Robinson family biz on state’s DO-NOT-PAY list since 2021. (Why are they still getting paid?)

That’s an interesting question.  Let’s dig in:

Okay.  So, if you browse to the Office of State Budget and Management’s online Suspension of Funding List (SOFL), you’ll find THIS among the list’s 162 entries:

A “suspension date” of 7/12/2021 ???

We have evidence that Balanced Nutrition received government funds consistently from 2017 through the first quarter of 2024. 

The “suspension reason” appears to be “failure to submit reports.”   The OSBM website explains that the only way to make it OFF of this list is to satisfy your issues to the complete satisfaction of all parties involved.  (A notation at the bottom of the agency’s webpage notes that the suspension of funding list was last updated on 4/22/24.)

As the agency noted above, firms like Balanced Nutrition could have their funding and contracts stay active through the end of the fiscal year in which the suspension was handed down.  Balanced Nutrition is powered by federal money appropriated to NC DHHS, which turns around and administers the funding to various organizations throughout North Carolina.  If we’re talking about the federal fiscal year, Balanced Nutrition should have had its contract not renewed at the end of September 2021.

If the state fiscal year was being observed, the firm’s contract would have stayed active through the end of June 2022.  Here we are in April 2024, and we can find no documentation that the flow of tax dollars to Balanced Nutrition has ever actually been disrupted.  How can they continue receiving funding while they are on this  Suspension of Funding List? 

(When we find out, we will let you know.)