MADISON, Wis. -- Following adoption of a more stringent enforcement policy, state officials here said they have uncovered fraud and other violations of the Women, Infants and Children program at approximately 10% of the 1,400 retailers they investigated.
Those allegations led the Wisconsin Grocers Association to charge the officials with overstating the amount of WIC fraud being perpetrated by supermarket operators, prompting the state to back off somewhat.
WIC is a federally funded, state-administered program that provides food vouchers to low-income women to help them feed themselves and their children. The Department of Health and Social Services here, which administers the program in Wisconsin, has threatened to withhold WIC licenses from operators who violate the law.
The Department of Health and Social Services launched an investigation of the WIC program last June following a legislative audit that indicated vendor fraud in voucher redemptions.
According to Dan Stier, chief legal counsel for the Department of Health and Social Services, the investigation uncovered a variety of violations, ranging from outright fraud to mispricing of certain items to failure by employers to send employees to mandatory WIC training sessions.
According to John H. Ellingson, president of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, most of the worst violators are small, inner-city operators who purchased vouchers for less than face value and turned them over to vendors for full reimbursement.
In a letter to the state's WIC administrator, he declared, "We reject the perception that there are hundreds of food stores across the state which are ripping off the WIC system and lining their business wallets through illegal practices.
"[The state report] suggests that all impacted stores are charged with misusing the WIC program or [are] linked to fraudulent practices. The Wisconsin Grocers Association challenges the accuracy of this blanket indictment."
Stier told SN the original announcement of the investigation results may have been misleading.
"It's hard to get the word about WIC abuses out in this era of sound bites," Stier said. "Our goal is simply to rid the program of fraud and significant price gouging."
