Letter: Troubled programs shouldn’t get funds

Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005 | 7:51 a.m.

As the senior federal official overseeing the Head Start program, I would like to clarify some aspects of a recent Sun editorial on the government's actions concerning the Economic Opportunity Board's Community Action Partnership Head Start program ("Move ASAP on the EOB," Nov. 9).

Because EOB has appealed our decision to terminate its grant, I cannot comment on the specifics of that particular situation. However, I do want to clarify that under current law Head Start grantees are allowed to appeal a termination action undertaken by the federal government.

More to the point, while the appeal is in process, the federal government is prohibited by law from withholding federal funds from the program. Indeed, current law even allows such programs to pay for their attorney fees associated with the appeal with taxpayers' dollars.

This is, in a word, nuts. Indeed, I have testified twice before the U.S. Congress that this law needs to be changed. It makes no sense for a program the federal government has determined should be terminated for significant deficiencies to continue to receive taxpayer funds, sometimes for years, while appeals are in process.

In order for the federal government to move more quickly to terminate poorly operating Head Start programs, as you advocate in this case, the law will have to be changed. We are hopeful Congress will do exactly that.

Wade F. Horn

Washington, D.C.

The writer is assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, which is part of the Health and Human Services Department. The Administration for Children and Families is responsible for Head Start, welfare reform, child care, child welfare, refugee resettlement, developmental disabilities, low-income heating assistance and other social programs.