The county commissioners approved renewing the program for the three deputies on Monday. Finance Director Barb Fabelo said they have budgeted $291,544 for the unit but actual costs will be reimbursed to the sheriff monthly.
A year-and-a-half ago, when the taxpayer savings stood at $17 million, the commissioners broached adding even more people to the unit. Commissioner Don Dixon said at that time the "huge money" warranted bringing on additional staff.
“It’s hard to imagine we’re talking those type of numbers,” he said previously. “We’re prepared to continue the effort, even though it’s not money out of the general fund, it is our taxpayers’ money. Hopefully the state will take some interest and see what we’re doing, and this could maybe be mandatory statewide because it’s huge money, you’re talking $17-plus million, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
Dixon said they will revisit the fraud unit mid-year after they see if their revenues are flowing in as anticipated.
Assistant JFS Director Jerome Kearns said the unit is important because fraud isn’t just a crime.
“We want to ensure those individuals that are eligible for food assistance, because for whatever reason, their circumstances, they’ve fallen short of a grocery bag each week to being able to feed their family,” he said. “We want to ensure that the program is available and accessible to those individuals and when we are dealing with folks that are abusing the system or frauding the system it impacts our ability to provide food assistance to those who truly need it.”
The Butler County fraud unit is mainly focused on individual food stamp fraud, but 15 employees of two Fairfield meat-distributing companies were indicted in September on charges of illegally trading federal “food stamp” benefits for cash and narcotics and hundreds of others also face potential penalties.
The 15 employees of US Beef Cincinnati LLC, of 3210 Profit Drive, and Butcher Shop Food Distributors LLC, 300 Commercial Drive, face charges that include wire fraud, food-stamp benefits fraud, theft of U.S. government property, money laundering and possession with intent to distribute and actual distribution of controlled substances.
Scott Andrew Traum, 45, and Joey Lightcap-Traum, 43, the owners of US Beef, pleaded guilty in federal court last week to charges stemming from involvement in food stamp fraud. Both will be sentenced April 12.
Dave Raudebush, the JFS supervisor for the fraud unit, said the deputies aren’t staking out checkout lines at grocery stores, they have a very direct path for tracking down fraud.
“We have either an allegation received by the unit or developed internally through data-matching, indicating that someone may be engaged in unlawfully trafficking,” Raudebush said. “And they’ll investigate those cases.”
He said they are after individuals who are maybe selling their food stamps for drugs, or paying their rent or perhaps using their benefits to help out a friend or family member who is not eligible.
Depending on the severity of the case and the frequency of a person's infractions, people can lose their SNAP benefits for life. He said depending on the type of fraud case — like if a certain store is involved — they also must involve other state and federal agencies as well. Local taxpayer monies are not used to pay for food stamps it is a federal assistance program.
When the unit was formed in 2012 there was one full-time and a part-time deputy, the number grew to three in January 2014.
Kearns said the number of dollars and food stamp recipients have been dropping. In 2013 the monthly food stamp issuance amount was more than $6.6 million almost every month. By 2015 the monthly amount had dropped to around $5.7 million and in October of this year the food stamps totalled $4.5 million. In December of 2014 they issued 45,822 SNAP benefits, in October the number was 39,328 beneficiaries.
Kearns said he doesn’t believe the fraud unit is solely responsible for reduction.
"There's a number of factors that influence those numbers and fraud is one of them," he said. "But we've seen improvements in the economy and we have a low unemployment rate."
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BY THE NUMBERS:Butler County Food Stamp Fraud Unit
$30 million: Taxpayer dollars saved since July 2012
$4.5 million: Amount of food stamps issued in October 2016
39,328: Number of people who received the benefits in October 2016
926: Number of people disqualified due to fraud
406: Number of people arrested for fraud
Source: Butler County Jobs and Family Services
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