Probe: $100M wasted in utilities program

July 2, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MIAMI

A federal program designed to help impoverished families heat and cool their homes wasted more than $100 million paying the electric bills of thousands of applicants who were dead, in prison or living in million-dollar mansions, according to a government investigation.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spent $5 billion through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program in 2009, doling out money to states with little oversight of the program. Some states don’t verify applicants’ identifies or income. For example, the program helped pay the electric bill of a woman who lives in a $2 million home in a wealthy Chicago suburb and drives a Mercedes, according to the yet-to-be released report obtained by The Associated Press.

The Government Accountability Office studied the program after a 2007 investigation by Pennsylvania’s state auditor found 429 applicants received more than $162,000 using the Social Security numbers of dead people.

The GAO investigated Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Virginia, which represented about one-third of the program’s funding in 2009. The agency found improper payments in about 9 percent of households receiving benefits in those states, totaling $116 million.

The report comes after a dramatic increase in the size of the assistance checks as fuel-oil costs soared in 2008 and 2009.

“LIHEAP is supposed to be for poor people, not for cheats who pose as something or someone they’re not and get their paperwork rubber-stamped by gullible government officials,” said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the ranking GOP member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which requested the investigation.

The program gives low-income residents checks made out to “Your Heating Supplier.” The checks are marked with specific instructions to the bank that they are to be deposited only by the supplier.

Although individual states are primarily responsible for preventing the fraud, the study found lax oversight by HHS and little guidance on how to do so. Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Virginia said they had trouble finding records to validate Social Security numbers and verify income.

Several state officials said they typically don’t investigate or prosecute fraud in the program because the amount of money paid to each resident is so low.