Florida Department of Children and Families Agrees to Pay $17.5 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Liability in Connection with SNAP Quality Control
Although the federal government funds SNAP benefits, it relies on the states to determine whether applicants are eligible for benefits, to administer those benefits and to have appropriate quality control processes in place. To ensure that these quality control processes serve as an accurate check on eligibility decisions, USDA requires that these processes be free from bias and accurately report states’ error rates in awarding benefits.
The USDA reimburses states for a portion of their administrative expenses in administering SNAP, including expenses for providing quality control. It also pays performance bonuses to states that report the lowest and the most improved error rates each year, and can impose monetary sanctions on states with high error rates that do not show improvement.
The settlement announced today resolves allegations that beginning in 2010,FDCF implemented improper policies and practices to reduce its SNAP error rate.Specifically, the United States alleged FDCF injected bias into its quality control process that resulted in FDCF submitting false quality control data and information to USDA,for which it received unentitled performance bonuses for fiscal years 2011 and 2012. In addition to its payment of $17.5 million, FDCF has also agreed to forego payment of an additional $14.7 million in unpaid bonuses that USDA awarded for fiscal years 2013 and 2014.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/florida-department-children-and-families-agrees-pay-175-million-resolve-false-claims-act
And who was Governor during those years? Yep a democrat!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Crist