[Vision2020] Fwd: State auditors: Idaho misspent some welfare funds

[Saundra Lund]

They have absolutely no shame whatsoever.





[1]http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/04/02/3113866/state-auditors-idah
o-misspent.html?sp=/99/101/


            State auditors: Idaho misspent some welfare funds

  By REBECCA BOONE

  Associated Press

April 2, 2014 Updated 1 hour ago




BOISE, Idaho — State auditors say the Idaho Department of Health and
Welfare misspent $2.5 million in federal welfare funding on salaries
instead of using it to help pay for food, housing and other benefits
provided to Idaho's poorest residents.

  But department officials say the money was used properly to help
  keep extremely low-income children out of foster care.

  The finding by the Legislative Services Office's Audits Division was
  part of the state's annual audit of how federal cash is used by
  Idaho agencies.

  The $2.5 million used for salaries and other non-assistance costs in
  2013 was left over from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
  budget from 2008. In the report released Wednesday, the auditors
  said federal rules required that any carry-over funds be spent
  directly on benefits like cash or vouchers for food, housing,
  utilities or other basic needs for low-income Idaho families.

  The Department of Health and Welfare disagrees with the auditors,
  saying that the federal rule changed on Oct. 1, 2008 — the start of
  fiscal year 2009 — to allow unobligated balances to be spent on any
  benefit or service provided under the program, so the money was used
  appropriately. But the auditors noted that the unused balance was
  from fiscal year 2008, and so they maintain the rule change for 2009
  couldn't be retroactively applied.

  Very few families qualify for the program, Idaho Department of
  Health and Welfare spokesman Tom Shanahan said. "No one who
  qualified for the assistance has been denied," Shanahan said.

  In Idaho, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families money is typically
  used to provide a $309-per-month cash payment given to families with
  incomes below 32 percent of the federal poverty level. That means
  that they must have a monthly income of less than $309, Shanahan
  said, and any monthly income they receive is subtracted from the
  $309 payment.

  The goal of the program is to keep families together, Shanahan said,
  and to help parents find work. To that end, the program also
  provides funds for things like appropriate clothing for job
  interviews or transportation to a workplace.

  The federal rule change allowed states to also use the money to help
  keep children from those extremely poor families stay with relatives
  instead of putting them in foster care when their parents are unable
  to care for them, Shanahan said. Idaho currently averages about
  2,900 people on the program a month, and 80 percent of them were
  children in "kinship care," he said. The kinship care money is used
  to help cover the living costs of a child staying with a relative if
  the relative wouldn't otherwise be able to pay for the child's care.

  "Prior to 2008, TANF funds could only be used for cash assistance or
  work-support activities. In other words, services to get people in
  families working," Shanahan said. "We covered all the costs that we
  could cover, and we didn't deny anyone who qualified."

  That left a $2.5 million balance that had to be spent within five
  years, he said. When the rules changed, the department decided to
  use that money to help pay social workers for the time they spent
  helping children in the program stay with extended family members
  when their parents were sent to jail or otherwise deemed unable to
  care for them.

  The $309-per-month payment is set by state law, Shanahan said, so
  the leftover funds couldn't be used to boost payments to qualified
  families or otherwise expand the program.

  April Renfro, the manager of the Legislative Audits Division, said
  her office believes the leftover money could only be spent on direct
  benefits under the rules in place when the money was received by the
  state. The division audits the spending based on federal
  requirements supplied by the federal Office of Management and
  Budget, she said.

References

1. http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/04/02/3113866/state-auditors-idaho-misspent.html?sp=/99/101/
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