密苏里州审计长致信美国农业部：要求联邦介入照护食品项目，打击浪费与欺诈
密苏里州审计长 Scott Fitzpatrick 10月22日致信美国农业部（USDA），要求联邦官员介入并提供指导，促使州卫生与老年服务厅（DHSS）采取措施，保护纳税人资金免于浪费和欺诈。
Fitzpatrick 的办公室多年来一直指出，由 DHSS 管理的联邦儿童与成人照护食品项目（CACFP）监管不足，导致数百万美元被浪费和欺诈性支出。审计长在信中要求农业部对审计发现进行审计结论落实（audit resolution），以验证其办公室的审计结果，即 DHSS 在确保对儿童与成人照护机构及赞助组织的报销合规且有充分依据方面，缺乏足够的内部控制和程序。审计长办公室发布的全州单一审计还发现，近三年该项目经抽查的餐饮报销错误率已经上升，错误和缺乏依据的报销占抽查报销额的12%。
「年复一年，我们要求 DHSS 清理这个被欺诈困扰的项目，年复一年，该部门对我们加强监管的呼吁置之不理，」Fitzpatrick 表示，「如果州官员不把我们的意见当回事，那就需要联邦政府发出明确果断的信号：对纳税人资金的浪费和欺诈性滥用睁一只眼闭一只眼，是不能容忍的。」
Missouri Auditor Writes to USDA: Federal Intervention Sought on Care Food Program Waste and Fraud
Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick wrote to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on October 22, calling on federal officials to intervene and provide guidance that will prompt the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to take steps to protect taxpayer funds from waste and fraud.
Fitzpatrick's office has for years identified inadequate oversight of the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), administered by DHSS, which has allowed millions of dollars in wasteful and fraudulent spending. In his letter, Fitzpatrick asked the USDA to perform audit resolution to validate his office's audit findings that DHSS lacks sufficient controls and procedures to ensure reimbursements to child and adult care facilities and sponsors are allowable and supported. The Statewide Single Audit released by the auditor's office also found that over the last three years the error rate has risen so that erroneous and unsupported reimbursements now represent 12% of meal reimbursements tested.
'Year after year we have given the DHSS recommendations to clean up a program that has been plagued by fraud and year after year the department has ignored our calls for increased oversight,' Fitzpatrick said. 'If state officials won't take our message seriously then we need the federal government to send a clear, decisive message that turning a blind eye to wasteful and fraudulent misuse of taxpayer dollars won't be tolerated.'
来源：GSM·美国（原文链接）
图片来源：密苏里州议会大厦北侧（Jefferson City），作者 Kbh3rd，CC BY 4.0，来源 Wikimedia Commons
