OMAHA- St. Francis Ministries, the Kansas-based private agency that oversees Nebraska's child welfare caseload, had to borrow money to pay foster parents while also spending $80,000 on Cubs tickets. During the time of the transition from Nebraska's previous oversight company, PromiseShip, St. Francis was struggling to pay weekly expenses, making questionable spending decisions and attempting to cover up a major data crash. A report outlining these problems was sent to Kansas child welfare officials and they responded by hiring an accounting firm to audit St. Francis, the report was made public after a request by the Omaha World Herald.

After the most recent whistleblower report, the board launched an internal investigation which ended with the departure of two top officials-- the president and CEO and the COO. The Nebraska DHHS was informed about the report but has not yet seen it.

The report did not mention if the ticket purchase was related to St. Francis' bid for the Nebraska contract, as Gov. Ricketts family owns the Cubs. A spokesperson for the governor said the governor was unaware of the purchase of the tickets while also noting that he no longer sits on the Cubs' board.

Quarterly state reviews show that St. Francis is continuing to struggle with overburdened case managers and most of the workers have caseloads higher than what is allowed in state law. The reports also concluded that the company has not done thorough enough background checks in which the state has barred those employees from having unsupervised contact with the children.

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