BATON ROUGE (AP) — A new audit raises questions about money management in the Louisiana Department of Health, just as lawmakers are considering ways to cut back spending to close a state deficit.
Louisiana Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera's report found the department didn't have a process to recover $29 million in Medicaid claims and filed more than $250 million in erroneous reports with the federal government.
Also, auditors say the agency didn't properly track the spending of $73 million in federal funds on a nutrition program for pregnant women and infants.
The Advocate’s Elizabeth Crisp reports Health Department officials say they are working to rectify the issues. A plan for corrective action is to be completed by the end of June.
"We take an audit like this very seriously, and we use them as a road map to continually try to make improvements," agency spokesman Bob Johannessen said.
But the findings come as lawmakers already were eyeing the Health Department's more than $12 billion budget as a place to make cuts, to help rebalance the state's $27 billion operating budget and eliminate a $304 million deficit.
"They seem to be mismanaging a few things here," said House Appropriations Chairman Cameron Henry, R-Metairie.
Henry said the findings that an agency "can misspend or not account for hundreds of millions of dollars makes it difficult for legislators to come in and listen to the administration discuss how their agency needs more money."
Gov. John Bel Edwards is calling lawmakers into a special budget-rebalancing session that begins Feb. 13. He's faced resistance to his proposal to use $119 million from the "rainy day" fund to lessen cuts. House Republican leaders have suggested the Health Department should be a target to shrink spending, rather than using a state savings account, but Edwards said deep cuts would be damaging to health services.
The Health Department budget includes about $2.8 billion in state tax dollars. The rest comes from fees, other dedicated sources and federal financing.
Generally, the auditor's office concluded the Health Department didn't have adequate measures in place to track compliance for the money it oversees. Edwards spokesman Richard Carbo noted the problems began before the governor came into office.
"This administration has made significant progress to address the issues from the previous administration, including rectifying the problems outlined in this report," Carbo said.
