‘Big Mark’ opens fire on the Department of Health & Human Services

Our lieutenant governor — and GOP nominee for governor — has gone public with his belief that a ‘Democrat-run weaponized government agency’ is behind the troubles facing his recently shuttered family business.  (*I guess the talking points about “personal responsibility” and ”personal accountability” have been tossed in circular file #13.*)

Our site has followed the story of Balanced Nutrition since mid-2023.  We’ve seen a lot of documents signed and dated by Yolanda Hill — Robinson’s wife. We’ve also seen a lot of documents discussing Balanced Nutrition signed and dated by various NC DHHS employees.  Taken as a whole, the situation looks more and more like  Yolanda Hill and Mark Robinson repeatedly demonstrating carelessness with : record-keeping, money management, and attention to relevant rules, policies, regulations and laws. 

Framing DHHS as the enemy here seems to fall into a pattern for Mark and Yolanda.  When the heat is on, abandon ship and blame someone else for their troubles. 

There was the story about the landlord, an elderly man with a wife dying of cancer, taking Mark & Yolanda to court to evict them from his rental house.  Reports indicate that Robinson and his wife stiffed their former landlord on $2000 of rent.  A campaign spokesman told a reporter Mark & Yolanda would not pay the debt because they were not sued for that amount. (*Nice.*.) Decent people tend to pay debts they know they owe.  Often, arrangements — like payment via  installments — are made.

There was also the Greensboro daycare center Mark & Yolanda ran.  That center, like all others in North Carolina, was regulated by the state DHHS.  During the time they owned the daycare center, Mark and Yolanda were going through bankruptcy proceedings.  The state criticized Mark & Yolanda’s facility for repeatedly having the power, gas, and water turned off.  Mark & Yolanda were accused by inspection teams of fabricating criminal background check documents and other paperwork submitted to the state.  One inspector even informed Robinson in writing that he was not qualified to manage a daycare center.

The inspection team produced a 30-page document detailing all of the problems at the daycare center.  Eventually, Mark & Yolanda walked away from the daycare business.  Mark’s excuse?  He and Yolanda were frustrated with all of the red tape involved in working with DHHS.

Their work with the daycare ended in 2007.  In 2017, Mark & Yolanda went back to all that DHHS “red tape” that supposedly so frustrated them during the daycare center era.  Here’s Mark’s 2024 response to the “serious deficiency” finding and six-figure fine assessed against Balanced Nutrition:

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R) on Wednesday said the state Department of Health and Human Services is “being weaponized” and said the agency is playing a “dangerous game” in response to questions about the review of his wife’s nonprofit organization Balanced Nutrition. […]

“Dangerous game”? Now, that sounds like a threat.

MORE:

[…]  Last week, NCDHHS said Balanced Nutrition owes the state more than $130,000 following a compliance review.

“I’m gonna tell you something the people who are doing it number one should be ashamed of themselves, number two should realize the dangerous game that they’re playing. They are destroying the institutions that we are supposed to trust, and that we depend on to protect us. Those agencies are being weaponized,” Robinson said in the interview.

In a letter dated on July 24, NCDHHS wrote that Yolanda Hill’s nonprofit Balanced Nutrition is “seriously deficient” in operating the Federal Child and Adult Care Food Program. The issues cited related to things like record keeping, income eligibility, enrollment documentation, training, fiscal integrity and verification of valid claims.

Hill has until Aug. 7 to file an appeal, which Robinson’s campaign spokesman said this week she plans to do, adding that Balanced Nutrition “vehemently disagrees” with the state’s findings.

“She’s been through review after review with the state, never had any issues. She never had any issues until someone in that agency found out who I was and who she was married to and that’s when these issues started this entire thing,” Robinson said in Wednesday’s interview. […] 

Oh, and that ridiculous audit letter the Robinson campaign is passing around.  It was an audit of 2021 financials for Balanced Nutrition completed in January 2023.  The only info it provided was for calendar year 2021.  Balanced Nutrition worked with NC DHHS from 2017 to April 2024.

[…] NCDHHS has pushed back on Robinson’s claims that the review was “politically motivated.”

In an email Tuesday, agency spokesperson Summer Tonizzo said, “The Compliance Review conducted by the State agency for Balanced Nutrition, Inc. was not a random review. Per federal regulations, reviews are conducted every two to three years at a minimum, depending on the size of an institution and previous findings. When there are findings from the review that do not rise to the level of Serious Deficiency, the institution must complete a corrective action plan to address the findings in order to avoid the issuance of a Notice of Serious Deficiency. The frequency of reviews increases for programs who have had findings in prior compliance reviews to ensure the sponsoring organization has corrected the findings and is complying with state and federal rules.”

Robinson claimed the review is tied to his race for governor. He faces Atty. Gen. Josh Stein (D) in November.

“There’s one thing to want to win an election, or see your guy or girl win an election. It’s another thing to take the office that you’ve been given by the trust of the people and use it to try to destroy someone for political purposes,” Robinson said.[…]

Again, we first wrote about Balanced Nutrition’s problems in mid-2023.  Robinson and his team clammed up about the company.  If this is truly all one big misunderstanding, they could have cleared much of it up back then.  But, no.  They pleaded the Fifth, and here we are talking about it right in front of the election.

MORE:

[…] He acknowledged in previous reviews there have been “small findings” but said a plan of correction was put together.

The lieutenant governor also said the latest claims NCDHHS made are “erroneous” but he declined to give any further details.

“They are alleging things that just simply are not true. It has been a drain on my wife. It has been a drain on my family. My wife was willing to simply just walk away from it and say, you know, if they’re going to continue to harass us politically because of this, I’ll just give this up,” Robinson said. “We’re not going to speak about in detail here. But we will speak about it in detail when we stage our fight against the state. Because right now, again, and I reiterate this fact, we have proof that this is politically motivated. And so we’re gonna stand up and we’re gonna fight it.”

The NC DHHS leadership had a few things to say about the Robinson comments:

[…] The state health secretary says an investigation by his department into the nonprofit run by the wife of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson wasn’t politically motivated, rejecting Robinson’s claim that it was.

“These are normal, routine business for us across these programs,” Kody Kinsley, who oversees the state Department of Health and Human Services, told WRAL.

The state says Balanced Nutrition, a nonprofit run by Robinson’s wife, Yolanda Hill, must pay back more than $132,000 in what investigators say are invalid claims.[…]

Hill closed Balanced Nutrition shortly before DHHS was set to review its records. Agency investigators say the nonprofit submitted duplicate claims, inflated claims, and even claims for expenses they didn’t pay. They say that federal money now has to be paid back.[…]

Robinson denied that any federal funds were misused and said he and his wife will fight the allegations. “We want to stop this unlawful, this immoral use of taxpayer dollars to try to strike at people over political means. That is something that you saw — we used to see — in communist countries,” Robinson said.

DHHS records show agency reviewers found some issues at the nonprofit before Robinson’s time in the political spotlight. DHHS reviewed Balanced Nutrition in 2018, 2021 and 2023. Each time, they found issues, though not rising to the level of serious deficiency. DHHS spokeswoman Summer Tonizzo said the 2024 review was initiated because of the 2023 findings.

Kinsley denied that the reviews — or their findings — were politically motivated.

“These are normal routine business for us across these programs,” he said. “It’s important to remember that these investigations, these program reviews really are federally required, that the standards by which we do the reviews are set by the federal government, and that we do between 150 and 200 of them a year.”

When asked for comment, Robinson’s campaign spokesman, Mike Lonergan, repeated the accusation that the investigation was political.

“Neither Yolanda, her organization, or Lieutenant Governor Robinson will cower,” Lonergan said. “They look forward to fighting against this weaponized agency.”[…] 

An honest review of documents detailing Balanced Nutrition’s relations with DHHS indicate a real lack of cooperation on just about everything by Balanced Nutrition.  Reviews – like the one being so hotly protested by Robinson – are a requirement for just about anyone in the private or public sectors engaged in managing large sums of other people’s money.  

NC DHHS appeared to have bent over backwards to provide 2nd, 3rd, and 4th and 5th chances for Yolanda to comply with requests.

One has to wonder how long Mark & Yolanda will keep this sideshow going.  Long enough to sink a good chunk of November’s GOP ticket,  perhaps?