Latasha Jackson: STILL Getting Paid

My reaction: What? WHAT? You cannot be serious. You must be kidding. Tell me this isn't happening. Tell me Latasha Jackson isn't still getting thousands in taxpayer dollars.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

State regulators pumped $25,132 more in taxpayer money this week into the pockets of Latasha Jackson, the day care provider who bought a Jaguar convertible and built a million-dollar mansion in Menomonee Falls - all while officials ignored red flags that she was conning the system for more than a decade.

The payment was made Tuesday despite the fact that regulators already are scrambling to recoup more than $103,000 they admittedly overpaid her during a recent four-month period.

Jackson was the subject of a Journal Sentinel investigation and story published Aug. 30 that exposed how the 32-year-old mother of three received nearly $3 million in public funding from the troubled Wisconsin Shares program while authorities repeatedly disregarded her extensive violations, history of lying and even their own investigators' outright proof of fraud.

The state revoked Jackson's license to run Kiddie Springs Child Development Center only upon learning the newspaper was about to publish a story and only after Jackson turned herself in. Jackson reported herself to the state a day after being confronted by a reporter. Authorities now are reviewing additional records from Jackson's center, and the Milwaukee County sheriff's office has launched a criminal investigation.

State and Milwaukee County regulators refused Thursday to release the name of the person who authorized the latest payment.

"There's no impropriety there," said Laurice Lincoln, administrative coordinator for child care for Milwaukee County "They didn't do anything wrong."

This week's payment was for child care that Jackson reportedly provided the week before her license was revoked, said Angela Russell, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families.

A new computer program launched on Monday would have prevented the payment, Russell said. But because the dates of care were for August, Jackson's case fell under the old system. As it was, there was no red flag to stop the payment, she said.

"This is what we're trying to fix," she said. "If it happened as of this week, we would be able to click a button and she would not have gotten anything," she said.

Russell also blamed the problem, in part, on Milwaukee County and said if workers there had entered the $103,000 overpayment into the computer system sooner, the state would at least have been able to keep 50% of Tuesday's payment.

This is insane.

Damn the old computer program.

Jackson has been exposed as abusing the system. Can it really be that hard to keep additional tax dollars from falling into her hands?

Good grief.

The incompetence is mind-boggling. Jackson is a crook.