Balanced Nutrition, by the numbers

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We’ve been on the Balanced Nutrition (BN) story for about a year now.  The NC Department of Health and Human Services (NC DHHS) has been looking at the Robinson family business for at least two years. The whole affair appears to be culminating in an investigation by  DHHS.  For the last two days, the drive-by media has joined us in covering the initial findings of the initial DHHS probe.  

DHHS’s report on its initial findings was released hours before President Trump was slated to speak in Charlotte.  As the top of the state’s GOP ticket, Mark Robinson was expected to be there and speak.  Curiously, Robinson was nowhere to be seen at the rally. Nor did he speak. The only explanation we got for Robinson’s absence at the Trump rally was THIS social media post:


Yolanda Hill, Mark Robinson’s wife, had been running the day-to-day operations of BN. Balanced Nutrition was a contractor with DHHS.  It was charged with the responsibility of reimbursing group homes and daycare centers for lunches served to low-income attendees / residents.

Balanced Nutrition‘s work was supposed to focus primarily on being a middle-man for facilities seeking reimbursement, and monitoring the integrity of the information provided by participating clients.  (ALL of the company’s revenue has been taxpayer money. )

The following family members have – at one time or another — appeared on the company’s payroll: Hill, her and Mark’s daughter Kimberly Cephas, Hill’s mother, Hill and Robinson’s son Dayson, and Mark Robinson himself.

(Hill’s sister and Hill’s son-in-law, Danzeto Cephas, have appeared in company documents as members of the company’s board of directors.) 

The initial probe by DHHS has covered the months of January 2024, February 2024, and March 2024.  It focused mainly on Balanced Nutrition‘s interactions with a randomly selected sample of ten clients.  (Balanced Nutrition had approximately 100 total clients by the time it ceased operations in April 2024.)

This initial probe of BN has found a number of troubling issues that include:

  • little to no monitoring at client sites,
  • financial integrity
  • a lack of records documenting many of BN’s transactions with the clients
  • failure to obtain permission for hiring Kimberly Cephas

In 2021, state government placed Balanced Nutrition on its official ‘Do Not Pay’ list.  There was also a finding in the original report about Hill allegedly admitting to filing reimbursement requests for a daycare – which had not asked for any reimbursements since November 2022 — in 2023 and 2024.

THAT was The Gingerbread Learning Center.  We’ve got some paperwork here showing what the auditor / review team found when reviewing Balanced Nutrition‘s interactions with Gingerbread Learning Center:

The initial probe determined that Hill, Kimberly Cephas and board chairman Renee Matthews-Jones should be banned from any future involvement in this particular feeding program.

Documents released today by NC DHHS place a dollar figure on the problems found at Balanced Nutrition for January, February and March 2024:  $132,118.86.  

That amount is expected to be paid back to the state by the trio DHHS named as responsible parties for Balanced Nutrition: Yolanda Hill, Kimberly Cephas, and Renee Matthews-Jones.

Again, that amount covers a random sample of ten clients for the first three months of this calendar year. If the probe is expanded to include all 100 clients and the full seven years of Balanced Nutrition’s time in operation, it is safe to assume that dollar figure will get larger. 

For your further reading pleasure, here  and HERE are some forms Balanced Nutrition submitted to DHHS — for January February, and March 2024 — seeking reimbursement for incurred costs that show some disallowed costs. 

Meanwhile, there are still other outstanding issues out there — including but not limited to the company’s application for and receiving federal paycheck protection loans, as well as a lack of documentation on the payment of payroll taxes.