State Treasurer Kennedy – Food Stamp Fraud Is Extensive

Today on 'Go Acadiana' Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy joined Ken Romero and Dr. John Sutherlin to discuss food stamp fraud and ways to stop it.

Last week Kennedy was on and reported that huge amounts of money were being lost through fraudulent claims. We started today's discussion by asking what could be done about fraud and how could it be reported. According to Kennedy,

Well, its' pretty simple. The Department of Children and Family Services is in charge of administering the food stamp program. They're in charge of accepting applications, making sure the applications are accurate, auditing and double checking applications and if somebody is cheating then sending their name to the district attorney, the attorney general or the US Attorney and making sure they are prosecuted.

When asked if any prosecutions had taken place recently Kennedy said,

Yesterday the Department of Children and Family Services sent out a press release saying they disqualified six people who have exceeded their spending limit in the food stamp program. You know I don't want to look a 'gift horse' in the mouth I'm thankful that they did that but it's kinda like a baby step. The abuse according to the Legislative Auditor is pretty extensive. He didn't look but just took a sampling of the people and found 322 people who were receiving food stamps and were making $50,000 a year or more. My point is...this is going to continue ...it's unfair to those people who play by the rules, it's unfair to taxpayers who put up the money but it's going to continue until the Department actually prosecutes people.

We asked Kennedy where fraud could be reported and he replied,

If you want to you can go to my website www.latreasury.com, you can send me an email and I will forward it to the Department of Children and Family Services. I can't guarantee they will do anything about it

To hear the entire interview with Treasurer John Kennedy click on the blue arrow below: