s commissioner of social services. “Wegmans has indicated people are buying tickets to Darien Lake.”