Mississippi is only required to report in vague categories the way it spends Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars to the federal government. The large fluctuation in certain categories from year to year -- such as the spending in the "Fatherhood and Two Parent Family Formation" category, which multiplied 20 times in two year's time -- could be a result of the agency's shoddy reporting. In 2018, one of the years the alleged fraud occurred, the state reached a decade-high for the number of welfare dollars it used in one year. It also reported spending $16.3 million on program administration, more than three times the amount it spent the year before. John Davis, the former welfare director currently awaiting trial in what officials have called the largest public embezzlement scheme in state history, retired in July of 2019. In the following year, from October 2019 to September 2020, the state spent the lowest amount of welfare dollars in recent history, just $77 million, leaving $47 million unspent.