Tennessee audit finds millions of dollars misappropriated for childrens’ meal programs – Tennessee Lookout

In the summertime of 2020, with pandemic-driven unemployment surging throughout Tennessee, the state contracted with two Shelby County group teams to supply meals to kids in danger for starvation in places scattered all through the county.

However when auditors with the Tennessee Comptroller’s workplace made shock visits to examine on the packages, they discovered no kids — and no meals being served — at 17 of the 21 promised websites.

The 2 nonprofits — Open Door and Alumni Music — are among the many most up-to-date examples of what auditors have described as “misleading schemes” in little one starvation packages overseen by the Tennessee Division of Human Companies.

However they don’t seem to be remoted situations.

State auditors have uncovered schemes involving thousands and thousands of {dollars} in misappropriated funding meant to supply meals and snacks for poor children over the previous eight years in Tennessee — the place one in 4 children is in danger for starvation each day.

A spokesperson for the Division of Human Companies, which oversees the diet packages, stated that state officers proceed to work carefully with the nonprofits, church buildings, after-school golf equipment and different organizations that contract with them to supply meals to “emphasize program coaching and program compliance.”

“We additionally proceed to discover further screening and monitoring choices that adjust to federal mandates and additional strengthen the constancy of those packages,” an electronic mail from Devin Stone, the spokesperson, stated.

Division officers are additionally wanting so as to add new expertise that might higher monitor organizations collaborating in summer time meals packages. “The intention is for the expertise options to assist decrease program errors and cut back program findings going ahead,” she stated.

The pandemic introduced distinctive challenges. The longstanding diet packages took on a extra vital function as training went distant, mother and father misplaced work and youngsters had been left with out the routine meals they received throughout the faculty day. The state company issued waivers to permit the kid diet packages to function in nontraditional methods, together with permitting meals to be delivered or taken to-go, opposite to the same old guidelines of this system.

“These waivers had been meant to extend entry to meals whereas sustaining social distancing and selling security for this system operators and contributors,” she stated. “These waivers, nonetheless, additionally created some challenges for program operators and program screens.”

DHS oversees two packages that present meals and snacks to Tennessee kids: the Summer time Meals Companies Program, which distributed about $20 million within the final fiscal 12 months to group organizations, offers meals and snacks to kids when faculty is out over the summer time months.

The Youngster and Grownup Care Meals Program offered $58 million within the 2021 fiscal 12 months to year-round packages — after-school, church, girls and boys golf equipment and daycare facilities amongst them — to feed kids and a few adults with disabilities. All the funding flows from the federal authorities, however state companies like DHS function the managers of this system, enrolling and vetting companies who agree to supply meals, paying invoices and monitoring for fraud.

Whereas nearly all of funding seems to work as meant — offering lunches, dinners and snacks for youths — the packages have confirmed to be simple targets for dangerous actors.

Altogether between 2020 and 2021, greater than $141,000 in funds made by Tennessee officers to childcare facilities, Boys and Women golf equipment, church buildings and nonprofits that had been supposed to supply federally-subsidized meals and snacks to low-income children over the summer time at the moment are being questioned, in response to the state audit launched earlier this month.

An extra $216,000 in federal {dollars} is now in dispute for year-round meals packages, after a assessment discovered lacking paperwork, every day register sheets that had been photocopied and re-dated to seem as in the event that they included a number of totally different meal companies and requests for fee for feeding extra kids than a website may bodily maintain.

A protracted historical past of fraud and poor record-keeping for this system in Tennessee has been uncovered by the Tennessee Comptroller and federal authorities that stretch again to 2014, when the division’s meals program accounted for almost 20 p.c of significant deficiencies in federal funding administration throughout state authorities.

A scathing 2015 audit discovered unscrupulous contractors had been pocketing funds meant for hungry kids. In a single occasion, a contractor spent cash on lavish bonuses, house enhancements and on-demand films in resorts.

A federal examination in 2016 discovered a number of situations of lax oversight by DHS, together with a failure to fireside contractors who violated this system guidelines, a failure to recuperate over-payments and a failure to scrutinize how the cash was spent and insufficient workers to supervise this system.

Between 2018 and 2019, the Comptroller’s workplace recognized 4 organizations that submitted tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in questionable billing for meals, together with on days when shock inspections discovered no kids current.

A number of the failures recognized are a results of poor documentation of offering meals to kids, reasonably than outright fraud, however the Comptroller’s auditors famous that DHS is however liable for sound fiscal oversight of almost $80 million in taxpayer funding every year.