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ST. LOUIS — One of Missouri’s U.S. senators is condemning the rollout of a north St. Louis grant program and asking U.S. Treasury officials to detail how they will ensure responsible spending and prevent fraud in the use of federal pandemic aid money.

In a letter sent to two federal officials Thursday, Sen. Eric Schmitt pointed to Post-Dispatch reports about a grant program championed by St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones to help revive north city with $37 million in federal State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds.

“It’s no secret that the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds are ripe for abuse and fraud,� Schmitt said in a statement. “The pandemic is long over, and cities and politicians are still attempting to use taxpayer funds as rainy-day slush funds to pay for wasteful projects that benefit only the city’s connected and powerful. The City of St. Louis is no different.�

The state’s junior senator, a Republican, is the latest area politician to call out St. Louis’ administration of the grant program, which aimed to send some of the city’s $498 million haul of 2021 pandemic aid to businesses on the beleaguered north side.

St. Louis Comptroller Darlene Green, a Democrat, on Wednesday called for a “do-over� of the grant award process in a “risk assessment� produced by her office’s internal audit section. State Rep. Steve Butz, D-St. Louis, has asked the Missouri Auditor’s office to look into the program. And Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who is running for mayor, has used her position on the board overseeing the program to question its rollout.

Schmitt cited Post-Dispatch reporting that found the grants were awarded to businesses whose addresses turned out to be empty buildings with unpaid taxes. The Post-Dispatch also found that nearly $1.3 million in grants slated for entities tied to the family of Alderwoman Shameem Clark Hubbard.

Clark Hubbard sponsored the legislation expanding the program’s eligibility, which allowed the nonprofits affiliated with her family to qualify. She also sits on SLDC’s board, and though she recused herself, she advocated for a vote approving the grant winners. She has since said she had no influence on SLDC’s selection process.

“The competitive process to award the grants is under doubt, given grants were provided to those politically connected despite not originally being qualified,� Schmitt wrote in his letter.

Mayor Jones has said she has no plans to restart the program, insisting that the program has not been “compromised from a legal or compliance standpoint.� The mayor also said she would not “let a few bumps in the road kill the ultimate goal� of reinvesting in long-neglected north St. Louis. The St. Louis Development Corporation, tasked with administering the grant program, has tried to alleviate concerns by emphasizing that most of the money has not yet been paid out pending ongoing due diligence of its selected winners.

And last week, SLDC finally released portions of grant applications it had declined to release under Missouri Sunshine Law requests from the newspaper, though the portions of the applications SLDC released did not fully describe all winners’ plans for the money.

Schmitt has tried to carve out misuse of pandemic aid money as one of his issues. Earlier this year Schmitt railed against what he called the U.S. Treasury’s “misuse� of COVID relief money. In a resolution, Schmitt wrote that pandemic aid was being used as a “slush fund� and was “emblematic of Washington addiction to wasteful spending.� It failed on a party-line vote.

Schmitt and Jones, former colleagues in the Legislature, also have a history. The two were known for trading barbs on social media at the beginning of Jones’ term, when Schmitt was still Missouri attorney general and making headlines for lawsuits against school districts over mask mandates.

In 2022, Schmitt used his office to sue the city on the same day Jones signed a bill to use $1.75 million in pandemic aid to help women in Missouri, where abortion is illegal, travel to clinics in Illinois. A St. Louis judge last year ruled in the attorney general’s favor. And in 2021, Schmitt sued to try and block the city’s indoor mask mandate. He ultimately withdrew the suits as the pandemic dissipated.

In his latest missive against the city and Jones’ administration, Schmitt asks the Treasury officials to lay out how they are ensuring responsible spending of pandemic relief dollars. He also asks Treasury to say whether it believes “that there are substantial allegations of fraudulent activity� in local government pandemic aid and how that has factored into its rulemaking for the program.

“There desperately needs to be accountability,� Schmitt said in his statement. “I’m leading the charge again to put a stop to this waste and abuse of taxpayer money. Enough is enough.�