Tennessee's Monitoring Ensured Compliance With Criminal Background Check Requirements at 28 of the 30 Childcare Providers Reviewed

Why OIG Did This Audit

The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG Act) of 2014 added new requirements for States that received funding from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) to conduct comprehensive criminal background checks on staff members and prospective staff members of childcare providers every 5 years. Criminal background check requirements apply to any staff member who is employed by a childcare provider for compensation or whose activities involve the care or supervision of children or unsupervised access to children.

Our objective was to determine whether Tennessee's monitoring of childcare providers ensured provider compliance with State requirements related to criminal background checks established under the CCDBG Act.

How OIG Did This Audit

We analyzed and tested a population of 1,221 licensed childcare centers and family homes that received CCDF funding during State fiscal year 2018. We used geographic area, total capacity, and total CCDF funding received to select 15 childcare center providers and 15 family home providers, where we obtained a list of all current employees or household members. In total, we reviewed supporting documentation for 434 individuals at 30 different childcare provider locations.

What OIG Found

Tennessee's monitoring generally ensured provider compliance with State requirements related to criminal background checks at 28 of 30 childcare provider locations we reviewed. At the 30 selected childcare provider locations we reviewed supporting documents for 434 individuals who were employees or household members. Of the 434 individuals we reviewed, 2 did not have an updated background check completed.

For both errors, the program evaluator did not ensure that the employee completed a new background check timely. Both errors were caused by a lack of training by Tennessee for the program evaluators in the background check completion process.

What OIG Recommends

We recommend that Tennessee conduct all required background checks for the two individuals we identified as not having the required checks at the time of our review.

Tennessee concurred with our recommendation and provided information on actions that it has taken to address our recommendation.