Mike Braun Auditing IEDC

Mike Braun Auditing IEDC. The independent audit is a result of Braun’s executive orders on ‘full transparency’ for state-affiliated nonprofits. Sunlight is the best of disinfectants.

Tony Katz:

I got sent to story from the Hannah News Service, and the article was entitled “A Need to Elevate Transparency.” Elevate was capitalized and you realized that they’re talking about this “call it a” venture fund that’s connected to the IEDC: Indiana Economic Development Corporation. It’s, it’s a remarkable digging from a group called Indiana Legislative Insight. But this is where the story is from, and other people are reporting on the story. Go to the source: Hannah News service is where I got this, Indianainsight.com. I’m going to try my best to take this long, long bit of investigation and put it into a, into an, a, a starting point conversation. That the IEDC seems to have a pretty interesting deal. That they have given Elevate Ventures and now some new fund called the Growth Fund. If I understand it right. The purpose of Elevate Ventures is for the IEDC, which is our taxpayer money. To say, “hey, we want to grow business, we will give it a money as a loan to see this venture fund, state-run venture fund.” Why are we doing that? Let’s leave that part for later. And they will find companies to invest in and grow right here in Indiana. And then we will get our money back and then some. The people who run Elevate, don’t charge. It seems a standard rate for managing this fund, it seems to be a much higher rate. That higher rate, well beyond anything that would happen in the private sector, is part of an issue. The other part of the issue is that over the years. There have been millions that has been generated. That money is not going back to the state, A repayment of loan rather. Part of that money, $25 million, is being put into a fund called the Growth Fund, which I don’t know why it was named the Growth Fund. The plan with the growth fund. Is to take the money. That is supposed to go back to the state, to us, the taxpayer as a repayment of loan and is now going to be utilized as seed funding for going after more businesses or maybe investing in the same businesses that we’re already invested in. And then look for $75 million in other capital. This was a story, a press release that was put out in May of 2024. Why would anybody invest in this thing? I don’t know. And they’re gonna charge a fee for that. So, they’re charging well over an industry standard on Elevate Ventures, and now they’re going to charge a fee for this growth fund utilizing the money they’re supposed to give back to the state because they’re paying back the loan, but they’re not paying back the loan. The fees go to pay salaries of the people on the board of Elevate Ventures and the Growth Fund. I have the broad strokes of the story, I think pretty accurate. This is messed up.

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