Editorial: Can Westmoreland County Children’s Bureau audit results be shrugged off?
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Between 2017 and 2020, unbalanced books led to more than $650,000 in state reimbursements not being made to the Westmoreland County Children’s Bureau.
It is a testament to reviews of those books by state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor that the unpaid funds were identified in December 2022.
The audits turned up $331,720 owed for the 2017-18 fiscal year — the largest amount owed. In 2018-19, it was $83,016. In 2019-20, the total was $243,445.
“This is a revenue reconciliation with the state for expenses that occurred after the final invoice was submitted for those fiscal years,” said Shara Saveikis, Children’s Bureau director.
That kind of bookkeeping glitch happens. It isn’t ideal, but it is understandable. The full three-year amount is just about 2% of the bureau’s $33.5 million budget for 2023.
What is less understandable is that it is credited to an increase in the number of kids served. Yes, those numbers are climbing, but are they really attributable to the period in question?
“Covid has played a huge part in this,” said Westmoreland County Human Services Director Rob Hamilton. “Kids were isolated to their homes, and, while there may have always been behavioral issues, covid shed a light on those that as a county and a country we didn’t want to see.”
Hamilton was hired for the newly created position in July, with the idea of bringing multiple social services offices under one umbrella to streamline how services are provided. He is not responsible for the accounting errors that occurred years before he took the job.
However, while an uptick in the number of kids being served by the Children’s Bureau can be seen in recent years, the increase in the stipulated period and its relationship to the audit’s findings cannot be credited to the pandemic. Of the three fiscal years covered, only three months fall in the period after covid was diagnosed in Pennsylvania.
“This did not impact any services to children and families and did not impact agency operations,” Saveikis said of the previously unrecovered funds.
That may be true. However, the bureau isn’t keeping track of just numbers on a ledger, which can wait until an auditor identifies the problem while poring over the books.
The job is keeping track of kids — making sure they are safe and healthy. Being off by 2% there isn’t something you shrug off. The consequences are a lot more serious than receiving a check five years late.