JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – State Auditor Nicole Galloway released her annual Statewide Single Audit for 2016 Tuesday morning and some of the findings on lack of department oversight echo much of what her office discovered last year.
Most notably, Galloway found that for the seventh year in a row, the Department of Social Services had failed to create safeguards to stop payments to ineligible clients of their child care subsidy. In three instances of the 60-case sample, roughly 5 percent, payments were made to children when there was not a valid need for child care subsidies. In a program that serves 64,000 kids and costs roughly $135 million of federal funds, that 5 percent adds up.
Galloway said the federal and state funds used by these kinds of programs need to be monitored correctly and carefully.
“There’s not appropriate oversight or accountability for federal dollars on federal programs,” she said in summation of the entire audit. “When we are in a budget crisis, where we’re going to have a $500 million budget hole next year, every dollar counts. When we find money that shouldn’t be paid… those are our tax dollars so we need to have the appropriate oversight here.”
The DSS also did not re-validate certain requirements for medical providers participating in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, better known as CHIP.
The auditor’s office also discovered the Department of Mental Health (DMH) did not keep records pertaining to the daily rates given to group homes for individuals with developmental disabilities. Those funds are used to teach life skills, but Galloway noted improper oversight on that program meant the department had done questionable spending on a sample roughly $1.6 million in the last two fiscal years, 2015 and 2016.
In a sample of 60 payments to group homes, Galloway found 21 payments of $1.5 million did not have proper documentation filed.
That discovery was also found in last year’s audit. Galloway added the fact that there were so many recurring problems in this year’s audit was frustrating.
“It is troubling we continue to find this,” she said.
The audit itself takes place each year to oversee how the state manages roughly $8.4 billion of the $11.8 billion in federal funds spent by the state. If a situation gets bad enough with a given department, Galloway said the federal government would work with departments on a “corrective action plan” and “hold their hand” in a way to get them back up to snuff. Both the DSS and the DMH offered response’s to the audit according to their corrective action plan.
Galloway said she would also begin performance audits on these entities in the coming months.
The full audit can be read below.
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