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(Lincoln, NE) -- Nebraska State Auditor Mike Foley says a review has turned up rampant billing abuses from Omaha daycares.
Foley says there could be up to $13 million worth of inflated, even fraudulent billing, because of a lack of oversight on the part of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Foley says a number of child care providers bilked the state out of payments far above of those to which they were entitled.
The audit found the facilities in question, had been using subsidies, set aside for lower income families.
The offending providers used an array of techniques to overstate their billings and receive payments that should not have been processed by DHHS. Those underhanded tactics proved startlingly successful in circumventing both Federal and State regulations implemented – but apparently not effectively enforced by DHHS – to restrict child care subsidies to only qualifying payments.