House Republicans have added tough new anti-fraud protections to a child care bill after auditors questioned hundreds of millions of dollars in spending.
House Republicans say a child care reform bill now includes strong new safeguards to prevent fraud in Washington’s subsidy program.
Representative Joshua Penner, a Republican from Orting, says the State Auditor’s Office raised serious concerns about missing documentation and questionable payments.
“The state auditor’s office has a very damning finding of a massive amount of payments that can’t be accounted for.”
Penner and Republican Representative Travis Couture worked amendments into House Bill 2253 to create what he calls a financial backstop.
“The very first thing is that if fraud is discovered, it’s a permanent dismissal of license.”
The bill also requires electronic attendance verification for children receiving subsidies and mandates investigations when facilities exceed licensed capacity.
“They can’t even point to attendance logs because they don’t exist. This requires those attendance logs to exist.”
The bill has passed the House and now under Senate consideration.
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Washington State House Republican Communications