By Catherine Candisky and Alan Johnson, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – A state audit of Ohio’s $2.5 billion food stamp program uncovered benefits paid to dead people, questionable out-of-state purchases, and large individual card balances including one of $20,000.
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The audit of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, which is federally funded but administered by the state, was released Tuesday by state Auditor Dave Yost.
The findings point to a number of practices that suggest fraud is occurring, but not how much.
“None of these things point outright to say that Jan Doe committed fraud. What they are in the aggregate is a road map for enforcement. Any individual one of these things might, or might not, indicate that there is fraud,” Yost said at a Statehouse press conference.
“These are the places to look.”
Jon Keeling, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services which administers the food stamp program, said Yost’s report implies fraud is occurring but many things noted “aren’t necessarily fraud.” The report also identified about $31,000 in “questionable costs,” including benefits used by “dead people” and duplicate payments to some recipients.
“The questionable costs found by this audit constitute just 0.0012 percent of the total cost of the program. It’s even less than the cost of the audit itself,” Keeling said in statement. The auditor’s office billed the department $48,000.
Nearly $29 million was spent outside of Ohio, indicating that those recipients don’t live in Ohio or that they’re selling cards and benefits.