U.S. Seeking $717,000 in Refugee Aid Funds

Orange County should repay $717,000 in refugee aid to Washington because county welfare workers made assistance payments to refugees who were ineligible for the federal funds, a U.S. audit says.

Resolution of the dispute probably will hinge on which agency--the federal Department of Health and Human Services or the state Department of Social Services and the county----should pay the bill, and not whether the recipients were eligible for some form of welfare, said Sandi Harrison, program manager for Orange County’s refugee assistance program.

“It looks like most of them would have qualified for some sort of benefits,” Harrison said Friday.

Of $32,253,406 claimed for reimbursement from Oct. 1, 1982, through Dec. 31, 1984, federal auditors found at least $717,938 was unallowable under the Refugee Resettlement Program, according to an Aug. 28 memo from Richard P. Kusserow, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The audit found that federal funds were used for ineligible payments, including those made to refugees who had resided in the country longer than 36 months and whose documentation of eligibility was incomplete or unavailable.

The Refugee Resettlement Program provides federal cash assistance to refugees under three programs, including people otherwise eligible for the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.

Harrison, who was uncertain Friday whether the county had received a copy of the audit, said officials will have to make a careful review of the document before they can comment.

However, California welfare officials have appealed the results of a prior federal audit that claimed Orange County and six other California counties made $33 million in ineligible payments of federal funds under the refugee program from April 1, 1981, to Sept. 30, 1982.

The state’s pending appeal maintains that the federal government has no authority to demand reimbursement and that the disputed amount was improperly extrapolated from only a sampling of welfare cases.