In a recent report, the Kansas Division of Legislative Post Audit said it was unable to determine if Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding is being accurately distributed.
According to the report, the federal government does not require states to assess the accuracy of their TANF benefits payments.
Although the federal government requires states to determine and report their accuracy for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit payments, this is not required for the TANF program.
LPA looked for national studies or reports from other states to “understand the magnitude of improper TANF benefit payments.”
According to LPA, a 2003 study of eight states, released by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, estimated the national improper payment rate for TANF could be as high as 9.3%, but LPA could not find more recent work on the subject.
In 2025, LPA said, the Government Accountability Office reported that the lack of national improper payment analysis can be traced to statutory limitations. GAO emphasized a need for statutory changes that would give the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services adequate authority to request data from states to calculate improper TANF benefit payments.
The Kansas Department of Children and Families has an employee performance review process that includes reviewing TANF payments for procedural and accuracy errors; however, according to LPA, the data provided by DCF “is not sufficient or reliable for determining the department’s accuracy in making TANF benefit payments.”
“DCF does not have a formal written process supervisors must follow to conduct these reviews,” auditors wrote. “However, they told us supervisors or other staff review TANF cases to make sure staff members followed proper procedures. For example, they review whether staff determined eligibility within the required 45 days, whether staff determined the applicant had not already received TANF for 24 months, and whether staff verified citizenship. In some cases, supervisors only review procedural criteria. However, in others, they will also determine if staff made the correct benefit payment amount.”
DCF also does not require a specific number of cases to be reviewed, but supervisors must review certain cases. Supervisors are required to review all cases completed by new staff members. They must also review cases processed by staff who have had performance issues in the past.
LPA said DCF provided data from the cases they reviewed in fiscal year 2025. This included aggregated results from the review and limited information on the individual cases they reviewed.
LPA said they could not “adequately determine how accurate DCF’s TANF payments were using that data for the following reasons:
- The cases DCF supervisors reviewed were not chosen randomly and are not a representative sample of the whole population. Supervisors largely review cases completed by new staff. These staff are more likely to make errors and so their results are unlikely to be representative of all cases.
- For the year we reviewed, DCF did not require all supervisors to conduct these reviews (the reviews are required starting this year). This inconsistency also means the cases that were reviewed are unlikely to be representative of all cases.
- In many cases that were reviewed, the supervisor checked only the process and not the accuracy of the payment. It is possible for staff to make a process mistake that would not affect the accuracy of the payment. For example, staff could accurately determine the payment amount even if they failed to make the eligibility determination in 45 days.
- The system DCF uses to review TANF payments is informal and primarily meant to evaluate staff performance. Federal law does not require that DCF take any steps to review TANF payments. Subsequently, DCF’s system does not adequately assess whether staff are accurately determining TANF payments.
DCF expressed confidence in their data and “wholeheartedly disagrees with this statement.
“We are confident that TANF eligibility and payment decisions are accurate, and appropriate processes are in place to ensure the integrity of these decisions and the program as a whole,” DCF wrote. “While the agency appreciates the work done by the Legislative Post Audit team, there is no evidence in the audit to support the assertion that the program has made excessive inaccurate payments. The TANF program and work by Kansas staff has been reviewed 5 times via both LPA and federally required single state audits over the past 4 years.”
However, LPA never made an allegation of “excessive, inaccurate payments” but said they couldn’t determine the validity of the numbers provided.
Moreover, Kansas has had a history of mismanagement of similar benefit programs.
Another report from LPA found problems with the error rate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — the same program for which Democrat Governor Laura Kelly’s administration repeatedly refused to turn over data to the federal government — finally backing down in late February.
According to the audit DCF’s SNAP payment error rate has exceeded the federal payment error rate threshold of 6% since 2019.
Additionally, Kansas, like many states, uses the number of students receiving free lunches to determine at-risk state funding for each district, but an audit just found that taxpayers likely spent between $38 million and $53 million for students who likely were not eligible. Auditors also say the 2023-24 free lunch count in Kansas was more than double the estimated number of students the U.S. Census Bureau indicated should be eligible for a free lunch.
