New Report Criticizes State Agency and Child Care Program

St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program is the subject of another highly critical report from the Office of the State Legislative Auditor.

The report, released Wednesday, found the program integrity controls used by the Minnesota Department of Human Services are insufficient to prevent, detect, and investigate fraud. The findings show the state and county agencies failed to sufficiently tap into external data sources to verify the eligibility of applicants for the Child Care Assistance Program and the Department of Human Services has weak processes for validating that the billings submitted by childcare providers actually match the childcare services that were provided.

In addition, the Legislative Auditor found the Human Services Department lacked sufficient integrity controls for licensing providers. The report was also critical of the department for not adequately identifying and analyzing the risk for fraud and for having weak processes for coordinating fraud investigations.

The Child Care Assistance Program has been in the spotlight since a whistleblower stepped forward with allegations of widespread fraud and the potential for taxpayer dollars to be transferred overseas and possibly fall into the hands of terrorist organizations. The Legislative Auditor earlier told lawmakers he could not substantiate the alleged overseas terrorism link.