After receiving an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report which found more than a thousand incidents of child abuse, lack of supervision, or unauthorized release at Head Start centers from October 2015 to May 2020, Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC) issued the following statement and demanded the majority hold an oversight hearing on the reports’ findings:
“This OIG report is damning. Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families’ admission that it is not even aware of the full extent of abuse in Head Start centers is shameful. ACF is guilty of a dereliction of its oversight duty and of enabling child abuse and neglect on a systemic level. There must be accountability.
“Republicans requested an oversight hearing on the Head Start program after the Government Accountability Office found fraud in the program, but after this IG report-we are now demanding it.
“This program is supposed to be about giving children a head start in life, as it operates now, it is holding too many children back."
NOTE: The GAO, tasked with examining how taxpayer dollars are spent, released a report in 2010 that found potential fraud and abuse at select Head Start centers. A 2019 GAO report examined whether steps have been taken to address the failings found in 2010. The 2019 report indicates that significant fraud risks remain; the concerning actions include fabricating income information, doctoring applications to exclude income information, and dismissing income information that would have impacted an individual’s eligibility. Following the release of the 2019 GAO report, Republican Leader Virginia Foxx requested Chairman Scott hold a hearing on these troubling findings.
