Nebraska auditor report alleges possible fraud in WIC program

An audit of Nebraska’s Women, Infants and Children program has found at least a dozen public employees receiving benefits despite appearing to make too much money to be eligible.

That’s the conclusion of State Auditor Mike Foley, who released a report Tuesday on the program, known as WIC, that provides healthy food, breastfeeding support and other aid to needy pregnant women and families with small children.

WIC is typically available to people with low incomes. For example, the income threshold for a family with one child is $50,542.

But Foley’s audit found 11 state employees and one from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln receiving benefits despite having significant income.

In one instance, a woman working for the Department of Health and Human Services making nearly $80,000 a year went on an unpaid maternity leave and applied for and received WIC. However, she continued to receive benefits for three months after returning to work.

In another case, two state employees in the same household, with a combined income of $138,000, received WIC benefits for several years.

The auditor also sampled addresses of WIC participants in high-income zip codes and found that at least seven families with homes valued at $500,000 or more were receiving benefits. All of the families received WIC benefits because they qualified for Medicaid benefits, but in at least two cases, the families were terminated from Medicaid, but the WIC program was not notified.

“Having a safety net to help the truly needy is one thing,” Foley said in a news release, “but when Nebraskans who own half-million-dollar homes and boast annual incomes in excess of $100,000 are able to receive many thousands of dollars of free benefits intended for the poor, it’s time to blow the whistle on this insult to our hard-working, over-taxed citizens.”

Foley criticized the Nebraska DHHS, saying that when his team presented its findings to the DHHS administrators for the WIC programs, their attitude was, “Nothing to see here, it’s all legal.”

In a written response to the audit, DHHS said it is following federal law.

“As the Auditor’s report concludes, 10 of the 12 public employees considered were ‘noted as eligible for Medicaid benefits and, therefore, WIC benefits’,” the agency said. “Though the APA questions whether these benefits were truly necessary for these families, DHHS is required to follow federal law, regulation, and its own policies and procedures governing the WIC program – it is not possible to make subjective certification determinations.”

Despite its denial that it did anything wrong, DHHS said it would pursue a data-sharing agreement with the Medicaid program to ensure it is notified promptly when WIC recipients lose Medicaid eligibility. Such an agreement, “could be a quality improvement measure that is beneficial,” DHHS said in its audit response.