State Rep. Joe Aragona today introduced his plan to help reveal and investigate corruption in state government. Aragona’s plan would offer financial awards to news reporters and members of the public who find and expose waste, fraud, abuse, misappropriation, or other misuse of taxpayer dollars.

“Government spending goes up every year, but local journalism is dying,” said Aragona. “That helps bad actors and makes it harder than ever to expose fraud. 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.”

Aragona’s new bill will reward news media and individuals acting as independent journalists who expose government misuse and theft of taxpayer dollars with financial awards. Citizens who discover abuse of taxpayer funds and report it to the state’s auditor general would be awarded 10-15% 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,” said Aragona. “These bounties would be a great deal for the state if they help us put a stop to even one case of misuse like that. State government spending is up more than 40% since Gov. 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.”

Recent independent journalists have exposed several instances of taxpayers being defrauded around the country. Most famously, Minnesota’s network of fraudulent day care centers were found to have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars without providing real services.

In Michigan, a Detroit News investigation just recently led to 16 felony charges being brought against a prominent political donor and appointee. Fay Beydoun took $20 million in state funding and used it to award herself hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary, thousands of dollars on furniture, international travel and even a high-end $4,500 luxury coffee maker. Aragona first publicly pitched his plan after the Detroit News investigation brought the misuse to light.

“We’ve made great strides this year cutting back on government waste. Now is the time to dig even deeper,” said Aragona. “I voted for a plan last year that will prevent cases like Beydoun in the future, and that’s great news for Michigan taxpayers. But 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.”

Rep. Aragona in 2025 helped pass the House Ethics Accountability and Transparency (HEAT) plan into law to bring more light into the state budget process. HEAT transformed budget earmark transparency, requiring the disclosure of the legislator making the spending request, the amount requested, where the money was going, and that it be disclosed in a committee hearing 45 days before the budget was passed. It also bans for-profit companies from receiving any budget earmark and will now require better documentation of all spending before reimbursing entities after the fact.

Aragona’s new bill, House Bill 5976, was referred to the House Appropriations Committee for consideration.