A former top federal child protection official in Washington told the state Attorney General’s office that there is widespread fraud in child care programs a day after AG Nick Brown put out a press release criticizing individuals investigating daycares that receive significant taxpayer money, an email obtained by The Center Square shows.
“Fraud is common in programs like child care,” Paul Noski wrote a Dec. 31, email to Washington State Assistant Attorney General Spencer Coates. Noski was the Seattle regional manager for the Office of Child Care, a federal agency under the Administration for Children and Families’ that experienced significant layoffs last year. He is no longer with the agency and could not be reached for comment.
Noski also wrote that child care fraud is “just not committed by a certain population,” referring to allegations made that same month of mass fraud by Somalian home-based day care providers in Washington state.
“It has been my experience that sometimes there are language barriers around understanding the complex billing policies and processes,” he wrote.
The email concerned Washington Attorney General Brown’s Dec. 30 press release statement that said “my office has received outreach from members of the Somali community after reports of home-based daycare providers being harassed and accused of fraud with little to no fact-checking. Showing up on someone’s porch, threatening, or harassing them isn’t an investigation. Neither is filming minors who may be in the home.”
Noski wrote that the OCC layoffs make it more difficult for the federal agency to catch fraud occurring in the program.
