Trump official says funds will be released ‘only when states prove they are being spent legitimately’
The Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all childcare payments to all states, an official for Donald Trump’s administration told ABC News in a report published Wednesday, just hours after department officials announced that they had frozen childcare funding to Minnesota.
States’ funds, the unnamed official said, will be released “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately”.
The department did not immediately reply to a Guardian request for comment on the report, but HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told ABC News that “it’s the onus of the state to make sure that these funds, these federal dollars, taxpayer dollars, are being used for legitimate purposes”.
Recipients of childcare funding will have to provide HHS with extensive documentation, such as “attendance records, licensing, inspection and monitoring reports, complaints and investigations”, Nixon added.
