I-Team: Watching Your Tax Dollars
Auditor helping 1,400 small governments save money
Small government bodies such as libraries, planning commissions and tiny villages will save some of their public dollars under a new program that drastically cuts the costs of state-mandated audits.Since the program was launched in December, 11 governments in this region have cut the cost of their audits by an ...
Millions meant for veterans pocketed by suspect ‘charities’
Millions of dollars meant for veterans has been stolen by con men or misspent by charities in recent years, according to Ohio officials who tell the Dayton Daily News they are stepping up enforcement. Recently a sweeping investigation by the Ohio Attorney General of AMVETS found 59 locations around the ...
Justice Dept. files suit against Cincinnati-based hospice chain
The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit this week against the nation’s largest for-profit hospice chain, based in Cincinnati, alleging the company wrongly charged Medicare tens of millions of dollars for care that wasn’t needed or wasn’t provided.VITAS Hospice Care has one location on Kettering Boulevard in Dayton that serves ...
JobsOhio staff given hefty raises
In August 2010, then-candidate John Kasich announced his plan to privatize the Ohio Department of Development, calling the government agency a “black hole” that failed to even return phone calls.“The days of trying to connect with business leaders through bureaucrats are over,” Kasich said during a campaign appearance at a ...
Man hired after allegedly misspending public funds
A Centerville man who resigned from Clinton County Children Services after paying back $713 for trips he was reimbursed for but never took is now working next door in Highland County. This is another example uncovered by the Dayton Daily News of public employees being permitted to pay back misspent ...
Group wants to expand Earned Income Tax Credit in Ohio
Some in Ohio are working to get the Earned Income Tax Credit to more people as a means to both fight poverty and boost the economy. Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning think tank, presented a proposal to the Ohio House Finance and Appropriations Committee last week to create a state-level ...
Tax payout for low-income workers doubled in Ohio
The nation’s largest cash-assistance program for the working poor has doubled in size since the 1990s and is plagued with an overpayment rate of up to 25 percent, one of the largest error rates of all federal programs, a Dayton Daily News analysis has found. This tax season, the Earned ...
l’Auberge owner blames default on competition, recession
For Josef Reif, the failure of his celebrated l’Auberge restaurant last year after more than three decades in business in Kettering is about more than red ink and personal bankruptcy. “It’s ripping your heart out, ripping your soul out. You don’t know where to turn and you are in an ...
Government waste findings of $67B fall on deaf ears
Federal agencies bracing for sequestration have for years ignored or failed to implement thousands of suggestions from their own internal auditors on ways to cut waste, fraud or abuse, the Dayton Daily News has found. The number of unimplemented recommendations from federal inspectors general has reached an all-time high, totaling ...
Parting bonuses ‘taxpayer-funded wet kiss goodbye’
Area lawmakers in Washington spiked their staffs’ pay at the end of 2012, often by more than $10,000 a person, according to a Dayton Daily News analysis of congressional pay data.The most generous bosses were defeated and retiring lawmakers on their way out the door, including U.S. Rep. Steve Austria, ...
Pension board members spend big on out-of-state conferences
Members of the state pension board that is sending three members to a conference in Hawaii have made 67 other trips over the past four years to New Orleans, San Francisco, New York and other vacation destinations, a Dayton Daily News investigation found. VIEW travel costs for retirement board members ...
Local public employees paid to stay home
The Hamilton JournalNews/Middletown Journal contacted local governments and found varying levels of tracking of employees placed on administrative leave with pay. Reasons for putting workers on leave also varied, spanning from investigations for wrongdoing to employees being asked to stay home against their will for medical reasons.The newspapers reviewed records ...
Gov Watch: Park officers just didn’t have time to take criminal to jail
Park officers in northeast Ohio gave a new meaning to “catch and release” when after picking up a man on a felony warrant they dropped him off on a street corner in Cleveland because they didn’t have time to book him at jail. This is according to an investigation released ...
Senate even losing money on haircuts
America’s taxpayers are paying a hefty price for the well-groomed appearance of the U.S. Senate’s members and staff. Since 1997 the Senate Hair Care shop has consistently run deficits of about $340,000 annually, a taxpayer subsidy that is growing rather than shrinking. Critics point to the salon as another example ...
NFL, other pro sports leagues are technically nonprofits
When you think back over that $4 million, 30-second halftime spot you chuckled at during Sunday’s Super Bowl or sit down this weekend to see which golfer takes home $1.15 million for winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, ponder this: The National Football League, just like the PGA Tour, ...
Cutting ‘bad debt’ payment to hospitals could save billions
Hospitals aren’t leaning hard enough on Medicare beneficiaries to pay their share of medical costs, according to a recent report. It suggests reducing what the government pays to cover such bad debt, which could pressure hospitals to bill more aggressively. This approach could save Medicare nearly $36 billion in the ...
Medicare fraudsters used UPS boxes to fleece millions from taxpayers
It took a call from the Dayton Daily News for Dr. William Carey to learn that he was CEO of a Columbus medical practice he had no idea even existed. Clues contained in a database of medical providers maintained by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services pointed toward Carey ...
International crime ring stole millions from Medicare
An elaborate, international health-care fraud ring that stole millions from taxpayers started to come unraveled when an Ohio gynecologist called investigators after receiving insurance payments for male patients. Ultimately, two California men went to federal prison in May as purported ringleaders of the operation, but not before making off with ...
Waste in 2012 included GSA antics, food stamps for dead people
The past 12 months have been a dangerous time to be a government coffer. As 2012 wraps to a close, the I-Team decided to look back on some of the year’s biggest stories of waste, fraud or abuse of public funds. Maybe we’ll hold an awards gala; we could call ...
Report: State board overstaffed, overpaid, inefficient
The Ohio agency that handles unemployment compensation appeals can save $1 million annually by cutting staff and pay scales for employees, according to an interim audit report issued by the Ohio Auditor of State this week. This would make the office more efficient, according to auditors, but it still would ...
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