Op-Ed: Protecting Buckeye tax dollars means cracking down on fraud in public programs

As Ohio’s Auditor of State, I have spent the past eight years rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse of taxpayer dollars and pushing government offices at all levels to ensure public resources are being used effectively, efficiently, and as intended.

That includes many programs in place to help our most vulnerable residents. 

 

Unfortunately, wherever there are big government programs with big money to spend, there are criminal enterprises finding ways to line their own pockets at the expense of those who truly need help.

 

For example, Medicaid makes up a large percentage of Ohio’s biennial state budget, providing upward of $40 billion in needed health care and related services for lower-income residents, older adults, individuals with disabilities, pregnant women, infants and children, and others.

 

Time and time again, my office has identified lax controls and mismanagement of Medicaid and other programs and public offices that have led to taxpayer dollars being used inappropriately or improperly.

 

(It’s not just a Medicaid issue. Among all of the public offices we monitor, we’ve convicted more than 170 government officials for lying, cheating and/or stealing from the public coffers since 2019.)

 

For Medicaid in particular, we found payments routinely made for services to dead people or residents who were not eligible to receive public support.

 

Our calls for better oversight remain inadequately addressed.

 

Every dollar spent on someone who should not be receiving public assistance is a dollar taken away from those who really need that support. That’s unacceptable.

 

The illegal activities go beyond healthcare and other Medicaid-provided services.

 

My office’s Special Investigations Unit recently brought indictments against individuals who allegedly pocketed Pell grants and other financial aid and state subsidies through a racketeering scheme at a now-defunct community college.

 

Eastern Gateway Community College (EGCC) should have been a shining example of the possibilities of higher education in disadvantaged parts of our state, providing two-year degrees and technical and certification programs for those facing economic challenges.

 

Instead, EGCC is the poster child for all that is wrong with publicly funded programs lacking necessary controls to ensure our tax dollars are being used as intended.

 

Pell grants and other federal financial aid and state subsidies should provide access to programs for those who could not otherwise afford to attend college classes.

 

At EGCC, those public resources were allegedly diverted into the pockets of individuals who schemed to obtain as much money for themselves as possible.

My office released an audit a year ago that included more than $17 million in questioned costs and identified rampant financial mismanagement by the college’s administrators.

 

The U.S. Department of Education earlier this year projected liabilities at EGCC of more than $259 million due to the college’s closure and its failure to provide required enrollment documentation and other records.

 

Federal officials identified serious compliance issues that impacted students, strained taxpayer resources, contributed to EGCC’s closure and affected the broader community, which lost valuable and desperately needed workforce training.

 

The recent indictment handed down by the Jefferson County Grand Jury alleges a racketeering scheme involving for-profit companies that worked to boost the college’s enrollment, particularly through online coursework.

 

Those involved are accused of diverting Pell grants and other financial aid as incentive payments and other compensation for themselves in violation of federal and state laws.

 

The alleged crimes perpetrated by those at EGCC left many vulnerable residents in Eastern Ohio without educational opportunities for bettering themselves economically. 

 

That’s a travesty, and we will work hard to make sure those involved are held accountable, but these types of crimes likely are happening elsewhere.

 

The cost of higher education has skyrocketed, leaving college coursework and technical and other training out of reach for the people who most need it, absent outside support.

 

We need to make sure that Pell grants and other public resources are going only to those eligible for support and not into the pockets of crooks.

 

There’s too much at stake to ignore the problem.