Sponsors of a new Republican-backed bill said it will make it easier to go after fraud by childcare providers who receive government funds. The issue has been in the spotlight recently as cases were exposed in Minnesota, and many unfounded questions were raised on social media about centers in Central Ohio.
Rep. Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) said the state has been dealing with fraud in childcare payments before this issue became prevalent on social media.
“Unfortunately, as you have seen in our communities, a lot of people are gaslighting this issue,” Plummer said at a press conference discussing the bill.
Allegations have been made against some childcare providers for abusing government funds designated to provide childcare for lower-income parents. Kara Wente is the director of the Ohio Department of Children and Youth, which oversees publicly funded child care in Ohio. She said there has been no confirmation or evidence of widespread fraud like in Minnesota, where around 60 people have been convicted, many of Somali descent.
"What I can tell you from last year is we had 124. At the time we spoke at the press conference on Jan. 5, I think we had about 61 overpayments that we had assessed and we had 12 program closures,” Wente said.
Wente said this bill would allow for better data to be collected which, in turn, would answer questions being asked about possible childcare fraud.
“We are going to have better data that you are asking for because if we only look at referrals, it's a really...skewed view of what we are seeing,” said Wente.
In addition to improving data on childcare expenditures, Plummer said the bill would expand the Ohio attorney general’s authority to investigate childcare fraud, and would make it easier to quickly stop payments to suspect childcare facilities. Plummer said the bill would also ensure daycares are paid by attendance instead of enrollment – something Gov. Mike DeWine has said Ohio already does.
Rep. Thomas Young (R-Washington Twp.), a co-sponsor of the bill, said it's important to talk about what the legislation doesn't do.
“It doesn’t reduce eligibility for families currently receiving care,” Young said. “It does not eliminate transitional childcare. It does not target providers who are operating safely and lawfully, and that’s a very, very key point.”
Young said it's important to safeguard the federal dollars that go into the childcare program.
"We depend on those federal dollars. We are doing the best job we can do to protect those federal dollars,” said Young. “It's a billion-dollar budget. Almost half of it is coming from the federal government. So we can't gaslight this and say Ohio is terrible because Ohio is not terrible."
Plummer compared the situation to the “whack-a-mole” game where moles pop up randomly as a player tries to quickly whack them down with a mallet.
"We are going to stay one step ahead of this and keep closing the gaps,” said Plummer, a former Montgomery County sheriff. “We know their angles. We know their strategies. These changes will help close those gaps," Young said.
This bill isn't the only one that deals with childcare fraud. Another piece of legislation from Rep. Josh Williams (R-Sylvania) has been drafted. Plummer said he’s spoken to Williams, but that he's been working with the administration on this bill. But Plummer said he's open to working with Williams on accomplishing mutual goals.
