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Alberta's auditor general says the provincial government has not done the work to ensure daycares getting public funds use them to lower fees for parents or top up staff wages.
Doug Wylie, in a report released Thursday, says without proper verification, Alberta could be overcompensating operators with federal and provincial funds meant to lower the average cost of daycare to $10 per day.
"There is a risk that public funds may not be used as intended — leading to parents overpaying for child-care and educators being under-compensated," the report says.
Under the program, daycare operators sign funding agreements with the province based on the number of children attending the daycare and their ages. Daycares must then submit reports to the province to back up their claims.
In reviewing documents submitted by 25 daycares, Wylie's office found more than half delivered misleading numbers regarding things like attendance records. Some exaggerated the amount of time a child spent in care, and others filed duplicate records for each child.
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That report says an internal government audit found as much as $105 million could have been doled out to ineligible recipients, but Wylie's office believed that number could be as high as $158 million.
Wylie's report says the government is in the process of recovering $7.6 million, but has no further plans to try and claw back more.
Economy Minister Joseph Schow said in a statement that after reviewing nearly 2,000 cases, the government believes "the vast majority of applicants met program qualifications."