Article by Senate Republican Caucus. Published on Monday, February 13, 2012 EST.
Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood.
OLYMPIA, Feb. 11.–Members of the Washington State Senate voted 45-2 this afternoon in favor of a bill which would give the fledgling Office of Fraud and Accountability more tools to use when investigating reports of abuse within certain government programs. Senate Bill 6386, sponsored by Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, would help improve the prevention, detection and prosecution of fraudulent activity.
“When my 2011 legislation created the Office of Fraud and Accountability within the state Department of Social and Health Services, it sent a clear message to the people that state government would no longer tolerate any attempts to defraud taxpayers,” Carrell said. “Now we’re going to set our sights on specific areas within state government where evidence shows the potential for rampant fraud and abuse. This bill is what we need to accomplish that.”
SB 6386 would encourage OFA to coordinate with the Office of the State Auditor and the Department of Early Learning to root out the misuse of government funding in public-assistance programs such as state-subsidized daycare. In addition, SB 6386 would:
· · Prevent a family member from using other family members’ state-issued EBT cards unless he or she meets certain eligibility requirements;
· · Require personal identification numbers of an EBT card holder to differ from any sequence of numbers appearing on the face of the card;
· · Allow OFA investigators to have access to all child-care records maintained by licensed and unlicensed child-care providers if the investigator has the provider’s consent, a court order or a search warrant; and
· · Require OFA, in collaboration with DEL and the state auditor, is to identify, review and report to the Legislature on integrated monitoring and detection systems to prevent overpayments of public assistance from occurring.
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