Whistleblower charges stimulus fraud

2010-07-14 / Front Page

By J. LOUISE LARSON news1@kilgorenewsherald.com

When finding enough people eligible and willing to participate in a government program paid for with stimulus funding proved a problem, one large government contractor bent the rules, a whistleblower suit filed in state district court last week alleges. News of the lawsuit filed in Smith County’s 241st State District Court was first published here Saturday.

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"i will be so as happy as

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2010-08-04 00:33.

"i will be so as happy as ever when a obama fixes bush's mistakes" LOL it has been almost 2 years and he has made things worse. "STOP COMPLAINING AND GIVE HIM A BREAK" When somebody asks you for your trust, then violates that trust, you have a legitmate right to make a complaint against them and hold them to account.

It took 8 years to gut the

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2010-08-04 22:04.

It took 8 years to gut the manufacturing middle class. It took 8 years to redistribute wealth upward by fraud, embezzling, insider trading, deregulation and pure unadulterated greed from banking and wall street. The article is about huge companies that want to continue the Bush era of padding the stockholders pockets even if it means stealing from the poorest in society. Contracting out state jobs to giant social service companies like Rescare only works if independent oversight is constantly breathing down managements neck. Forget ethical behavior from these people just teach the monitors to stay out of bed with contractors.

You hit the problem right on

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2010-08-12 23:21.

You hit the problem right on the head. The response by the Workforce Board mouthpiece (Cleveland) is predictable in that it leads the reader to believe that the monitors would have actually found the co-mingling and the altered files without the tips. The exact opposite is true and in fact the Board and the COG consider the disclosure more dangerous than the actions of the contractor. What a shame that the end result is months of audits only to have the Board and the COG say we have it fixed now, it was just a mistake, without revealing the number of people fired and asked to resign as a result of the original sin of the contractor.

The person that made this

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2010-07-16 11:33.

The person that made this comment is right - "This is about outsourced contracts being mismanaged. Private contractors are only as honest as the oversite requires them to be. It is critical for Texans to understand that the outsourcing of state jobs to large corporations means someone (objective) has to be monitoring the monitors all the time. The stimulus money is federal dollars given with very specific strings attached." NOW...please know that ARRA funds (whether State or Federal) have strict guidelines. These guidelines were put in place AS A MONITORING TOOL. If an agency does not do what they are supposed to with these funds it WILL be found. It might not be right away but the agency(s) will be held accountable, have to pay the money back, then penalized. People that monitor these funds are REQUIRED to be properly trained, etc. You can't/don't just hire someone off the street and say - oh yeah...by the way...you are going to monitor program funds for our organization. It doens't work that way. Will this be a time consuming process? Probably. Will someone be held accountable? Yes....at some point. You have to let the process work by giving people time to do their job. We can't control everything. It is up to the contractor to monitor their program, the Agency overseeing the contract to monitor their programs AND THE STATE/FEDS. They all work together folks. Don't jump to conclusions because you have to look at both sides and GET THE FACTS. That's why there are different levels of agencies having oversight - to catch these things. If a program monitor(s) goes in and find problems they are DOING THEIR JOB. That's what they are paid for! The State/FEDs doesn't brush this stuff off. They follow up, require action and file charges.

If you want something screwed

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2010-07-14 10:30.

If you want something screwed up just make it a goverment program with lots of tax money and it will be USED AND ABUSED ,the goverment can not do anything that does not involve fraud !!!

If you want something screwed

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2010-07-14 10:29.

If you want something screwed up just make it a goverment program with lots of tax money and it will be USED AND ABUSED ,the goverment can not do anything that does not involve fraud !!!

You guys should stop

Submitted by renajoseph (not verified) on Wed, 2010-07-14 05:59.

You guys should stop complaining cuz one the health care we have now isnt as good as it was supposed to be. also the law has just been signed give it a try u guys are too hard on democrats they went to college and we voted for most of these people.so if u want to say u have the right to choose tell that to ur congress men or state official. as for obama people are just tryin to make it look like america made a mistake he has done things to help us and we had a full 8 years of a terrible president and i will be so as happy as ever when a obama fixes bush's mistakes. obama has to put up with the wo0rld judging his every move and trying to fix the mess we are in we are lucky anyone wants to be our president. STOP COMPLAINING AND GIVE HIM A BREAK. i wanna see one of yall do what he sas done. some people are just so ignorant.

This isn't about this

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2010-07-15 15:45.

This isn't about this administration. This is about outsourced contracts being mismanaged. Private contractors are only as honest as the oversite requires them to be. It is critical for Texans to understand that the outsourcing of state jobs to large corporations means someone (objective) has to be monitoring the monitors all the time. The stimulus money is federal dollars given with very specific strings attached. It is the states that have the responsibility to make sure its contractors are reading the fine print.