Granite School District ‘flooded’ with threatening phone calls after DOGE post

SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah (ABC4) — Granite School District offices have been flooded with threatening phone calls, emails, and social media posts after being accused of misusing funds by Elon Musk’s “Department of Government of Efficiency.”

In a post made on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Feb. 19, “DOGE” mentioned how school districts across the country allegedly misused COVID-relief funds for various purposes apart from education. One cost mentioned was $86k used for hotel rooms at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, attributed to GSD in a listed source by DOGE.

Since then, the district has said they have been “flooded” with messages of explicit nature, and threats of violence towards their staff.

“Our district offices were flooded with dozens of angry phone calls, emails, and social media posts. Mostly from out of state. Many of these calls and emails contained explicit language and threats of violence against our staff,” A GSD’s statement read.

The district disputed the claim made by DOGE within their statement, saying that the expense itself was “cherry picked” for scrutiny, and was a part of 90 other purchase orders that funding was used for.

“While difficult to articulate an exact cost, hyperbolic stories shared in the media and social media posts that lack context directly contribute to an erosion of trust in public education.” The statement continued. “Granite School District is not, and has never been, under any investigation for the use of these funds. The accusation from the DOGE is completely false, and their social media post is intentionally misleading.”

GSD has released other statements refuting claims made by DOGE made about the hotel expenses in Las Vegas. According to GSD, the funds mentioned were used to house 123 educators who attended an education convention in 2022. According to GSD, they request approval to use the money for this convention, and that they “conducted a comprehensive needs assessment,” before submitting their plan to the Utah State Board of Education.

“While the host hotel had some resort functions, our participants had standard rooms at the government rate. The average hotel cost for each participant was $220 per night,” GSD said in a statement. “To be clear, there is no investigation into the use of these funds, which were approved by the Utah State Board of Education in full compliance with all applicable state and federal guidelines. Granite School District has NOT been contacted or questioned by any state or federal regulatory agency about the use of these funds.”

At this time, the district has reported that all threats made have been found to be non-credible by the Granite Police Department. ABC4.com has made an attempt to reach out DOGE for comment, we have not yet heard back.