GAO has confirmed allegations of fraud and abuse involving two Head Start nonprofit grantees and said the problem could be more widespread.
The 45 year old program is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services and administered by the Office of Head Start, and provides child development services primarily to families at or near the poverty line, including through educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to get them ready for public education, among other goals. It was awarded $2.1 billion under the Recovery Act in additional funding.
In testimony before the House Education and Labor Committee, GAO said allegations included manipulating recorded income to make over-income applicants appear under-income, encouraging families to report that they were homeless when they were not, enrolling more than 10 percent of over-income children, and counting children as enrolled in more than one center at a time.
GAO confirmed that one grantee operated several centers with more than 10 percent over-income students, and the other grantee manipulated enrollment data to over-report the number of children enrolled, according to GAO-10-733T.
It said GAO investigators followed up with other centers and registered fictitious pupils, and that fictitious parents were never verified, leaving the program at risk that dishonest persons could falsify earnings statements and other documents in order to qualify.
