Child care loopholes lead to easy money

[TimC]

Sisters get $540,000 from state mostly for watching each other's kids, and it's perfectly legal

 

Looooong article...some gems:

 

Torneshia Simmons sits with three of her children in her Racine home on Dec. 18. Simmons first became an approved provider and received Wisconsin Shares money in 2002. Her sister Shanta McKinney first received child-care subsidies in 2003.

 

All four had been in-home child-care providers. Collectively they have 17 children. For years, the government has paid them to stay home and care for each other's children.

 

Nothing illegal about it under the rules of Wisconsin Shares, the decade-old child-care assistance program designed alongside Wisconsin's welfare-to-work program.

 

"It's a loophole," said Laurice Lincoln, administrative coordinator for child care with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services. "Do we have concerns about it? Yes, it can be a problem. But if it's allowed, it's allowed. We really can't dispute it."

 

The Journal Sentinel spent four months investigating the $340 million taxpayer-supported program and uncovered an array of costly problems - including fraud. But the investigation also revealed a system rife with lax regulations that have paved the way for abuse by parents and providers.

 

Consider:

 

• Sisters or other relatives can stay home, swap kids and receive taxpayer dollars. The four Racine sisters took in as much as $540,000 in taxpayer dollars in less than three years, mostly to watch each other's kids.

 

• Rules allow parents to be employed by child-care providers and enroll their children at the same place. At some centers, children of employees make up the majority of kids in day care. In one Milwaukee location, an employer and parents are accused of teaming up to bilk the system out of more than $360,000.

 

• Child-care subsidy recipients have been allowed to work for almost any type of business. Payments were made when moms claimed to work ironing a man's shirts, drying fruit and selling artwork they made during art class.

 

• The government pays for child care while parents sleep. Counties have no way to monitor whether parents are actually sleeping while their kids are in day care.

 

Paid to sleep

State and county regulators admit nobody is monitoring another provision that allows parents to get paid to sleep. The provision was designed to allow parents with young children to work third-shift jobs and sleep in the daytime.

 

Front-line county workers say more and more people are taking advantage of the rule - despite a drop in manufacturing jobs that offer third-shift opportunities.

 

Regulators can't confirm or dispute the assertion because neither the state nor counties systematically track how many people using the program work third shift or how many hours they authorize for children to be in day care while their parents sleep.

 

Even if they knew how many hours were authorized, regulators admit there's no way to ensure parents use the hours properly.

 

"It's a hard thing to monitor," said Bates, the state analyst. "It could certainly lend itself to abuse."