Tag: Audits and Accountability

Federal auditors told state officials earlier this week that more than $34 million for the care of developmentally-disabled citizens during 2010-2013 had been spent improperly, and the money needs to be refunded. This latest disclosure indicates the state continues to harbor chronic and widespread deficiencies involving the care for people with disabilities despite “fixes” implemented over 10 years or longer.

The state of Maryland is getting a lot better at collecting child support payments, auditors say, but is still collecting less than a third of $1.8 billion owed by non-custodial parents to take care of their children.

The good news, according to an audit of Child Support Enforcement Administration in the Department of Human Resources released Monday, is that the agency has corrected all 11 of the problems legislative auditors found four years ago and the amount of child support payments in arrears has been substantially reduced.

State auditors hope to find less potential for fraud in their next audit of the Maryland Department of Human Resources, which recently partnered with an online credit bureau to validate that people receiving government assistance actually qualify.

Since 2005, the Maryland Transit Administration, or MTA, has fallen short of the goal to bring in 35 cents in fares for every dollar spent. While state law mandates the goal and tasks the MTA to control costs while keeping fares low, the Office of Legislative Audits just reported a litany of cost-containment controls the transit agency failed to exercise.

When legislative auditors examined training programs for the Mass Transit Administration run by Towson University they found no bid contracts, circumvented procurement regulations, lack of controls, undocumented work, doctored documents and many other problems. They made a criminal referral to the attorney general’s office.

State auditors found that the state Mental Health Administration found that the MHA failed to keep documentation showing patients who received over $16 million in mental health services were eligible and failed to maintain adequate security over computers and sensitive patient data.

Auditors have found continuing problems with how the Maryland State Treasurer’s Office handles workers compensation insurance payments and claims for state employees amounting to $268 million over the past three years. Treasurer Nancy Kopp said it’s up to the legislature and the Board of Public Works to make some of the changes auditors want.

In the last four years, the Department of Human Resources (DHR) overspent its budget by $27 million — and inadvertently masked its overruns with improper accounting adjustments, an audit of the department has revealed.

After the audit came out, DHR removed the director of the grants management office due to concerns about oversight of millions of dollars of grants.