Topline: A Texas program meant to help families navigate unplanned pregnancies “has few safeguards and is riddled with waste,” according to an investigation by ProPublica and CBS News. Contractors have, for example, billed the state $14 for supplies costing pennies, used state funds to grow hemp, and more.
Key facts: The “Thriving Texas Families” program — renamed from “Alternatives to Abortion” after Roe v. Wade was overturned — pays contractors to provide parenting classes and items such as diapers and baby formula to families. Annual funding gradually rose from $5 million in 2005 to $140 million last year.
The contractors can bill the state $14 any time they distribute parenting supplies, regardless of what those supplies actually cost. The fee often pays for pregnancy centers to give out “a couple of paper pamphlets” or packs of diapers that cost them 25 cents.
Parents must take a class before receiving supplies, which nets the pregnancy centers another $30 an hour from the state.
ProPublica says taxpayers have spent $54 million for McAllen Pregnancy Center and other Texas Pregnancy Care Network subcontractors to give out baby supplies, but the state doesn’t track what supplies the money is buying. Some of it was for necessities like formula, but some of it was paper pamphlets.
There are no requirements for how the state grants must be spent. San Antonio-based A New Life for a New Generation used state funding to run its owner’s smoke shop and to buy land that was later used to grow industrial hemp, KSAT-TV reported.
McAllen Pregnancy Center received $3.5 million in three years from taxpayers but spent less than $1 million on programming. Its assets increased by $2.1 million in the same timeframe, ProPublica found.
Those obvious examples of misused money still weren’t enough for the state to conduct a full audit of Thriving Texas Families. ProPublica says Texas has “never thoroughly evaluated the effectiveness of the program’s services in its nearly 20 years of existence.”
The largest contractor, Texas Pregnancy Care Network, only met one of its three benchmarks for success in 2022 — it didn’t have enough customers or send enough of them to a nursing program meant to lower maternal death rates — but its funding was not reduced.
Texas Pregnancy Care Network is at least required to submit an independent audit to the state every year, but it hires dozens of other nonprofits with state money that do not have audit requirements.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Summary: A laissez-faire approach to oversight of tax-dollar spending is not the best way to help vulnerable families.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by CEO & founder, Adam Andrzejewski, with Jeremy Portnoy. Learn more at OpenTheBooks.com.
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