Head Start Program Allegedly Scammed

(Cleveland, Ohio) Employees of Ohio's largest Head Start agency, the Council for Economic Opportunities in Greater Cleveland, have apparently been scamming taxpayer dollars by erroneously reporting numbers of children enrolled and failing to meet requirements for numbers of low-income enrollees. Additionally, concerns have been raised about excessively high salaries and travel expenditures for Head Start managers which are far above federal compensation guidelines.

One former Head Start employee, Lorann Pierzchala, has come forward and stated that she was instructed to pad the enrollment as a common practice. She was not allowed to remove a child from a class roster when the child had stopped attending unless there was a replacement. Pierzchala worked for Cleveland's West Side Ecumenical Ministry from 2000 to 2003. She was laid off in April 2003 and told her chances of getting unemployment would hinge on her signing a non-disclosure agreement with Head Start to "not speak negatively of your job duties or of your employment relationship ...." Since national security is surely not involved, one has to assume that the non-disclosure agreement was to hide something sensitive, confidential, or fraudulent. You make the call.

According to Steve Barbour, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, a fiscal management review of the Cleveland Head Start Program is scheduled for May.