{"id":82337,"date":"2026-01-09T12:34:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T12:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/82337\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T12:34:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T12:34:05","slug":"audit-proposed-for-pennsylvanias-child-care-assistance-program-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/82337\/","title":{"rendered":"Audit proposed for Pennsylvania\u2019s child care assistance program"},"content":{"rendered":"

(The Center Square) \u2013 Alarmed by fraud reports among Minnesota day cares, calls grow in Pennsylvania to review taxpayer-funded programs in the commonwealth to weed out similar issues.<\/p>\n

State Reps. Jill Cooper, R-Export, and Kate Klunk, R-Hanover, began circulating a cosponsorship memo this week that mandates an audit of Child Care Works, a $280 million assistance program for low-income families funded by state and federal dollars.<\/p>\n

About 6,900 licensed child care facilities operate in Pennsylvania as of 2024, according to the most recent data available from the Department of Human Services. Of those, 73% have children enrolled through the program, which covers 74,000 children monthly.<\/p>\n

\u201cPennsylvania, like most states, has limited resources to operate these programs,\u201d Cooper and Klunk wrote in the memo. \u201cThis legislation is designed to ensure that taxpayers are getting full value for their tax money and to ensure that those dollars are going to help our working families who need assistance with child care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposal follows bombshell reports from Minnesota, where a conservative independent journalist claimed that taxpayers were subsidizing fraudulent day care centers with no active enrollment. In the days since,\u00a0the federal government has frozen $10 billion<\/a>\u00a0it sends to Minnesota, California, Illinois and Colorado for child care assistance.<\/p>\n

As for Pennsylvania, child care centers receiving similar funding must submit monthly attendance data to receive payment. The state also visits facilities unannounced to ensure compliance or investigation claims of fraud and abuse.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the state Office of Inspector General said it charged 590 people for public assistance fraud, though it\u2019s unclear how many of those targeted child care subsidies alone.<\/p>\n

In a statement to TCS, Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s office said he\u2019s well-known as the former state attorney general for cracking down on fraud and abuse across Pennsylvania\u2019s government-funded programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cRooting out waste, fraud and abuse is nothing new for Governor Shapiro \u2013 he cracked down on fraud and public assistance benefit theft as Pennsylvania\u2019s attorney general, charging dozens of people who stole millions in taxpayer dollars,\u201d said Alex Peterson, speaking for Shapiro\u2019s office. \u201cAcross commonwealth programs and initiatives, the Shapiro administration has strict guidelines in place, as well as additional internal checks, to ensure taxpayer money is used for its intended purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christen Smith is a regional editor for\u00a0The Center Square\u00a0and co-host of\u00a0Pennsylvania in Focus, a weekly podcast on America\u2019s Talking Network. Find her work in\u00a0The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,\u00a0Broad + Liberty, RealClear, and the\u00a0Washington Examiner.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(The Center Square) \u2013 Alarmed by fraud reports among Minnesota day cares, calls grow in Pennsylvania to review…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41480,4172,5957,41481,41482,1676,41483,41484,24753,41485,33,41486,7391,41487,31559,41488,31560,41489,41490,28,5714,22581,30,5634,692,29,41491,41492,3415,8991],"class_list":["post-82337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-alex-peterson","tag-california","tag-child-care","tag-child-care-assistance","tag-child-care-works","tag-colorado","tag-export-pa","tag-hanover-pa","tag-illinois","tag-jill-cooper","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-kate-klunk","tag-minnesota","tag-pa-dhs","tag-pa-general-assembly","tag-pa-house-of-representatives","tag-pa-legislature","tag-pa-office-of-inspector-general","tag-pa-state-house","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-department-of-human-services","tag-pennsylvania-general-assembly","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-house-of-representatives","tag-pennsylvania-legislature","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pennsylvania-office-of-inspector-general","tag-pennsylvania-state-house","tag-shapiro","tag-shapiro-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}