The Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 requires federal agencies, like FNS, to give Congress information about payment errors for federal programs, like CACFP. FNS planned this study to estimate payment errors in CACFP child care centers. However, after completing the study, FNS found an error in the method used to estimate nationwide findings from the study data. Because of the error, FNS is not publishing the full study, and will instead present key findings that relate to broad trends instead of specific estimates.
We explored the feasibility of using existing data from state monitoring reviews – a process designed to assess operations and provide real-time technical assistance to family day care homes operating CACFP – to estimate the rate of improper payments in those operations. This study found that flexibility in these reviews and the information they report across states, while beneficial for their main purpose, made the resulting data unusable for estimating a national improper payment rate.
The Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 requires all federal agencies to calculate the amount of erroneous payments in federal programs and to periodically conduct detailed assessments of vulnerable program components.
The Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 requires all federal agencies to calculate the amount of erroneous payments in federal programs and to periodically conduct detailed assessments of vulnerable program components. This is the fourth wave of a program assessment of the family day care homes in the Department of Agriculture's CACFP.