LAFAYETTE, La (KLFY) – The St. Martin, Iberia, Lafayette Community Action Agency, or SMILE, has received a clean bill of health from the Louisiana Department of Labor.
The executive director of LWC confirms that an internal audit was conducted. Plus, several local leaders came together to support the head start program under threat — after allegations that include failing to report alleged acts of child abuse.
“Let’s move forward because at the end of the day it’s about the children,” adds State Representative Terry Landry.
Lafayette Consolidated Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux, Representative Landry, Representative Vincent Pierre and State Senator Gerald Boudreaux are among the community leaders hearing from the labor department.
“At this point, we’re not in the process of having any findings right now,” says Louisiana Workforce Commission Executive Director Ava Dejoie.
Dejoie says an LWC internal audit found the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) dollars SMILE receives — a little over a million dollars — have not been mismanaged. “Yes, those funds are not in jeopardy at all,” she adds.
Senator Gerald Boudreaux says it’s time to cleanup and move forward. “We’re still hearing in-fighting of board members. We hear employees who are disgruntled. The message from today moving forward is that if you are not onboard and if you’re not part of the solution; then you are part of the problem. We’re not going to tolerate that,” adds Boudreaux.
“We’re here just to ensure that this process is fair and not slanted by reporting or media reports. That all the facts are accurate and concise,” says Rep. Landry.
“What I believe is that when there is some concern about an agency there are people responsible for going in and do the fixes. If there’s some fixing that’s necessary, then I say lets it. If there are some people that we need to hold accountable, then I say let’s hold them accountable. What we cannot do — is do anything that’s going to be detrimental to those children and those families,” says LCG Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux.
SMILE Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Chris Williams says about 10 days ago the Office of Head Start sent SMILE a contract termination notice.
“After being a service provider for decades it really floored us,” adds Williams.
Williams says it’s time to move forward in a progressive way to make SMILE the best it can be.
“We had some issues that we had to deal with. Guess what? We are going to deal with them head-on and we are going to follow any mandates that we need to follow,” Williams explains.
Williams says it’s business and as normal for SMILE with school set to open August 14.
“There’s not much talk about the most important part of this and that’s the children,” adds Landry.
