BATON ROUGE — Louisiana state auditors say the Department of Children and Family Services tightened controls over spending in several federal programs it administers, but that for the 12th year in a row it failed too often to verify that people able to work while benefiting from the Temporary Assistance for Need Families program are actually working.

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor also dinged DCFS in five other areas. It said the agency also:

-did not have a formal way to ensure that $16 million of TANF grant funds benefited families whose income is less than 200% of the poverty level;

-didn't follow procedures with time sheets and leave requests, including taking too long to approve them, for a second consecutive year;

-didn't follow federal reporting requirements for foster care and TANF programs, also for a second consecutive year;

-had possible improper activity by two employees involving the payroll (one employee received wages from two sources for the same period of time, with a loss to the state of 15,474, and another, similar situation cost the state $875); and

-didn't have controls in place when assigning costs to various federal programs.

The auditors said that previous weaknesses had been addressed, including accounting for federal program expenditures, improper employee activity in federal programs and monitoring of foster care recipients.

In a letter to the auditors, the agency said it had revised its training to ensure compliance with the issues raised in the report. It also said it would attempt to recover the money from the employee who received the smaller amount, and that it was still investigating the case involving the larger amount "and will proceed accordingly."