North Carolina Regulators Say Non-Profit Run By Lt. Gov.’s Wife Owes $132K

Lt. Governor Mark Robinson said he and his wife are being politically persecuted for backing Donald Trump.

North Carolina state regulators have declared that a non-profit organization run by Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s wife, Yolanda Hill-Robinson, repay $132,000, citing improper use of funds in its federally funded childcare meal program.

According to the Associated Press, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services sent Hill-Robinson a letter outlining discrepancies found in its compliance review of Balanced Nutrition Inc., where she is listed as the owner and chief financial officer.

Hill-Robinson said she was shutting the organization down and exiting the Child and Adult Care Food Program on April 30, but that was after the state indicated that its investigation into the non-profit would begin April 15.

The review highlighted several violations, including failing to file valid reimbursement claims for multiple facilities, inaccurately reporting expenses, not maintaining records for the required three years, and neglecting to keep income-eligibility applications to determine if families of enrolled children qualified for free or reduced-price meals, the AP reports.

The letter sent on July 26 also detailed that the organization owed $107,719 in ineligible claims or expenses the state said it incurred during the first three months of 2024 while it was performing administrative and operating activities as a program sponsor. Forms that regulators signed indicated that $80,000 of this figure was attributed to “administrative labor” or “operating labor,” but there are no records accounting for this number.

Tyler Brooks, a lawyer representing both Hill-Robinson and Balanced Nutrition, maintains that the review’s timing contains a “political bias” because the Lieutenant Governor is supporting former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

According to WUNC, Robinson said during a public appearance at the Strawberry Festival in Chadbourn, North Carolina, in May, that he believes he and his wife are being politically persecuted.

“I wasn’t going to say this tonight but I’m going to say it: There are some people in our government that need to grow up. They need to understand they’re not in the government system, the seat that they sit in was not ordained for them to browbeat the people they don’t like, that they despise. Far too much of that is going on in our nation and our state right now…Folks like me, and President Trump and others, are being pushed to the edge through an unfair system,” Robinson said.