Foster Care

Delayed Follow-Up of Noncomplying States May Reduce Incentive for Reform Gao ID: PEMD-89-16 September 13, 1989

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the extent to which the Administration for Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) provided incentive funds to states which instituted ACYF-mandated reforms under its Child Welfare Services grants program.

GAO found that: (1) ACYF disbursed incentive funds to all states that certified their compliance with provisions and then retrospectively reviewed states' certifications of their compliance with provisions to receive incentive funds; (2) ACYF typically recouped overpayments to noncompliant states by reducing the successive year's payments; (3) 15 states have failed annual compliance reviews at least once since enactment of the requirements in 1980; (4) ACYF did not record or recoup a 1984 $832,216 overpayment to Ohio; (5) final appeals decisions rendered in April 1989 allowed ACYF to recoup a 1984 $1,034,619 overpayment to Illinois and a 1983 $250,335 overpayment to Maryland; and (6) although ACYF generally followed its stated practice of promptly reviewing a state's compliance for the fiscal year (FY) following the year it had failed, ACYF has not conducted follow-up reviews for six states which failed compliance reviews between 1983 and 1985.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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