A top aide to Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan has been accused of mismanaging roughly $400,000 in COVID-19 relief funds — resulting in about half the grants going to ineligible businesses.

Tim Weidemann, a former president of the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance, “either misunderstood or intentionally miscommunicated to the public,” the program requirements, resulting in many applicants believing they were eligible when they weren’t, an audit from the county comptroller’s office found last month.

There were “significant failures in governance, inadequate internal controls, and poor oversight within the Ulster County Economic Development Alliance,” under Weidemann’s leadership, auditors found.

The program, CARES II, was designed to provide grants of up to $35,000 to small and mid-size businesses with cash taken from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act.

Weidemann, a political appointee from then-Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan, was responsible for “significant failures in governance,” the audit concluded.

The report did not say how much cash went to ineligible businesses, but the Ulster County legislature has already paid out nearly $400,000 to 17 ineligible businesses in an effort to put the debacle behind it, according to Hudson Valley One.

Weidemann’s stewardship of the fund had been previously ripped by critics as “Tim’s friends and family fund,” the Albany Times Union reported.

In April the freshman congressman brought Weidemann to Washington as his director of economic development and special projects, noting in a statement at the time that he “couldn’t be happier” with his performance as the county’s economic czar.

“The CARES II program was implemented and funds were awarded when Rep. Ryan was no longer serving as Ulster County Executive,” a spokesman for Ryan told The Post.

Ryan’s Hudson Valley district is a top target of national Republicans.

He won the seat by less than 4,000 votes in 2022.

“Pat Ryan is followed by controversy and scandal wherever he goes – and it’s his constituents who pay the price,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.