When Congress talks about child care, the conversation often drifts into big themes: affordability, access, workforce participation, and who should pay. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy is pushing it back to something more operational: whether public money is being administered with clear oversight and proper controls.
Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, has expanded a child care fraud and improper payment inquiry that began with Minnesota into three additional Democratic-led states: New York, Michigan, and Oregon. In letters to Govs. Kathy Hochul, Gretchen Whitmer, and Tina Kotek, first obtained by Fox News Digital, Cassidy charged that their states lead or have led the nation in improper payments in state-administered child care assistance programs. He pointed to high “improper payment” rates and demanded detailed documentation about oversight practices and safeguards.
The numbers
The letters cite federal Department of Health and Human Services data on payment error rates in child care assistance programs administered by states. Cassidy highlighted three figures:
- New York: payment error rate of over 17% in fiscal year 2024
- Michigan: payment error rate of over 12% in fiscal year 2025
- Oregon: payment error rate of over 35% in fiscal year 2024
An “improper payment” is not always fraud. It can include mistakes, missing documentation, or eligibility problems. Still, Cassidy argued the scale of the error rates raises concerns that touch both taxpayer protections and the ability of families to reliably access support.
As Cassidy wrote, “Error rates of this magnitude raise significant concerns about both fraud prevention and access to child care for the families these programs are intended to serve and highlight the need for strengthened program monitoring, improved internal controls, and greater transparency in how these programs are administered.”
What Cassidy wants
This is not framed as a general call for accountability. It is a document-driven request for what Cassidy described as “receipts,” similar to what he demanded earlier from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Among the information Cassidy requested:
- A history of each state’s improper payment rates from fiscal years 2016 through 2025, with explanations for major shifts
- Descriptions of anti-fraud measures enacted since 2016
- State action plans to prevent fraud, verify eligibility, and ensure payments align with actual services provided
- Details on how the states verify child care providers and monitor those that receive subsidies
- Information on how federal funding is being used
- Records of audits and investigations since 2016, including whether fraud or improper payments were found
- How often the state conducts on-site monitoring, inspections, or investigative visits to child care facilities that receive federal dollars
Cassidy gave the governors a deadline of March 30 to respond.
Minnesota context
This expansion did not come out of nowhere. Cassidy initially launched his fraud hunt to target Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and demanded the former vice presidential candidate provide receipts for a litany of child care-related grants and federal funding that were at the heart of the Minnesota fraud scandal.
Now the inquiry is broader. By moving beyond a single state, Cassidy is making the case that the underlying risk is not confined to one headline or one administration. In his view, vulnerabilities show up where oversight is weak and improper payment rates climb.
Why oversight is the focus
What happens next will largely depend on what the states provide on paper and what it shows about program monitoring, internal controls, and follow-through. That is analysis, not a claim from Cassidy’s letters, but it is the practical hinge of this kind of inquiry.
Cassidy framed the inquiry as a public trust issue as much as a budget issue: “Ensuring the integrity of child care assistance programs is critical not only for protecting taxpayer dollars, but also for maintaining public confidence in programs designed to support children and families.”
- Whether the governors comply fully: A complete response creates a record that can be reviewed and compared.
- What the error rates reflect: Documentation gaps, eligibility mistakes, or deliberate fraud can require very different fixes.
- What oversight looks like in practice: How provider verification, subsidy monitoring, audits, and on-site visits are handled is likely to matter as much as the headline percentages.
The deeper point is straightforward: programs meant to help families can be undermined by administrative weakness. If public money is easy to misdirect, public support for public programs erodes, and restoring trust can be harder than adjusting a funding line.