Watchdog employees allegedly steal $13,000 of the government's lunch money

(Image credit: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)

Five employees of the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency that audits other parts of the government for efficiency, waste, and fraud, have been indicted for defrauding the government to get cheaper school lunches for their kids.

The workers allegedly falsified income reports to take advantage of discounted school lunches for low-income families, collectively stealing some $13,000 over four years. Though the families involved made up to $78,000 annually, they reported little or no income to pay $0.40 per lunch rather than $2.75 or $3.00.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.