Balanced Nutrition: Yolanda’s lawyers rope NC DOJ into the debate, beg for more time, demand more docs from DHHS

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Balanced Nutrition – a nonprofit firm that has employed Yolanda Hill, Mark Robinson, and other members of the Robinson family – has provided a lot of news copy for more than a year.  The firm — which got its revenue from money supplied by the USDA and administered by the NC DHHS – specialized in the partial reimbursement of daycare centers for lunches served to low-income attendees. 

In early April, we were given two conflicting reasons — (1) too much time spent campaigning for governor, and (2) alleged political harassment by NC DHHS employees — for why the firm would be shutting down at the end of April.

The Robinsons lawyered up to negotiate a final exit interview for Balanced Nutrition and to fend off an attempt at a quarterly review of Balanced Nutrition by DHHS officials.

A random sample of ten Balanced Nutrition clients for Q1 of 2024 uncovered some procedural issues and determined that Balanced Nutrition‘s “responsible parties” must reimburse the state a little more than $132,000. 

That revelation led to the Robinsons lawyering up once again to negotiate a settlement to the review’s findings.  We’ve obtained some documents that indicate just how those negotiations have been going.

Here’s Yolanda making an August 16 request for documents from DHHS officials:

Here we have some responses from Yolanda Hill to the “serious deficiency” allegations against DHHS.

Here’s a DHHS lawyer writing August 29 to one of The Robinsons’ lawyers:

[…] Subject: RE: [External] RE: NCDHHS Response to Request for Informal Conference

Good Afternoon Mr. Biller,

We are unable to accommodate your request for a further extension of the deadlines outlined in our August 16, 2024 letter. In that letter, we stated:

Additionally, please be reminded that the Notice of Serious Deficiency issued to Balanced Nutrition, Inc. on July 24, 2024 required corrective action documentation for each of the serious deficiencies cited in that letter to be received by August 7, 2024. All corrective action documentation must be received (not just postmarked) within 14 days of receipt of this communication. No future extensions to this deadline will be provided. (emphasis added)

Consequently, August 30, 2024 represents the final deadline.

With respect to the informal conference to specifically address disallowances, we will set the date and time for September 16, 2024 at 12pm. The location will be:

5605 Six Forks Road

Building 3

Raleigh, NC 27609

Any documents that Balanced Nutrition, Inc. wishes to be considered at the informal conference must be received by the State agency no later than September 10, 2024 at 5pm.

Respectfully,

Raj Premakumar

Rajeev K. Premakumar

Deputy General Counsel

Office of General Counsel

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services […] 

Okay.  So, we’ve got a meeting date and a location for agency lawyers and the Robinson lawyers to face-off and attempt to settle the Balanced Nutrition episode.

Now comes a response to the above email by Yolanda’s lawyer — which includes a suggestion the attorney general’s office was improperly involved in DHHS’s review of Balanced Nutrition:

[…]  Dear Mr. Premakumar: 

We write in response to your letter of August 16 and your email of August 29 refusing to allow our client Balanced Nutrition, Inc. (“BN”) an additional two weeks to secure representation and respond to your demands. Accordingly, please see included herewith Corrective Action Documentation in response to the Notice of Serious Deficiency issued by the NC Department of Health and Human Services (“the Agency”) on 7/24/24 to Balanced Nutrition Inc. (“BN”). There is one for each of the deficiencies alleged in that letter. I have also included a copy of BN’s notice of termination of its agreement with the State of North Carolina to serve as a sponsor of the Child and Adult Care Food Program (“CACFP”), dated April 2, 2024. BN informs us that given its recent treatment by the Agency, BN has no intention of resuming participation with the CACFP. BN’s termination without intent to resume moots the necessity of corrective action, as well as moots the Agency’s obligations or authority to opine as to BN’s qualifications for “further participation in the CACFP.” 

We are also concerned regarding the dramatically different audit outcomes and treatment our client received immediately after agency personnel discovered, apparently for the first time, that Ms. Hill is the spouse of Lt. Gov. Robinson. We are further concerned that one or more members of the Attorney General’s Office appear to have participated in the Agency’s audit of BN, which we believe had never occurred with past BN audits, and we suspect is unprecedented for CACFP audits. We are further concerned that the Agency initiated multiple investigations in prompt succession in disregard of the regulations governing the timing and spacing of audits. Again, this deviation from the regulations occurred for the first time after the “discovery” of who Ms. Hill’s political identity. Finally, it appears that the media was notified concurrently or nearly concurrently with BN’s notices of adverse findings from the Agency. We believe these actions may reflect political targeting and retaliation by DHHS in violation of our client’s civil rights. 

To that end, we request DHHS to preserve all records and communications, to include texts and messaging apps on personal devices, related to BN, Ms. Yolanda Hill, and/or Lt. Gov. Robinson generated or maintained by the Agency, its personnel and/or Agency counsel since 2019. The failure to preserve such evidence may constitute spoliation of evidence. 

On April 19, 2024, BN served public records requests on the Agency. A copy of those requests are also enclosed. We resubmit and renew those requests for production of any and all responsive documents generated since the Agency’s response. Regarding the Agency’s past responses, on or about June 13, 2024, the Agency said that the responsive documentation was too large to produce and sent a thumb drive to BN. The files on that thumb drive are inaccessible and appear to be corrupted. With our email conveying this letter, we are providing a link to our upload portal and request the Agency to immediately upload a copy of all the documents previously produced, or alternatively, deliver another, readable copy to our office. 

In addition to re-submitting BN’s April 19, 2024 records request to the Agency, we submit the following additional requests: 

  • A list of any meeting or conference with a sponsoring organization or institution participating in the CACFP at which a State employee, or representative, of the North Carolina Department of Justice participated or was otherwise present, virtually or physically, from January 2014 to the present. 
  • All documents, including email communications, generated by any employee of NCDHHS regarding the decision to schedule a review of Balanced Nutrition Inc. in February 2023, just two years after its prior review. 
  • A list of all sponsoring organizations of between 1 to 100 facilities participating in the North Carolina CACFP that were reviewed more than one time within a period of twenty-five consecutive months when the first review had resulted in no major issues, from January 2016 to the present. 

We look forward to meeting with you September 16, 2024 at 12pm. To assist our preparation for that meeting, we request the Agency to provide us with the previously produced public records production by no later than September 4, 2024, and request any supplemental production thereto and responses to the three additional requests above by no later than September 11, 2024. 

If you have any questions, or if you need any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact our office. 

Sincerely, 

Anthony J. Biller        James R. Lawrence, III