Pennsylvania Frauduletnly Does It Again, And Again

And it just keeps getting better...

Pennsylvania just scooted through yet another U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Audit by the seat of their revenue-maximizing-scheme seat of their pants.

It was only last May, I so fondly remember the DHHS Office of Inspector General documenting $156,000,000 is "estimated" fraud in Philadelphia County, PA. Just think what the numbers would have been for the rest of the state.

Since the U.S. DHHS and OIG and I cannot provide the public with the exact amounts of perpetual fraud in child welfare, we will just share with the public another memorable moment in federal audits of Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare's financial fiasco. This particular 2007 audit documented over $44,000,000 in fraud, in one county, in one program, in one facility: Castille.

Yes, Castille is juvenile detention facility, which shares the name with the Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille, who stated in the "Kids for Cash" scandal:

“Today’s order is not intended to be a quick fix,” Ronald D. Castille, the chief judge of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “It’s going to take some time, but the Supreme Court is committed to righting whatever wrong was perpetrated on Luzerne’s juveniles and their families.”

So where is the Luzerne County federal audit? For that matter, where is the long-term fix in child welfare fraud in Pennsylvania? Well, it certainly is not in Pennsylvania.

Here are 1.6 million reasons, I mean another U.S. DHHS OIG audit report of $1,600,000 in Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare wrong doing to juveniles and their families in the state. Even though the audit only deals with a small sample population of children aging out of foster care (over 18 years of age), questions should be asked:

HOW MANY OF THESE CHILDREN WHO ARE AGING OUT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN FOSTER CARE?

or

HOW MANY OF THESE CHILDREN WHO ARE AGING OUT WERE FROM LUZERNE AND PHILADELPHIA COUNTIES?


Pennsylvania Title IV-E Audit 2009
The pinnacle of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Services's performance is their objection to the authority of the U.S. DHHS OIG to perform the audit, itself.

Just precious.