THE GOVERNMENT SPENDS MILLIONS ON TV ADS AND BOOKLETS TELLING THE PUBLIC TO CALL AND REPORT FRAUD FOR SCAMS WITH FOOD STAMPS WASTING MILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS. BUT WHEN NOTIFIED OF SUCH ABUSE, LITTLE OR NOTHING IS DONE TO STOP IT.
Failure to police the store owners who served as enablers for food stamp fraud cost the government at least $12 million on top of the money lost to scams, according to investigators looking into problems in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Agriculture Department clear procedures and guidance to carry out key oversight and enforcement s internal watchdog, the inspector general.
“As a result, the integrity of [the food stamp program] is at risk because FNS does not provide sufficient deterrents to trafficking,” inspectors said.
For failing to clamp down on a black-market trade that wastes taxpayer money, the Food and Nutrition Service wins the first Golden Hammer of the year, a weekly award handed out by The Washington Times to highlight examples of fiscal fraud, waste and abuse.
The inspector general’s investigators said $5.3 million worth of waste was because businesses that had been permanently disqualified from the program were still able to redeem SNAP benefits. The other $6.7 million was from uncollected fees: If a disqualified store owner tries to sell the business, the government is supposed to be paid a fee for time remaining on the suspension.
Investigators also found 51 cases in which store owners simply transferred control of their businesses to close family or friends in an attempt to circumvent their disqualifications, and the Food and Nutrition Service never caught the switch. Two brothers in Pennsylvania kept transferring control of their company to each other every time one of them was disqualified.
Fraud in SNAP rose last year, though with some estimates placing the amount at 1 percent of all funding, defenders say, the program remains one of the most efficient in all of government.
But the Agriculture Department estimates that it distributed more than $75 billion in SNAP benefits in 2012 to low-income households, and a number that large means even minor examples of fraud or abuse can mean millions of dollars slip through the cracks.
Investigators think the Food and Nutrition Service missed out on $6.7 million in penalties it should have collected and was bilked a further $5.3 million by stores that should have been ineligible for SNAP yet were allowed to participate.
Food and Nutrition Service officials said the inspector general was conducting its evaluation while the agency was reorganizing the oversight of SNAP retailers, and contended that significant improvements have been made.
“FNS is disappointed that the audit’s broad findings did not make clear the substantive work and change that was occurring and accomplished by the agency during the audit period,” a response from the office said.
USDA and the inspector general disagreed over some of the rules surrounding the program. Investigators found 586 store owners who were allowed to continue participating in SNAP at new locations after their other stores were “permanently disqualified.”
The Food and Nutrition Service argued that this was not a mistake and that store owners are allowed to participate in SNAP after illicit activity so long as they were not directly involved.
But part of the problem investigators found was that the Food and Nutrition Service wasn’t performing
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/2/golden-hammer-agriculture-department-fails-to-puni/#ixzz2pUxlSVBb
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