KOMO News is reporting serious oversight and accountability gaps at the Washington Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) spanning the last four years, raising new questions about how hundreds of millions of dollars in child care funding have been tracked.
In a sit-down interview with KOMO-TV, State Auditor Pat McCarthy said DCYF lacked access to provider-level data in its last four statewide audits — information auditors say is essential to determine where taxpayer dollars are actually going.
“They are probably the most risky of all of the departments in state government,” McCarthy told KOMO News.
Auditor flags years of missing data
According to the State Auditor’s Office, the ongoing audit focuses on the federal Child Care and Development Fund, a $770 million program administered by DCYF that paid roughly 7,400 child care providers in the most recent fiscal year. The audit began before child care funding controversies went viral in Minnesota and is expected to conclude in March.
While McCarthy stressed auditors have not found evidence of fraud at this stage, she said DCYF remains high risk. The FY24 audit questioned more than $415 million in federal program costs because auditors could not trace payments to individual providers.
“By not complying with federal law requirements to maintain adequate supporting documentation for expenditures, the department made it impossible for our office to audit the federal dollars it used for payments to child care providers,” the audit states.
“We will look at individual providers when we do those audits, but we have to get that information from the agency to be able to do that body of work. And we haven’t been able to get that information for the last four years,” McCarthy added.
DCYF response and ongoing concerns
Asked whether the state knows if child care dollars are flowing properly, McCarthy deferred, saying, “I believe the DCYF can speak to that.”
DCYF told KOMO News it has changed how it tracks payments and is working closely with auditors, noting new processes implemented in FY25.
McCarthy acknowledged recent leadership changes could help accountability but cautioned audits are ongoing. She also warned against conflating Washington with scandals elsewhere.
“I want to calm Washingtonians down. What happened in Minnesota happened in Minnesota. So don’t conflate what happened there with what’s happening in Washington state,” she said.
