Thurston County must repay up to $668K in fraudulent rental aid

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has demanded that Thurston County return up to $668,000 that it paid to fraudulent rent-assistance claims — the first county-level and largest such federal repayment action nationwide under the COVID-era program.

Treasury issued demands for repayment to the county and the state of Washington in two separate “notice of recoupment” letters dated Aug. 14. The letters detailed 36 confirmed cases of payments to ineligible recipients, which Thurston County had initially flagged to the agency in August 2023.

While Thurston is thus far the only county in the country that the federal government has demanded return program funds due to fraud, a Treasury spokesperson wrote in an email that the agency has received more than 10,000 complaints of misuse of funds. Most of those complaints correspond to individual payments.

Thurston County has already repaid about $250,000 from the program's first round, according to housing program manager Tom Webster. County officials asked Treasury for leniency on improper payments stemming from the program’s second round, but in a Nov. 13 memo the agency’s internal watchdog recommended recouping the entirety of the fraudulent payments.

https://www.cascadepbs.org/investigations/2024/12/thurston-county-must-repay-668k-fraudulent-rental-aid