Find Waste, Fraud Or Abuse? Win A Prize!

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 05/15/2026) News reporters and members of the public who find and expose “waste, fraud, abuse, misappropriation, or other misuse of taxpayer dollars,” could win a financial award after Rep. Joseph Aragona (R-Clinton Township) announced his new bill yesterday.

He said he first publicly pitched his plan after The Detroit News investigation brought the Fay Beydoun investigation to light. Beydoun, who was president of the nonprofit corporation Global Link International, is facing 16 felony charges — including conducting a criminal enterprise, forgery and multiple counts of larceny by conversion and uttering and publishing. She faces up to 20 years in prison if she is convicted as charged.

“We’ve made great strides this year on cutting back on government waste. Now is the time to dig even deeper,” he said. “We want as many people out there hunting for fraud, waste and abuse as we can so we can put an end to it and fix any issues that are still out there hiding in the shadows.”

He also said his plan, to help “reveal and investigate corruption in state government," is because government spending goes up every year, “but local journalism is dying.”

“That helps bad actors and makes it harder than ever to expose fraud," Aragona said. "We need to change that. I want to shine more light on shady spending deals and expose as much wrongdoing as we can. This plan will help create new whistleblowers and bring new transparency to all of government.”

HB 5976 would financially reward media outlets and individuals acting as independent journalists who expose government misuse and theft of taxpayer dollars. Those who discover the abuse and report it to the state's auditor general would be awarded 10-15 percent of the recovered funds, “depending on the method of discovery.”

“The fraud numbers we know about are staggering, with tens of millions of dollars being swindled,” Aragona said. “These bounties would be a great deal for the state if they helped us put a stop to even one case of misuse like that. State government spending is up more than 40 percent since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took office, and it’s the same story in the federal government and with our local governments. That’s a lot of incentive for people to do the wrong thing and take advantage of the system. We need to create a stronger incentive for people to do the right thing and expose that wrongdoing.”

The bill was referred to the House Appropriations Committee for consideration.