Vanessa Roberts Avery, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced that Connecticut Institute for the Communities, Inc. has entered into a civil settlement agreement and has paid $85,600 to resolve allegations that two of its now-former employees falsely claimed to be homeless while enrolling their children in CIFC’s Head Start programs.
CIFC is a Danbury-based non-profit corporation that receives federal grants to operate Head Start programs in several locations in Connecticut.
The Head Start programme supports children’s growth from birth to age five through services centred around early learning and development, health, and family well-being.
Services are available for children from birth to age three (‘Early Head Start’) and ages three to five (‘Head Start’) in center-based, home-based, or family child care settings.
Head Start programmes are intended primarily for “children from low-income families” and “homeless children.”
Head Start rules also permit programs to enrol children whose families are not “low income,” receiving public benefits, homeless, or in foster care, but the total number of children from such families cannot exceed 10 per cent of all program slots.
Grantees, such as CIFC, are required to verify applicants’ program eligibility and to keep paper records of those eligibility determinations.
The government alleged that, between September 4, 2013, through August 31, 2016, CIFC enrolled into its Head Start programmes the children of two now-former CIFC employees – including the now-former manager of eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrolment, and attendance for CIFC’s Head Start programmes – which were falsely documented as homeless and for which false supporting documents were created.
The CIFC employees were not homeless.
