Foster ghouls' $$ for dead kids

Foster ghouls' $$ for dead kids
NY uncovers 200G adoption scam
By BRENDAN SCOTT Post Correspondent
Last Updated: 11:16 AM, August 19, 2010
Posted: 3:49 AM, August 19, 2010


EXCLUSIVE
ALBANY -- Scamming parents of disabled foster kids pocketed more than $200,000 in taxpayer aid -- even though their children had long since died, The Post has learned.
The ghoulish windfall claimed by the parents of two dozen dead kids was uncovered during an audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli into the state's $494 million-a-year adoption-subsidy program.
All told, auditors found $214,593 in questionable payments to parents caring for 25 "hard to place" kids, including 24 whose identities matched death records.
A vast majority of the cases, 21, were in New York City.

The report, which was delivered yesterday to the state Office of Children and Family Services, was obtained by The Post.
"Taking care of children -- especially orphaned and disabled children -- should be at the top of everyone's agenda," DiNapoli said. "But taxpayers shouldn't be paying for the care of children who have passed away."
"There's too little money and too many needy children," he continued. "We can't let taxpayer dollars be wasted."
One family collected payments until December 2007 -- for a windfall of $32,550 -- even though their adopted child had died in March 2006, the audit found.
Another family had a child who died in January 2006, but the state continued to pay $24,809 in subsidies.
Auditors also found a household that received $33,360 due to an error that listed an adopted child's year of birth as 1994 instead of 1984.
The monthly checks should be issued only until the child turns 21.
To qualify for the payments -- which reach as high $1,700 a month depending on the severity of the case -- the children must suffer from some physical or mental disability or be otherwise deemed difficult to adopt.
The results mirrored a similar audit conducted more than a decade ago, but the comptroller said the Office of Children and Family Services had "only recently" begun to act on recommendations.
The agency says it has been working with the state Department of Health to devise a system for cross-referencing its 45,000 adoption cases with death records.
"Many of the initiatives under way to address adoption subsidy-payment concerns started before the audit findings were developed," Kevin Mahar wrote in the agency's response to the comptroller.
The office "is fully committed to verification of adoption subsidy-payment accuracy."
The office said the city's Administration for Children Services and other local agencies that administer the program have stopped payment to most of the cases highlighted in the audit.
Officials are investigating the remaining cases.
brendan.scott@nypost.com


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