Will Texas Gov. Rick Perry Face Another Indictment?

He should.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has seemed to open up another can of Perry worms in Texas.

The latest audit report finds:

"Texas did not comply with Federal requirements for the use of almost $15 million in Child Care and Development Fund targeted funds for fiscal year 2010"

Other recent reports also found that the rate of child poverty, despite the economy surging in the Lone Star State, is rising at astronomical rates.

Despite Economic Strength Number of Texas Children in Poverty Rising  66% of school age children live in poverty, a 47% increase over the last 10 years.

 The should be interpreted as a state government which places more energy and concern on providing assistance to business to increase revenues that to invest in its future workforce, children.

Not only should one be offended with such state policies but should also be outraged that poverty generates future, cheap labor by depriving families of education, child care, food, shelter and other basic needs that are economically out of reach of the average with children in Texas.

Federal child care funds were diverted to assist in mortgage fraud programs.  The rest "disappeared" through poor record keeping.

The principle point of anger should hail from the fact that there will be no criminal charges and the money will be "paid back" over years through a series in cuts of future funding which will continue the cycle of increasing child poverty and cheap labor in Texas.

5 will get you 10 that similar fraud findings will manifest in other Texas child welfare programs.

Thanks Rick Perry for showing the nation on how not to run a stat and showing the world that we need to take better care of our most precious treasures.

Why help the border babies when you do not help your own citizens?

Texas Improperly Claimed Some Child Care and Development Funds Report

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HHS Inspector Levinson Testifies On Medicaid Fraud In Child Welfare

"Three of these are relevant to today’s hearing – Foster Care, Head Start, and the Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) – and accounted for about $0.5 billion of those improper payments."

 

Top Management Challenges at the Department of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education: Perspective...

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HHS Reports Fraud In Child Welfare Culture of Entitlements

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has published its findings of meeting the requirements of reporting and recovering improper payments.  Without surprise it was reported that there were reported improper payment information for its child welfare programs, including no corrective action for recovery of the improperly reimbursed programs.

The report specifically addressed Medicaid fraud in child welfare, including its ancillary programs of Title IV-E and B, a.k.a. foster care, Temporary Assistant to Needy Families (TANF), Child Care Development Fund (CCDF) and Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

As stated in the report one of the reasons there was no rate reduction in improper payments was due to poor, if not lack of reporting by the States.

This can be easily translated into one simple term:  Secrecy.

Secrecy in the validation of child welfare payments go far beyond "protecting the best interests of the child".  Secrecy expands the broad universe of protecting the status quo of program operations and goals.  The operations are archaic and the goals have never been met.  It can be viewed as an iron curtain.

Simply put, child welfare does not perform the way it is promoted to function.

One performance standard which does not even exist is the function of the States Medicaid Fraud Control Units.  How is it, when, a State Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), warehoused in the Attorney General Office has the option of recovering improper payments of its child welfare programs, specifically foster care, can contemporaneously advocate and advise the same Child Placing Agencies it defends?

Continuing along the line of MFCU omissions of oversight, there are no referral mechanisms of a State's Medicaid program for improper, or even questionable activities for that matter.

The entire situation becomes apparent as a conflict of interest, allowing States to opt for the financial penalties of program funding for the simple fact that child welfare programs are outside the scope of an appropriated budget, or rather they are outlier payments reimbursed after the fact.

States will make up for the federal financial penalties with its child abuse propaganda campaigns to raise money, with the money from improper claims, to continue to keep its operations unscathed from reform.  Continuing a culture of contractual entitlements is just another fancy way of saying false claims.

A few years ago I attended one of the symposiums of the DOJ and HHS partnership on health care fraud enforcement.  When I spoke on the ills of oversight regarding questionable cost reimbursements, one of the agents on the stage dismissed me.  There was DOJ video of this but it does not seem to be currently available.  That agent can now eat his words in the reading of this report.

With the pending first implementation phase of the Affordable Care Act, States are facing severe challenges of meeting reporting, recovery exclusion requirements of its child welfare programming.

Until there is some form of transparency, a broadly ambiguous term in itself, the contractual culture of entitlements will never change.

HHS Improper Payments Information Audit 2013

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Iowa Busted In $2.6 Million Child Care Fraud

Keep in mind that these data were not at electronic record keeping levels that we have today, meaning, there was more that was not identified. 

Of the $12,884,014 that the State agency claimed for CCDF targeted funds, the State agency did
not comply with Federal requirements when claiming $2,654,238 for FYs 2004 through 2008.

Specifically, the State agency (1) improperly reobligated $2,464,723 of FY 2004 targeted funds
after the obligation period had ended, (2) improperly obligated $134,209 of FY 2006 CCDF
targeted funds to another entity at the same level in the State government as the State agency,
and (3) did not refund to the Federal Government the $55,306 of targeted funds that either were
returned by the grantee after the obligation period had ended or remained unliquidated after the
liquidation period ended.  For the remaining $10,229,776 of CCDF targeted funds, the State
agency obligated and liquidated the funds in accordance with Federal requirements.

These errors occurred because the State agency did not have adequate policies and procedures in
place to monitor the obligation and liquidation of CCDF targeted funds pursuant to Federal
requirements.


Iowa Improperly Claimed Some Child Care and Development Targeted Funds (A-07-11-03163)

Let's see what else ya got, George.

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