Illinois misspent money on program to help disabled

State investigators have found that as much as $100,000 in taxpayer money for a program to help disabled people get schooling or jobs was misspent on such expenses as a funeral, lawyer's fees and bedding.

Two employees have been suspended as a result.

The Illinois Department of Human Services said Wednesday the workers received 20-day unpaid suspensions after a state report this week revealed that the pair and a former employee did not follow state rules on what client expenses are covered by the Illinois Center for Rehabilitation and Education in Chicago. The program helps disabled people pursue schooling or vocational training and pays for items they need, such as work uniforms.

The report did not indicate how $100,000 was misspent on 76 people — an average of $1,300 each — or during what time period. It provided examples of the inappropriate expenditures for only six of those clients. An aide to the Office of the Executive Inspector General, which compiled the report, declined further comment.

An internal DHS audit in late 2009 found misspent money or undocumented expenditures in each of the 76 cases handled by Pamela Clay-Wilson, Madesa Dickerson and Dawn Laga. The auditor said "that she has never witnessed abuse of this magnitude (and) estimated that the improper expenditures totaled $100,000," according to the Inspector General's report.

Payments included $500 to bury a client's son; $200 for a client to meet with an attorney to discuss a child custody case; $400 for clothing despite a $200 limit on such purchases; $694 for two sets of mattresses; and $600 for orthopedic shoes for a client who didn't need them.

More than $32 million was available to support 44,000 clients in the program statewide in the 2010 fiscal year, Human Services spokeswoman Januari Smith said.

Clay-Wilson and Laga were suspended and received additional training on state rules, while Dickerson left her job in November 2010, according to Smith and state records.

Dickerson approved the expenses, Clay-Wilson reviewed them without correction, and Laga processed the paperwork, according to the report.

Dickerson told authorities in an August 2010 interview that Clay-Wilson wanted to better advertise the program's services and recruited clients, many of whom had greater needs than traditionally was the case. The mattresses, for example, went to a client and her children who were sleeping on a floor. She said most of her clients were homeless.

In a response to the report, Clay-Wilson said she was trying to open the program to more disabled minorities who enter it "more dependent on services from social services agencies than white customers."

"This office only tried to provide the services necessary for the customers to become successfully employed," she wrote in the response. "The error was in failure to document the reason many of the services issued were necessary."

Clay-Wilson, who according to other state records makes $81,900 a year, is out of the office this week. She did not immediately return a message and did not answer a home phone.

Laga, who makes $49,000, referred questions to Clay-Wilson, saying, "I follow the rules." She told investigators she questioned some spending, but Clay-Wilson told her to complete the paperwork, an assertion Clay-Wilson denied.

State records indicate Dickerson, who earned $74,900, left her position in November 2010. She did not return a message left at a number listed at her address.