BATON ROUGE — An audit of the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services highlighted several ongoing issues at the department, including issues with temporary assistance and foster care programs.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor's Office's report about DCFS said that five of its 12 findings were repeated issues from previous years. 

DCFS failed to implement proper controls for requiring proper documentation of foster care payments, resulting in $66,597 in questioned costs. Around 33% of sampled foster care cases did not have proper authorizations for their housing requirments, with 13% having conflicting or inaccurate information on forms. 

Around 2% of cases saw overpayment of three days due to using an incorrect start date, among other issues.

To resolve this, the audit recomends that DCFS should strengthen internal controls to ensure foster care payments are allowable and recipients are eligible.

The report adds that DCFS also did not have controls in place to ensure proper documentation of fuel card transactions. One example cited in the report details an employee who, between August 2024 and June 2025, used state vehicles for non-state business, resulting in a potential benefit of $10,000. 

Out of 30 fuel card purchases sampled, 10 did not have required vehicle logs and five did not have receipts, which are also required, the report adds. 

The report also says that there were issues with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, namely that some recipients of the program's funding did not follow proper procedures in cases of non-cooperation sanction holds. Six out of nine sampled cases did not see benefits denied after a hold should have been put on their assistance funding, resulting in $3,116 in questioned costs.

"TANF caseworkers did not ensure that individuals who had been reported as noncompliant by Child Support Enforcement were sanctioned timely or denied TANF benefits, if appropriate. Noncompliance with CSE cooperation requirements could result in penalties assessed on the state by the federal grantor," the report notes.

A repeated offense highlighted in the report was a fourth consecutive year of noncompliance with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act reporting requirements for the foster care and TANF programs. 

The report also highlighted issues with payroll controls, missing approvals for Social Services Block Grant spending, weak oversight of Summer EBT reporting for children and other discrepencies.

The full report can be read here.

WBRZ has previously reported on issues DCFS has had stemming from audits.