Investigators sought former Head Start chief’s prosecution

Federal investigators sought the prosecution of a former Bush administration official on allegations that she misused federal Head Start grant money, but the Justice Department declined prosecution, according to records obtained by National Journal through the Freedom of Information Act.

In a previously unreleased report, investigators said they had found evidence that Windy Hill, chief of Head Start at the Health and Human Services Department from January 2002 to May 2005, had improperly pocketed thousands of dollars when she was head of a local Head Start program in Texas. The report was provided to Hill's boss, Wade Horn, head of the Administration for Children and Families, for administrative action on April 1, 2005, nearly two months before Hill resigned on May 27.

Investigators with the HHS inspector general's office found evidence that Hill, as executive director of a Head Start agency in Bastrop, Texas, was reimbursed $2,400 for college classes in which she did not enroll, received bonuses worth thousands of dollars more than officially permitted, was improperly paid thousands of dollars for unused vacation time, cut checks to herself without supporting documentation, awarded contracts on a noncompetitive basis to family members and employed children younger than the legal working age of 14.

The U.S. attorney's office in Austin, Texas, and the District Attorney's office in Bastrop declined prosecution "due to a lack of resources and not meeting the minimum guidelines established by these offices," HHS investigators reported in the released records. That could mean the attorneys decided the case was not clear-cut enough or the dollar amounts involved not high enough to justify full-fledged prosecution.

The Justice Department is reviewing 11 pages of records related to the case for potential public release. The government has taken no further legal action against Hill. During the investigation by the inspector general's office, Hill denied wrongdoing. She said in written responses included in the released documents that her actions, including the payout of vacation time, the bonuses and her hiring and contracting decisions, were approved by the local Head Start program's board of directors and complied with the program's policies. Hill's attorney, Derek Van Gilder, said on Thursday that Hill had not yet seen the inspector general report, but would review it over the weekend.

Sarah Greene, president of the National Head Start Association, said an initial reading of the inspector general report seemed to confirm the association's view that Hill had committed wrongdoing as executive director of the Bastrop program.

The association raised allegations of wrongdoing in April 2004, leading to the inspector general investigation. Horn, Hill's former boss, declined to comment through a spokeswoman. "ACF cannot comment on the report because it's a personnel issue," agency officials said in a statement.

It is not uncommon for the Justice Department to decline prosecution following inspector general investigations. In the six-months following Hill's resignation, the HHS inspector general's office presented 780 cases to prosecutors, but they pressed charges against only 350 people and organizations. "It's a resource issue," said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. "They can't cover everything." Hill participated in the Head Start program in Bastrop as a child and later enrolled her own child in the program before becoming leader of Cen-Tex Family Services, a nonprofit that oversaw nine Head Start centers for preschoolers in central Texas. Hill was involved in a statewide Head Start coordinating group with Susan Landry, a University of Texas child development specialist who has worked with First Lady Laura Bush on reading initiatives.

When Hill moved to Washington to oversee the $6.8 billion-a-year Head Start program's 1,500 grantees serving 900,000 students, Horn praised her for "a lifetime of involvement and commitment to the principles of the Head Start program."

But investigators found evidence that Hill had improperly claimed thousands of dollars in bonuses, vacation time and education reimbursement during the previous year, some of it after she had accepted the position in Washington. Investigators said Hill failed to inform the local program's board of directors that she had taken the new job as she sought a bonus and reimbursements in January 2002. Hill said she had told board members the previous month that she was leaving.

In the midst of her departure the local board of directors was thrown into turmoil, with some directors-including Hill's sister-splitting off from other members, creating a situation in which two competing boards claimed control of the program. Eventually, the board without Hill's sister won control through court action. Mary Garcia-Todd, the program's current executive director, said Hill is not associated with the program today.

During her tenure in Washington, Hill clashed with the National Head Start Association, a group that lobbies on behalf of the program's grantees, over the Bush administration's plans to turn over more control to state governments. That plan was scuttled in Congress amidst a Head Start reauthorization effort that is still stalled after more than three years of debate. The association and Hill also clashed when she criticized several local Head Start programs for financial improprieties.

In April 2004, Greene, the association president, called for Hill's resignation after learning through a previous Freedom of Information Act request about some of the allegations that were later corroborated by the inspector general's office. "This is an obvious double standard under which HHS elected to hush up the truth about Windy Hill's egregious program violations," Greene said at the time. "Then they turned around and made her the point person in their attack on Head Start grantees."

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, joined in Greene's calls for further investigation.

Hill said she would welcome a review of her actions, and inspector general agents opened their investigation in June 2004. They officially concluded it in June 2005. On May 31, 2005, Horn sent a memorandum to Deputy Inspector General Michael Little, thanking him for the investigative report. The rest of the text of the memorandum was withheld by HHS under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that it contained "staff advice, opinions and recommendations."

Four days before sending the memo, Horn issued a statement announcing Hill's resignation, calling her a "caring and devoted person who has always been interested in the well-being of children."