The National Head Start Association called for the resignation of U.S. Head Start Bureau chief, Windy Hill on April 13 after it unveiled findings from an unreleased Health and Human Services (HHS) review that revealed Hill was engaged in serious mishandling of federal grant money. The allegations were supported by an outside audit of the Head Start program in Texas Hill managed. HHS? independent review listed 29 major concerns that were later confirmed by an outside audit. The Texas Head Start program, Cen-Tex Family Services (Cen-Tex), among other things, was found to be in violation of a host of standard agency policies. These are listed at the end of this article. In May of 2003, Hill took the highly unusual step of sending a letter to Head Start programs warning that advocacy on issues relating to the controversial reauthorization of the program may be a violation of federal law. After being sued by the National Head Start Association (NHSA), an organization representing parents, teachers and Head Start programs, the court ordered Hill to send a correction letter explaining her inaccuracies over information about grantees? right to lobby on Head Start issues. ?Windy Hill has been at war with Head Start grantees from the day she stepped into her current office. She has dragged out into headlines every possible problem ? real or imagined, substantiated or simply alleged ? and trashed programs across the country. To think that she was, at the same time, benefiting from a cover-up of her own misconduct during her tenure as head of a Head Start agency is simply astonishing,? says NHSA President, Sarah Greene. Under Hill?s tenure, the U.S. Head Start Bureau has been prominent in state and local media attacking Head Start program directors by name with little to no factual information. The Bureau went as far as surveying all 2,700 Head Start grantees in the country about salaries and benefits of their employees after publicly denouncing an Austin-based program for paying its director what was later found to be a fair compensation. Hill?s agency was found to violate the following standards:

• giving the executive director, Windy Hill, three large bonuses that were not reported to the IRS as income. Additionally, there was no documentation indicating the basis of the bonuses or that it was available to all employees.
• paying some employees as much as 634 hours of vacation time when there is a 40 hour cap,
• not having an adequate accounting software system in place with appropriate internal controls, which makes it difficult to ensure all expenditures are accounted for. Cen-Tex?s system allowed for more than one check with the same number to be issued (to different payees and for different amounts),
• not reporting on the federal funds that remained unspent at the end of the year,
• having four different active bank accounts, when only one is needed for a single-purpose agency (HHS demanded that they close three accounts),
• drawing grant fund advances in excess of the amounts needed to pay for actual expenditures,
• corrupting federal financial forms by not using accounting records as a source of information,
• giving unauthorized staff access to blank checks who issued checks without the required approval or supporting documents;
• making duplicate payments,
• making payments without any supporting invoice or documentation of why the payment was made,
• not following procedures for procurement and contracting regarding fair bidding and price quotes; open and free competition; documentation on why a particular vendor was selected; assurance of reasonable costs being paid; and nepotism in purchasing and contracting, and
• selling equipment and not reporting on money earned.