Federal audit reveals oversight flaws in Minnesota’s child care payments
Minnesota child care federal audit
A recent federal audit uncovered deficiencies in Minnesota's child care assistance program related to attendance tracking – estimating that 11% of all payments likely had some flaw, potentially impacting $231.4 million in child care claims across more than 1,150 providers. FOX 9’s Paul Blume has the details.
(FOX 9) - A recent federal audit uncovered deficiencies in Minnesota's child care assistance program related to attendance tracking.
The state’s oversight of taxpayer-supported funding for child care has been under scrutiny in recent days following the release of a now viral video that purported to document millions of dollars in fraud.
Federal audit findings
What we know:
The audit, conducted by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General, was published in May.
It revealed that Minnesota did not comply with federal and state attendance documentation requirements for some payments made under its taxpayer-funded Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).
Auditors reviewed data from 2023, examining 200 randomly selected assistance payments, and found attendance-related issues in 38 of them.
The federal government estimated that 11% of all payments likely had some flaw, potentially impacting $231.4 million in child care claims across more than 1,150 providers.
Dig deeper:
The audit detailed the following errors made by child care providers who are required to submit accurate attendance data to the state in order to obtain funding assistance for low-income families:
- Attendance documentation was missing or unavailable for between 1 and 8 days of authorized childcare.
- Attendance documentation was missing sign-in or sign-out times or included inaccurate dates.
- Attendance documentation indicated the child was absent from the center, but the child was not billed as absent for reimbursement purposes.
"A lack of oversight to ensure accurate and complete attendance documentation could increase the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse to the CCAP program," the report stated.
"The State agency’s limited oversight of attendance documentation at childcare centers resulted in overpayments to providers," it concluded.
Audit recommendations
Big picture view:
The audit made the following three recommendations for improvement in state oversight:
- Work with the child care providers to collect any overpayments identified by the audit
- Strengthen its monitoring program to include routine reviews of attendance records for accuracy
- Continue to take steps to automate childcare attendance records through real-time electronic reporting
The other side:
In a written response included in the audit, state leaders agreed with the recommendations and promised action, including conducting unannounced compliance visits on the providers identified in the audit to review attendance records and recover any identified overpayments that were made.