BATON ROUGE — Several state agencies have been flagged by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, including a $5 million fraudulent wire transfer involving the Louisiana National Guard Foundation and repeated control deficiencies at the Louisiana Department of Health.

According to the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, the Louisiana National Guard Foundation was flagged for a wire transfer falsely believed to be from the organization's attorney. The wire was forwarded to its financial firm through a spoofed email, resulting in $5 million being stolen. Of that money, $4,319,524 was recovered, with $680,476 still missing. 

The Louisiana Department of Health was also flagged after it submitted an inaccurate Annual Fiscal report for LDH Medical Vendor Payments for the 2025 fiscal year for the fifth year in a row. The audit showed that dues to medical claims were understated by $33.5 million, dues to audit payables were understated by $11.5 million and dues to the federal government were overstated by $30.1 million. 

The audit also found that LDH lacked adequate internal controls over eligibility for Medicaid and the Louisiana Children's Health Insurance Program. LDH allegedly used inadequate or incorrect documentation to determine eligibility for the programs. For the seventh consecutive year, LDH, along with Magellan Health Services, failed to ensure that behavioral health services in the Medicaid and CHIP programs were properly billed and that improper encounters were denied. 

In addition, LDH also exceeded the federally allocated 2020 Disproportionate Share Hospital funding limit for the second year in a row. The fund, exceeded by $3.2 million, resulted in federal questioned costs of over $2 million. 

The Office of Behavioral Health also exceeded certain requirements for the Block Grants for Prevention and Treatment of Substance Abuse program. Two of the four SAPT grants exceeded the 5% maximum allowed to be spent in relation to intervention services for HIV, resulting in federal questioned costs of $341,408. 

OBH also did not comply with Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act reporting requirements for the SAPT program, with 10 subawards totaling $23.5 million not being entered into the system.