Is the Doyle Administration Destroying Inner-City Businesses?
Working parents need day care
Day care providers should expect up to 90 suspensions in the Wisconsin Shares program in the next few weeks, according to information presented at a meeting of day care providers on Saturday.
The potential suspensions, in addition to the more than 100 day cares that had payments suspended last year, would be the result of new background check requirements that could bar providers from the program if the center operators—and in some cases their employees or the people they live with—have been convicted of certain crimes.
Everyone would agree that a person convicted of any kind of child molestation should be permanently barred from being a day care provider, but the current law championed by Gov. Jim Doyle is mean-spirited and counterproductive, the providers’ advocates say.
On Tuesday, Stephanie Hayden, spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families (DCF), did not confirm that the suspensions would result after the new regulations go into effect on Feb. 1.
Hayden said DCF wants to ensure that day care centers are safe.
Suspensions for Old Violations and Pending Charges
The new background checks will be conducted quarterly on licensed providers, Hayden said, and annually on household members and employees. Background checks can delve into an individual’s past for some crimes committed after he or she turned 12.
According to a Dec. 7, 2009, DCF memo sent to day care providers, “even if the Department has issued a license or allowed a person to reside at a child care center with a criminal conviction in the past, the Department is now required to revoke the license if the licensee, a household resident or an employee has an offense that will permanently bar that person.”
Providers can be permanently barred for committing small-scale offenses such as food stamp fraud, even if such offenses occurred years ago.
The new regulations also affect those who have been charged but not convicted of certain crimes, even though Americans are supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
The memo stated that “under the new law, the Department is required to suspend a child care license if the licensee, a household resident or caregiver has any pending charges for a crime included on the revised crimes list.”
In addition, rules passed in 2009 allow DCF to immediately and indefinitely suspend payments to Wisconsin Shares participants if the agency “reasonably suspects” the provider has committed fraud.
The providers contend that the new regulations are unfair, arbitrary and penalize people who may have made mistakes decades ago.
State Rep. Jason Fields questions the wisdom of new rules that don’t allow people to rehabilitate themselves and find meaningful work.
“We’ve all made mistakes—I’ve made a ton of them,” Fields said. “But because they were mistakes, should that prevent me from being able to live a life of success? Should it prevent me from doing something that I’m passionate about? Should I be held guilty for the rest of my life? I don’t think that’s right. They [the providers] have every reason to be concerned. It is to a point where it is unfair.”
Is This Legal?
The providers feel they have been targeted unfairly by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, DCF and state legislators seeking people to blame for alleged fraud in the state-run Wisconsin Shares program.
The increased pressure began last year, when the Journal Sentinel began reporting on alleged fraud within the program and sensationalized a few cases cherry-picked for its front page. Responding to the Journal Sentinel’s sensationalized reporting, Doyle, the new head of DCF Reggie Bicha and certain lawmakers vowed to root out fraud in the program.
The resulting regulations passed by the state Legislature correctly targeted egregious or intentional fraud. Doyle, however, stripped out the word “intentional” from the legislation, which allows DCF to immediately and indefinitely suspend payments to day care providers that it “reasonably suspects” of committing fraud—an extremely low burden of proof.
Many of the overpayments in question, the providers argue, are due to clerical errors and the state and county’s sloppy administration of the Shares program—not intentional fraud.
The suspended providers appealing their cases complain that the state doesn’t have enough evidence to prove their suspicions. In effect, the providers have to prove their innocence after losing their livelihood, instead of forcing the state to prove its case before suspending payments.
In the meantime, roughly 100 day care centers have been closed down and hundreds of parents are scrambling to find day care for their children so they can go to work because someone in the DCF suspects that there may be a violation.
“The appeals process—I’m not saying the judges are doing anything incorrectly, but I have to believe that there are people who are not looking at this from a fair point of view,” Rep. Fields said. “These ladies are getting their whole livelihoods taken away before they’re even found guilty of anything.”
Providers say the state has lost some of their records and that former employees are being pressured into making false allegations about their former bosses.
Fields has written a letter to state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen questioning the legality and constitutionality of the suspensions and appeals process.
“Some of this—you have to wonder if it is constitutional,” Fields told the Shepherd. “Can you be found guilty before you’re actually found guilty?”
A Witch Hunt
The mood at Saturday’s day care providers’ meeting—which drew about 100 people—was at times angry, frustrated, supportive and positive, depending on the topic and speaker. But mainly these providers are scared that their livelihoods will be taken away from them based on the state’s “reasonable” suspicions and a dragged-out appeals process. Even if vindicated, the providers will have lost five months or more of their income and their good reputations.
The effects of the new regulations, suspensions and what they term a “witch hunt” have been devastating, both personally and professionally, for the providers in the Wisconsin Shares program.
One suspended provider said that three of her former employees, without income since a well-publicized crackdown in mid-September, are now homeless. Another well-respected provider was recently suspended over an infraction she committed when she was 18—decades ago. Yet another provider, suspended over violations she had known nothing about and now disputes, had always been held up as an example for others to follow.
But the providers still in business are feeling threatened, too. While more providers will likely be suspended on Feb. 1, thanks to the more stringent background checks, the names of the providers have not been released.
At least one provider was visibly shaken when she talked about how she had left her professional job to open a day care center a few years ago. She now owns the building that houses the center, and wouldn’t be able to afford its mortgage if the state suspends her payments based on some clerical errors.
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Maybe, just maybe, my fellow african american brothers and sisters will finally learn that as soon as The Government runs into money prblems, the first place they look to close that gap is a program that black people are profitting from. I knew this was comming when the journal ran the first story last year. Everybody knew what was going on for years but since there was plenty of money noboddy cared. Now they will come down hard on Black Day Cares, because someone built a million dollar house. All I have to say is WAIT UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT RUNS YOUR HEALTH CARE. The black diet is high in fat,sugar,salt and anything else that tastes good. we suffer high bloodpresure,diabetees and high colestrol. Government health care is a license to kill black people, we must stop it at ALL costs. My name is John and this is one black mans opinion.
it is high time many blacks start educateing themselves. the black free education drop out rate is very high. why? too many blacks feel they do not have to work or be educated. just too easy to live off the government. there is no excuse to NOT eat healthy foods. AND NO JUNK FOOD. NO FAST FOODS as fatty burgers.
those daycare centers should have been closed YEARS ago. fraud is always unexceptable and this is, obviously, fraud. all of the ill-gained money must be returned or operatops/owners must spend time in jail.
The government made to too easy to be scammed. The whole system is out of wack. It cost more to put a kid in daycare that what what the parent can earn working. Maybe its time to bring back welfare and pay people just to stay home and stay out of the way.
This system has been full of fraud for YEARS people - YEARS AND YEARS. This is long overdue. It's not a witch hunt on black providers, it is a witch hunt on anyone who isn't honest enough to be a good person and provider. They are STEALING from other parents that could use that money for child care and get a job and self-sustain: instead, they are LYING, keeping it for themselves, and screwing Joe Public. And really? The black diet is high in fat, etc. etc.? So is MOST of America's diet - which causes multiple health problems for ANYone that lives like that - but a government run health system is yet another witch hunt on black people? Come ON - if you KNOW you are causing yourself problems, then STOP DOING IT. It's really that simple. And what that has to do wtih child care providers being dishonest is beyond me.
Jerry!, how can you even write that with a striaght face? AIG has gotten so much money congress is gonna have a hearing about it because even they cant believe it got that much money and no one can find it(except Tim Gietner) meanwhile all the banks that sold bad paper got made whole. The only group left holding the bag is FannyMae and Freddy Mac and we are on the hook for them. Noboddy, noboddy whent to jail for stealing Billions, but you want the day care owners to payback the thousands they got from a program that never ran out of money not even close, to pay it back and go to jail? Come on! John, one black mans opinion
Dear SOTW, The connection between the Day Cares and Health care is THE GOVERNMENT! Any time the government gets involved in the private sector economy, two things for sure will hapen, taxes will need to be raised to support it and most of the money will be wasted on administering it.(Cash for Clunkers) The government doesnt run things very well, can you name me one thing in the government runs that you like? (post office, DMV, Social Security office, Medicare Fannie Mae Freedy Mac). Once we are all on public health care we will just be a number and when your number is in a group that costs too much, your number will be up. Aks a 45 year old breast cancer survivor if they would have prefered wait until 50 for a mammogram. John one black mans opinion
http://www.expressmilwaukee.com/article-9063-issue-of-the-week-demonizing-day-care-providers.html
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