Entry #0004 · USAspending
A Quintillion-Dollar Amendment
A CDBG subaward to the Town of Van Buren, Maine, was amended from $350,000 to $1 quintillion. That's roughly 10,000 times global GDP for a town of 1,900 people.
Part of GOV422, a catalog of errors we find in federal procurement data.
GOV422
Unprocessable entity
#0004
Record detail
- "subawardee"
- "TOWN OF VAN BUREN"
- "subaward_amount"
- invalid value: "$1,000,000,000,000,000,100"
- "description"
- "CONTRACT AMENDMENT TO ADD FUNDS."
- "prime_award_total"
- "$11,645,252"
- "source"
- "USAspending"
HUD awarded Maine $11.6 million in Community Development Block Grants, split across 62 subawards to small towns. The Town of Van Buren initially received $350,000 for public infrastructure. Then a contract amendment came through to "add funds" to the tune of one quintillion dollars. That's roughly 10,000 times global GDP, for a town of ~2,000 people. A quintillion here, a quintillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
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