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Statement of Need: In recent years, State and Federal program reviews have found numerous cases of mismanagement, abuse, and, in some instances, fraud by child care institutions and facilities in the CACFP. These reviews revealed weaknesses in management controls over program operations and examples of regulatory noncompliance by institutions, including failure to pay facilities or failure to pay them in a timely manner; improper use of program funds for non-program expenditures; and improper meal reimbursements due to incorrect meal counts or to mis-characterized or incomplete income eligibility statements. In addition, audits and investigations conducted by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) have raised serious concerns regarding the adequacy of financial and administrative controls in CACFP. Based on its findings, the OIG recommended changes to CACFP review requirements and management controls.

Summary of the Legal Basis: Some of the changes proposed in the rule are discretionary changes being made in response to deficiencies found in program reviews and OIG audits. Other changes codify statutory changes made by the Healthy Meals for Healthy Americans Act of 1994 (Pub. L. 103-448), the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-193), and the William F. Goodling Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 1998 (Pub. L. 105-336).

Alternatives: This proposed interim final rule is under development and alternatives are not yet articulated. FNS is working with State agencies to identify reasonable alternatives to implement the changes mandated by law. FNS will be developing extensive guidance materials in conjunction with agency cooperators to meet the objectives of the statute.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: This rule contains changes designed to improve management and financial integrity in the CACFP. When implemented, these changes would affect all entities in CACFP, from USDA to participating children and children's households. These changes will primarily affect the procedures used by State agencies in reviewing applications submitted by, and monitoring the performance of, institutions which are participating or wish to participate in the CACFP. Those changes which would affect institutions and facilities will not, in the aggregate, have a significant economic impact. Data on CACFP integrity is limited, despite numerous OIG reports on individual institutions and facilities that have been deficient in CACFP management. While program reviews and OIG reports clearly illustrate that there are weaknesses in parts of the program regulations and that there have been weaknesses in oversight, neither program reviews, OIG reports, nor any other data sources illustrate the prevalence and magnitude of CACFP fraud and abuse. This lack of information precludes USDA from estimating the amount of money lost due to fraud and abuse or the reduction in fraud and abuse the changes in this rule will realize.

Risks: With the interim final rule in place and operational, risk of integrity problems is reduced. The final rule will use comments from stakeholders to further improve the rule.