Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and Letitia James, New York State Attorney General, announced a settlement agreement with a Brooklyn-based licensed home care service agency (LHCSA) White Glove Community Care, Inc. (White Glove). The settlement agreement addresses allegations that White Glove violated the federal False Claims Act and New York State’s False Claims Act in claiming that it paid its home care aides the minimum wages required under New York State law.
The New York Wage Parity Act sets minimum wage and benefits requirements for LHCSAs that employ home care aides who render services to Medicaid recipients in New York City and in Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties. Under the Wage Parity law, which is funded by Medicaid, aides are to be paid a minimum amount in total compensation. That compensation comes in the form of a base wage and a supplemental benefit. The base wage must be paid in cash. The benefit portion can include the value of vacation, holiday, and sick pay, among other things. It can also include health insurance, pension plans, or educational assistance. Today, the minimum amount of total compensation for an aide in New York City is $19.09 per hour; for Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties, the minimum is $18.22 per hour.
Under the terms of the agreement with the United States and New York State, White Glove has agreed to pay $505,616.98 to the United States and $758,425.47 to New York State for conduct that took place in the years 2012 to 2018. In addition to the payments to resolve the government’s fraud claims, White Glove is now paying its aides the wages and benefits it was required to pay under the Wage Parity Act, including the wages that were owed to current and former aides in prior years. It has agreed to pay its aides $2 million for past due wages pursuant to a separate agreement it reached with the New York State Office of Attorney General Labor Bureau. Moreover, White Glove has admitted, acknowledged, and accepted responsibility for underpaying its home health aides by failing to pay Wage Parity Act rates.
