Federal Investigators Find Evidence of Fraud at Head Start Centers

Federal investigators have found evidence of fraud at Head Start centers throughout the county, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office yesterday, The New York Times says.

In 8 of 15 instances, undercover investigators posing as parents or guardians of fictitious children found that workers at the federally financed child care centers regularly misrepresented information about applicants’ job status and earnings to fraudulently register ineligible children in the program, causing many much needier children to be placed on waiting lists.

In one case, an employee at a New Jersey Head Start center ignored $23,000 worth of income to qualify a too-affluent, fictitious family the undercover agents were seeking to register.

Gregory Kutz, the Government Accountability Office’s managing director for special investigations, told the newspaper that he could not identify the names of any of the centers because the investigation was continuing. His office plans to refer the Head Start findings to the inspector general’s office at the Health and Human Services Department for its consideration for a criminal inquiry, Mr. Kutz said.