Despite texts that show Favre sought to keep his receipt of the funds confidential, Favre has said he didn’t know the money came from federal funds intended for poor people. He’s paid the money back, but he’s being sued by the state of Mississippi for hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest that accrued on the money he received. Favre hasn’t been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.
Source: (Yahoo News)
So they could easily of have funded this themselves, but just rather steal public funds because "free money"? Sounds like a so called "welfare queen" to me.