58 Beltrami County familes were overpaid for child care

Associated Press

Dozens of low-income families in Beltrami County received more child care assistance than they were entitled to because of confusion over a state law.

Overpayments to 58 families -- from September 2003 to March 2005 -- ranged from $9 to about $3,500 per household and totaled more than $27,000.

"The state has advised that [there] are two options that they would accept as resolving this issue," County Administrator Tony Murphy wrote in a memo to county commissioners. "The first is to collect the overpayments from the families."

The second option, Murphy states, would be for the county to pay the state for the overpayments on behalf of the families.

The payment errors resulted from confusion over the Legislature's freezing of the weekly rate for child care reimbursement, which took effect in September 2003.

Four child-care providers that serve Beltrami families changed their billing from weekly to hourly or daily and, when they did, assumed incorrectly that they did not have to abide by the weekly cap.

The state's computers, which calculate reimbursements, did not register any errors when payments for services provided by the four child-care centers exceeded the weekly maximums set by the Legislature.

If the situation is not resolved, the state could withhold child-care funds from the county.