(Thursday afternoon, April 1, update)UNHAPPY WITH RESPONSE. State Democratic lawmakers are unhappy with a response they received from the executive director of the Governorâs Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery to their request for more detailed information on the distribution of COVID-19 relief funds.Four leaders of the Democratic minority in the House and Senate asked for âspending reports and disbursementsâ of CARES Act funds - the massive program passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Donald Trump more than a year ago â in a March 10 letter to GOFERR Executive Director Taylor Caswell.>> The Democratsâ March 10 letter to Caswell is here.The Democratic offices of the House and Senate said Thursday that on Wednesday, the lawmakers â Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy, Sen. Lou DâAllesandro, House Democratic Leader Renny Cushing and Rep. Mary Jane Wallner â received a response from Caswell.>> Caswellâs response letter is here.In the letter, Caswell pointed the lawmakers to the GOFERR website, which, he wrote, includes authorized CARES Act expenditures; a âtransparency mapâ with a database of 14,950 individual and organizational awards totaling nearly $983 million; a daily COVID-19 expenditure reports and weekly COVID-19 Relief Fund dashboards, which, he wrote âprovides all reports on (relief funds) allocations, total expenditures to date and updated totals for each week between May 4, 2020 and Jan. 22, 2021â; as well as monthly reports.But Caswell also writes that the lawmakers asked for the release financial and tax records for New Hampshire residents and businesses that are confidential.He also writes: âWe have provided extensive information including fiscal autorizations and individual contracts for all programs deployed by GOFERR to both the Joint Fiscal Committee (a legislative committee) and the Executive Council.âGov. Chris Sununu defended the stateâs transparency during his Thursday afternoon weekly briefing.âWe provide a lot of transparency on how all of the dollars have been spent,â he said. âYou can go on our website and see all the different organizations, all the different businesses that received dollars.He said information on how state agencies have spent CARES Act funding has been made public.âIf you looking for a receipt from Fredâs flower shop to see how he spent the $2,000 he received in the Main Street Relief Fund, that is not requiredâ under federal rules, Sununu said. He said all federal rules âwere followed to a âTââ and state auditors track how each recipient spends the funds.But prior to the governor's comments at the briefing, the lawmakers sharply criticized the Caswell response and repeated their call for "transparency in final CARES Act allocations.ââThe response we received from the Governor's Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery makes excuses for what we know to be true, which is that GOFERR is lacking transparency regarding hundreds of millions of dollars tirelessly fought for by our federal delegation, intended to aid New Hampshire communities,â the four lawmakers said in a joint statement.âIt is completely unacceptable that Commissioner Caswell and Governor Sununu refuse to make public the spending reports and disbursements for all agencies and private organizations that received CARES Act funds.â âWe are still deeply concerned that GOFERR is trying to hide how it's spending taxpayer money. The people of New Hampshire deserve to know exactly how our relief money is being spent and why the Governor is being so secretive.â(Our earlier report, published early Thursday morning, follows.)MORE TRANSPARENCY, PLEASE. The executive director of the Governorâs Office for Emergency Relief and Recovery says he is preparing a response to a request three weeks ago by Democratic legislators for more transparency in how COVID-19 funds were distributed last year and early this year.Four leaders of the Democratic minority asked for âspending reports and disbursements" of CARES Act funds,â the massive program passed by Congress and signed into law by then-President Donald Trump more than a year ago. New Hampshire received $1.25 billion in unrestricted CARES Act funds and, according to the lawmakers, the various entities of the state received more than $9 billion. Senate Democratic Leader Donna Soucy and Sen. Lou DâAllesandro joined with House Democratic Leader Renny Cushing and former House Finance Committee Chair Mary Jane Wallner in a March 10 letter to Taylor Caswell, executive director of GOFFER. GOFFER is the unit created by Gov. Chris Sununu to administer COVID-related funding from the federal government, although the governor has had final authority over where the money has been directed. The lawmakers say they and the public have a right to know specifics. âFor example, in December the Governorâs office stated that the remaining CARES Act funds ranged from $1 million, to $30 million, but in a later report, the public discovered that there was nearly $200 million that remained unspent,â the Democratic lawmakers wrote. âLater that month, you (Caswell) reported that there was almost no money left, but in the last meeting of the Legislative Advisory Board, you stated that resources were being put into a âfew, final high-priority investments.â âWe've recently learned that you will not release the spending reports and disbursements for all agencies and private organizations given CARES Act funds. Granite Staters deserve to know how the CARES Act funds -- that were distributed by you and Governor Sununu -- have been spent, and we are asking that GOFERR act quickly to make these reports publicly available. Caswell told New Hampshire Primary Source this week that he is preparing a response. âTo date we have not received a response, but it remains a concern, particularly with new money coming inâ from the recently-passed $1.9 trillion stimulus package, Soucy said. âWe want to make sure that itâs going to the right places and getting out to people in a timely fashion.â