Recently in Social Services Category

Source: By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News (TX), Tuesday, August 31, 2010

.....The cost, to return the state payroll to pre-outsourcing levels and reduce high turnover among demoralized state workers, has been high: more than $110 million. And there's no end in sight. Last week, Suehs asked for more than $230 million in the coming two-year budget to hire new workers and give raises and performance bonuses. The federal government pays about half of what it costs to screen applicants. The Legislature, though, hasn't been as quick to approve money for new phones.

Source: By KEN KUSMER, Associated Press (IN), July 21, 2010

 Indiana's human services agency says it found problems with IBM Corp.'s takeover of welfare intake services early in the project and suggested delays, but yielded to the company's wishes to expand the project.

IBM, meanwhile, claims the Family and Social Services Administration seized more than $9 million worth of its computers, servers and office furniture without paying for them after Gov. Mitch Daniels fired the technology giant last year.

Source: ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News (TX) Tuesday, July 20, 2010By

Agencies that help Texans renew their automobile registration, draw unemployment benefits and apply for food stamps and Medicaid face crushing demands, even as their technology contractor can't provide mundane services, a top state official said Monday.

 .....  Referrring to a troubled $863 million state contract with IBM, Swedberg described to a House budget panel "a major backlog of work requests" that he said haven't been heeded by the contractor.

Many, he said, are day-to-day requests, such as adding memory to a server, restoring a file or resetting a password. It's "frustrating ... and more importantly, affects the agencies' ability to serve citizens," he said.

Source: By CHARLES WILSON, Associated Press (IN), July 20, 200

INDIANAPOLIS -- For at least a decade, potentially thousands of Indiana's neediest adults have seen some of their state aid payments slashed simply because they receive food stamps -- a practice that advocates and legal experts say is a clear violation of federal law.

The policy has affected people with developmental disabilities who need financial help to live independently and who receive additional assistance to buy groceries. The issue apparently went unnoticed for years until this month, when the father of a severely autistic Indianapolis man challenged it in court.

Source: By KELLI KENNEDY, Associated Press (FL), Tuesday, 05.25.10

A few months after a 10-year-old child was placed  with eight other children in a Tampa foster home overseen by a single mom, a 13-year-old boy sneaked into his room and raped him in 2005.

But Hillsborough Kids Inc., a state contractor that placed the boy, says it's not liable because it subcontracted with another agency which directly cared for the boy. They contend the state Department of Children and Families is ultimately responsible for overseeing its providers, according to court documents.

..... Child advocates say DCF and its contractors are trying to dodge responsibility and are wasting taxpayer money as discussions drag on

Source: The Associated Press • May 12, 2010

 Indiana's human services agency hopes its plan to add welfare workers to fix problems with a privatized, automated intake system will be deployed in every county with the automated system by year's end, the agency's head said Wednesday.

Secretary Anne Murphy of the Family and Social Services Administration also said the state has rejected some invoices submitted by fired welfare contractor IBM Corp. and even has asked for some money back from the Armonk, N.Y.-based technology giant.

Source: By Mary Beth Schneider, Indianapolist Star (IN), Posted: May 4, 2010

IBM lost its $1.34 billion contract to deliver welfare services in Indiana, but it hasn't given up on getting at least some of its money.IBM has submitted invoices to Indiana seeking more than $125 million to cover computer and furniture purchases and various fees it says it is owed. So far, the state has not agreed to pay.

Gov. Mitch Daniels canceled the 10-year contract in October, acknowledging that the much criticized privatized system was rife with problems that IBM had been unable to resolve. Critics, including legislators in both parties, had pointed to lost paperwork and records, long delays and wrongly denied benefits.

Source: By ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News, Saturday, March 13, 2010

 A former state official who played a major role in the state's biggest privatization fiasco is now making money trying to help Texas fix the problems that resulted.

Gregg Phillips was the state's No. 2 social services official several years ago, and he led a push to hire a private company to evaluate applications for public assistance.

Now his Austin-based company, AutoGov Inc., has received $207,500 since November to help the state eliminate errors in deciding whether an applicant gets food stamps or other aid and how much recipients get. AutoGov was hired without other companies having a chance to bid for the work.

By Jonathan Walters, Governing.com December 8, 2009
 

Well it's happened again--another spectacular crash and burn of an information-technology system that was supposed to be the magical answer to a state human services system's performance and cost woes. This time it is Indiana's 10-year $1.16 billion deal with IBM to pre- and re-qualify clients for health and human services ranging from TANF to Medicaid to food stamps. Two and half years into the deal, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels flipped off the switch, cancelling the contract and sending IBM packing.

....... As the story is told in the general media, it's the classic and predictable bad-guys-in-action story line: Governor Mitch Daniels, conservative Republican, looking to do a little union-busting, decides to turn over a significant portion of the work done by the state's Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) to IBM. As part of the deal, hundreds of former public employees are summarily shifted over to IBM, where they serve as at-will employees, outside of the state's public employee collective bargaining system.

Source: By Corrie MacLaggan, AMERICAN-STATESMAN (TX),  Thursday, November 05, 2009

When the new head of the agency responsible for the state's backlogged food stamp applications sent an e-mail to employees asking for feedback about the agency, he got it. About 500 state workers replied to Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs, telling him about low morale and low pay, poor management, technology problems, insufficient training, long hours away from their families. They wrote about feeling frazzled, crying on the drive to work and actively looking for other jobs.

....... The commission has struggled since experienced state employees started leaving in advance of a major privatization effort in 2005.