Marsha Wheeler runs a child daycare home in Ames, Story County, Iowa. She has participated in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) since October of 2009. The CACFP is a federal program that provides reimbursement for meals and snacks provided to children in daycare homes and centers. Daycare homes must be supervised by a sponsoring organization; in this case the sponsor is MICA.

To participate in CACFP in Iowa, the home provider must agree to terms and conditions of program participation. One of the conditions of participation Ms. Wheeler agreed to is that she would annually attend a CACFP-related training approved by MICA.

The regulations governing the CACFP are strict. The rationale for the strictness of the regulations is simple. CACFP is funded by public monies; therefore, a home provider is required to be accountable to the public for how s/he operates. When such accountability is lacking, the public. trust is gone, and the sponsor is required to take appropriate action. Each sponsor has a duty to hold its home providers accountable on behalf of the public.

Ms. Wheeler may have had a legitimate reason for not attending a training in November and December, but that does not account for her failure to attend any training during FFY 2011 itself or her failure to tend to the on-line training in October before she was ill.

The evidence presented here supports a finding that Ms. Wheeler failed to permanently and completely correct the seriously deficient practices of failure to participate in training.

For the foregoing reasons, the termination of Marsha Wheeler from the Child and Adult Care Food Program is hereby ordered.