Audit: costly errors / Computer system for benefits had high mistake rate
Source: By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News (CO), April 19, 2006
A new state computer system that processes food stamps and other welfare benefits has had "unacceptable" error rates that could cost Colorado $10 million, according to a state audit released Tuesday morning. Officials from the Department of Human Services and the Department of Health Care Policy and Finance said the majority of the problems have been corrected and that recurring ones are the result of ongoing computer glitches and errors by county workers who operate what's known as the Colorado Benefits Management System. …… Roxane White, director of Denver's social services department, said the audit lays too much of the fault for CBMS glitches at the feet of county workers and failed to consider the herculean efforts they were making to ensure that people going without benefits received them, even if it meant creating an error report.
[Contractor: EDS]