EXCERPT FROM: Chicago Tribune
By John O'Connor
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The state of Illinois helped pay for day care services in homes where sex offenders live, the auditor general reported Tuesday.
Auditors found 90 cases in which day care providers paid by the Department of Human Services had the same address as someone on the statewide sex-offender registry. The total number might be even higher because the audit only counted cases where addresses matched exactly, down to whether street names were spelled out or abbreviated.
In one case, the person who was paid to care for children was actually on the offender registry. The provider had a conviction for aggravated criminal sexual assault but received two payments totaling $187.69, according to the report by Auditor General William Holland.
The Department of Human Services was only recently given authority to check the backgrounds of the people it pays to provide child care, said spokesman Tom Green.
But Holland said he was unaware of any previous prohibition and was flabbergasted it never had been done.
"The sex offender registry is out there for a purpose, particularly for people in this situation," Holland said. "They hadn't done any of this before."
The agency agreed to begin checking the lists and notifying parents when they find a provider where a sex offender lives.
The Human Services Department's Child Care Assistance Program provides child care to low-income working families on a sliding fee scale. The program paid $634 million in 2008 for about 170,000 children, according to the audit. There are 38,000 providers, Green said, including 27,000 who offer services at home.
Auditors cross-referenced providers' addresses with those from the sex-offender registry maintained by the Illinois State Police. They alerted DHS to the matches in December.
The provider who was on the sex-offender list was last paid in August 2008 and there were no children in his home at the time the auditors matched his address, Green said.
Sixty-five of the other cases may not be a problem any longer because the provider has stopped offering day care or has a new address that doesn't show up on the offender registry. But Holland said each of the addresses belonged to a current contractor as of November when auditors ran the check.
Full text available at the Chicago Tribune.