From Early Childhood Focus

Idaho must repay feds $1.18 million meant for poor families

Posted in: Idaho, CCDBG/TANF

By Sheila Holland
August 14, 2007

The federal government wants back $1.18 million in money for poor families that Idaho spent on a poison control hot line and vaccination registry.

A spokesman for Gov. Butch Otter said the penalty shows the governor has been right to scrutinize how Idaho spends Temporary Assistance for Needy Families dollars intended for poor people.

"There are red flags flapping now," said Jon Hanian, the governor's spokesman. "I think it underscores the concern the governor raised about the potential misuse of TANF (money)."

Idaho misused $1.18 million of the federal funds for poor families, the federal Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a July 26 letter to Idaho Department of Health and Welfare Director Richard Armstrong.

Most of the money, $1.08 million, went to the Immunization Registry Information System, which tracks children's immunization records.

In May, Otter was widely criticized for considering cuts to Head Start and for eliminating the Parents As Teachers program and the Governor's Coordinating Council for Families and Children - each paid for by the same federal dollars that paid for the two programs for which the state is being penalized.

Otter inherited the questionable funding schemes in programs that arose from former Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's "Generation of the Child" initiative, Hanian said.

"From our perspective, this (penalty) is precisely the concern that I think the governor voiced when he took action to curtail that funding stream for the Parents as Teachers program," Hanian said.

The state can either pay back the money, appeal or negotiate a compromise, according to the letter.

Thomas Shanahan, Health and Welfare spokesman, said the agency does not dispute the misuse of funds. Federal guidelines require the money to go to low-income families. But such families aren't the only ones who benefit from the poison control hot line or immunization registry, he said.

"The feds said these things are open to all populations," Shanahan said. "It's open to everyone, so it's not eligible to be used for TANF dollars - and they were right."

But the state never tried to hide how it was spending the money.

"The thing is, we let them know what we're doing every year," Shanahan said.

So Health and Welfare officials are trying to persuade federal officials to back off the demand for repayment.

"We're saying, 'We kept you informed, and you are probably right. We kept you really well-informed of everything, and we stopped when you told us to.'"

As of July 1, the programs have been funded by a supplemental state appropriation the Legislature passed this year. After fielding the federal questions about the spending in January, Health and Welfare made sure the money would be available if the federal dollars were taken away, Shanahan said.

Full text available at the Idaho Statesman