If you're wondering why our state doesn't have enough  money to pay teachers or why we can't afford to fix our roads there is a very good reason. We are spending a good chunk of our money on feeding people who don't deserve to be fed.

The reason they don't deserve to be fed is because they are dead. I'm all about feeding the hungry but I draw the line at using my tax dollars to feed dead people. If you live in Louisiana, that's what you've been doing for the past few years.

A recent audit found that $1.3 million dollars in federal aid went to pay food benefits for people that had died. That means that benefits for over 3,900 single-person households were spent after the participants death. The audit was conducted between July 2009 and June 2013. According to Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera,

"My data analytics units went and looked at Social Security records and DHH vital records, which are all electronic records that we were able to obtain, and then electronically compare that to the DCFS records, looking for anomalies, red flags, as you would say.  And this is what we found."

Purpera's comments were reported by the Louisiana Radio Network.

More than half a million dollars in benefits were spent four months or more after the legal recipient had passed. The Department of Children and Family Services who administers these benefits is investigating the misuse of funds.

The Department of Children and Family Services has since entered into an agreement with the Department of Health and Hospitals so that they might receive more timely information about deaths in Louisiana. Once investigators finish gathering the information it is possible that charges could be brought against those who willfully misused the federal benefits.

 

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