Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's how ridiculous some of this fraud investigation is:

40 year DC resident here. Have commuted to other cities, but always lived in DC as an adult. Enrolled kid in Ellington last year with DC license and registration. Get a call 4 months later saying it's my license but wife's registration, even though same household. They could have caught that at the school when I registered but no problem. But OSSE auditors did not ask for matching, they asked for utility bills from certain months. No problem. Sent those. Get a call a month later saying the bills say "credit". They need something saying "paid". I tell them credit means paid, but apparently logic has no impact. Dig into emails and find a receipt that says "Paid". Fine, right? Call a month later says "paid" is one month after the bill. I say "That's how it works. You pay AFTER you get the bill." Again, logic does not work. Am asked to go online and print out a ledger of consecutive months. Did that. Get a call days later saying this is all likely a result of my phone number and wife's and the fact that we have cellphones with out of town area codes, and not landlines with "202". Except it's the 21st century, and we have not had landlines since 2006, and the whole notion of "mobile" means your number goes with you and area codes are an obsolete concept.
After the 8th call asking for more, start asking other parents and find out dozens are going through the same thing. Some because the fonts were different on a bill one month than it was on another month, even though DC Water and Pepco both had design and website changes in 2017.

This is all true. I really don't mind being a bit inconvenienced to catch some scofflaws, but when it gets beyond 2-3 calls, we're not talking fraud, we're talking OSSE incompetence.

Just consent to a home visit, or have them check your tax records. You can short circuit this stuff.

Anonymous wrote:Here's how ridiculous some of this fraud investigation is:

40 year DC resident here. Have commuted to other cities, but always lived in DC as an adult. Enrolled kid in Ellington last year with DC license and registration. Get a call 4 months later saying it's my license but wife's registration, even though same household. They could have caught that at the school when I registered but not problem. But OSSE auditors did not ask for matching, they asked for utility bills from certain months. No problem. Sent those. Get a call a month later saying the bills say "credit". They need something saying "paid". I tell them credit means paid, but apparently logic has no impact. Dig into emails and find a receipts that says "Paid". Fine, right? Call a month later says "paid" is one month after the bill. I say "That's how it works. You pay AFTER you get the bill." Again, logic does not work. Am asked to go online and print out a ledger of consecutive months. Did that. Get a call days later saying this is all likely a result of my phone number and wife's and the fact that we have cellphones with out of town area codes, and not landlines with "202". Except it's the 21st century, and we have not had landlines since 2006, and the whole notion of "mobile" means your number goes with you and area codes are an obsolete concept.
After the 8th call asking for more, start asking other parents and find out dozens are going through the same thing. Some because the fonts were different on a bill one month than it was on another month, even though DC Water and Pepco both had design and website changes in 2017.

This is all true. I really don't mind being a bit inconvenienced to catch some scofflaws, but when it gets beyond 2-3 calls, we're not talking fraud, we're talking OSSE incompetence.

Anonymous wrote:Here's how ridiculous some of this fraud investigation is:

40 year DC resident here. Have commuted to other cities, but always lived in DC as an adult. Enrolled kid in Ellington last year with DC license and registration. Get a call 4 months later saying it's my license but wife's registration, even though same household. They could have caught that at the school when I registered but not problem. But OSSE auditors did not ask for matching, they asked for utility bills from certain months. No problem. Sent those. Get a call a month later saying the bills say "credit". They need something saying "paid". I tell them credit means paid, but apparently logic has no impact. Dig into emails and find a receipts that says "Paid". Fine, right? Call a month later says "paid" is one month after the bill. I say "That's how it works. You pay AFTER you get the bill." Again, logic does not work. Am asked to go online and print out a ledger of consecutive months. Did that. Get a call days later saying this is all likely a result of my phone number and wife's and the fact that we have cellphones with out of town area codes, and not landlines with "202". Except it's the 21st century, and we have not had landlines since 2006, and the whole notion of "mobile" means your number goes with you and area codes are an obsolete concept.
After the 8th call asking for more, start asking other parents and find out dozens are going through the same thing. Some because the fonts were different on a bill one month than it was on another month, even though DC Water and Pepco both had design and website changes in 2017.



This is all true. I really don't mind being a bit inconvenienced to catch some scofflaws, but when it gets beyond 2-3 calls, we're not talking fraud, we're talking OSSE incompetence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can do the tax data matching thing. Anything that relies on the schools to report is not going to work, because the schools know they would lose money and it would make people upset. If they just matched DC tax addresses and followed up wiith anyone who didn't have a matching address on file in the tax system, they could catch a large proportion of people.

What happens when people move? This is a fairly transient city, and particularly more so when you're talking about low-income families.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just shut up y’all. We gonna do what ever we want. We live in MoCo, and I am still dropping my daughter off at Hardy, I wish y’all would stay something,

In which part of the DC government do you “work”?!

Anonymous wrote:Just shut up y’all. We gonna do what ever we want. We live in MoCo, and I am still dropping my daughter off at Hardy, I wish y’all would stay something,

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If people move to MD and are filing taxes in MD, their kids should enroll in school in MD. That's what happens when people move.

This. Duh.

And if people who move to MD continue to pay DC taxes in order to keep their kids in DC schools, I'm not really outraged by that. That's between the state of MD and those residents to figure it out.

But the current situation is completely unacceptable: living in and paying taxes to the state of MD, but using tens of thousands of DC services per family. It's outright theft of DC taxpayer funds.

Agree.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If people move to MD and are filing taxes in MD, their kids should enroll in school in MD. That's what happens when people move.

This. Duh.

And if people who move to MD continue to pay DC taxes in order to keep their kids in DC schools, I'm not really outraged by that. That's between the state of MD and those residents to figure it out.

But the current situation is completely unacceptable: living in and paying taxes to the state of MD, but using tens of thousands of DC services per family. It's outright theft of DC taxpayer funds.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can do the tax data matching thing. Anything that relies on the schools to report is not going to work, because the schools know they would lose money and it would make people upset. If they just matched DC tax addresses and followed up wiith anyone who didn't have a matching address on file in the tax system, they could catch a large proportion of people.

What happens when people move? This is a fairly transient city, and particularly more so when you're talking about low-income families.

Anonymous wrote:If people move to MD and are filing taxes in MD, their kids should enroll in school in MD. That's what happens when people move.

Anonymous wrote:I hope they can do the tax data matching thing. Anything that relies on the schools to report is not going to work, because the schools know they would lose money and it would make people upset. If they just matched DC tax addresses and followed up wiith anyone who didn't have a matching address on file in the tax system, they could catch a large proportion of people.