DOGE Finds School District Spent $86,000 in COVID Funds at Caesars Palace Las Vegas

Posted on: February 20, 2025, 12:25h. 

Last updated on: February 20, 2025, 02:25h.

Devin O'Connor @CasinoorgDevinO Read More
Expertise: Asia Pacific Gaming, Commercial Gaming, Legislation, Politics.

On Wednesday, DOGE reported how K-12 public schools across the nation spent their COVID-19 relief funds, with one district raising eyebrows for spending roughly $86K at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

DOGE Caesars Palace Las Vegas Utah schools
Caesars Palace Las Vegas received $86K in hotel revenue from a public school district in Utah. The spending for an educational conference has been brought to light by President Donald Trump’s DOGE. (Image: Shutterstock)

DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, revealed this week that schools spent nearly $200 billion in COVID-19 relief funds with little to no oversight. Specifically, the temporary organization initiated under President Donald Trump’s second administration said school districts weren’t held accountable for how their COVID spending benefitted students.

All of this money was drawn with zero documentation,” the DOGE X account posted.

DOGE officials said the US Department of Education retains approximately $4 billion in COVID-relief funding. Future allocations, however, must now “provide receipts for every purchase before funding is released,” the DOGE statement added.

Caesars Palace Rooms 

Among the questionable spending of the COVID education money, DOGE said, was some $86K spent on hotel rooms at Caesars Palace. The resort is among the most extravagant properties on the Las Vegas Strip and typically demands higher room rates than Caesars’ lower-tied properties like the Flamingo, Horseshoe, Paris, Harrah’s, and Planet Hollywood.

Utah’s Granite School District was behind the Caesars Palace trip. The third-largest district in the state, the school system serves about 67K students from kindergarten through 12th grade in Salt Lake County.

Granite District officials said the trip west to Southern Nevada was to attend an educational convention hosted by Solution Tree, an Indiana-based firm that conducts seminars and learning events designed to “transform education by empowering educators to raise student achievement.” The Granite School District said the $86K Caesars Palace bill covered room stays for “teams from 14 schools” to attend the seminar.

The exact number of teachers and school officials who were on the trip wasn’t disclosed publicly. District spokesperson Ben Horsley said the trip was a “critical component of helping schools improve instruction.”

Casino.org did some digging and found that the Solution Tree convention in question ran just three days from June 8-10, 2022. To the district’s credit, Caesars Palace was the host hotel.

For this summer’s 2025 PLC At Work Institute, the same convention the Granite educators attended in 2022, Caesars Palace rooms are discounted at $199/ night before taxes and a $45 nightly resort fee. The total bill comes to $829.94 for a three-night stay.  

If roughly the same rates were made available in 2022, $86K would cover rooms for about 103 attendees for three nights.

Education Department in Focus

Along with DOGE doing a deep dive into the Education Department and how it allocated COVID-19 relief funds to public schools, Trump has pledged to wind down the federal agency. Founded in 1979, the Education Department is to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access for students of all ages.”

Trump says the Education Department has become infiltrated by “radicals, zealots, and Marxists” who haven’t helped students succeed.

“The United States spends more money on education than any other country in the world and yet we get the worst outcomes,” Trump said during his campaign. “We’re at the bottom of every list. Instead of indoctrinating young people with inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material, which is what we’re doing now, our schools must be totally refocused to prepare our children.”