A special investigation by the State Auditor’s office has found concerns about the billing requests from a nonprofit organizations that serves Boone and Story Counties in central Iowa.
Deputy State Auditor Tami Kusian says the investigation covered the requests for funding by the Parenting Way organization from two organizations: Boone County Cares and BooST Together for Children (BooSt).
“What our investigation found was that there was over $66,450 in improper disbursements — which were mainly payroll — which was billed by Parenting Way which did not agree with the employee time sheets,” Kusian says. BooSt administers state funds for the care and education of preschool kids and Boone County CARES helps educate parents on child abuse prevention.
Kusian says the Story County Attorney requested the investigation after concerns were raised about the invoices from Parenting Way submitted by executive director Sue Renfrow.
“The amounts billed were in excess of what was being supported by time sheets, so Parenting Way would then receive additional funds from these two nonprofits, BooST and CARES, probably more than they were entitled to based on their supporting documentation,” according to Kusian. “I can’t say if it was bad bookkeeping….defiantly what came across to us was that it was overbilling.” She says their findings may not cover all the money that was improperly billed by the organization.
“In this case, the 66,000 is the amount that we were able to identify based on the documentation that was available. We do have a disclaimer in the report that indicates that with additional documentation we may’ve found more,” Kusian explains.
Kusian says they’ve turned the report over to the Story County and Boone County Attorneys to determine how they want to handle the case.
Here’s the State Audit report: Parenting-Way-Investigation-PDF