To Get More Federal Money, States Claiming Volunteer Organizations are a Form of Welfare Spending?

One of the great triumphs of the federal welfare reform legislation passed in
the mid-1990s was an insistence that states lay down tough work requirements for
welfare recipients as a condition of receiving federal assistance. Though the
fact is little publicized, however, another provision of the law allows states
to substitute increased welfare spending for the work requirements and still
receive money from Washington. That, of course, is an invitation to mischief, as reported by CNSnews, quoting Congressman Geoff Davis

“Many States have scoured their budgets to find other current program
spending–such as for Pre-K, child care, and after school programs–they could
report as TANF [welfare] spending,” Davis said at a
hearing on Thursday. ”Others began counting third-party spending–such as
assistance offered by food banks and Boys and Girls clubs–as TANF spending. One
State even apparently found a way to count the value of volunteer hours by Girl
Scout troop leaders as State TANF ’spending.’

This is, by the way, all entirely legal under the law as written.