Recently in Social Services Category

Source: BILL DRIES, The Memphis Daily News (TN), August 29, 2007

Shelby County Commissioners Monday approved a contract with Porter-LeathChildren's Center to provide Head Start services to 460 children.

........ The contract, authorized by an earlier County Commission and negotiated by County Mayor A C Wharton Jr., met fierce resistance from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the union that represents county employees who work at the Head Start centers now operated by county government. Those centers care for nearly 3,200 children.

....... Commissioner Mike Carpenter said the compromise "stinks."

"Shelby County Head Start is in good shape. That's not the argument here," he said, pointing out figures from the National Head Start Association that show only 6 percent of the country's Head Start programs are run by local governments. Most are run by non-profits similar to Porter-Leath.

Source: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (IN), August 15, 2007

The state's steps to fix the rollout of its plan to have private vendors help in delivering welfare benefits to the needy has won approval from the federal food stamp program.

...... Holden had warned Roob in July that the state's program to have a team of companies led by IBM Corp. and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. process applications for benefits had broken federal food stamp rules in some cases because they bypassed state employees.

In response to the warning, FSSA ordered more training for its employees, began requiring case workers and their supervisors to use a checklist during interviews with benefit applicants, and ordered supervisors to observe case workers while they conducted interviews.

Source: BY GARY FINEOUT, Miami Herald (FL), Thu, Aug. 09, 2007

The agency responsible for helping Florida's disabled residents has come up with a novel way to cut its budget: Hire more state workers and fire the private companies that now do the work.

If the proposal is accepted by the state Legislature, it would represent a startling turnaround from the eight years under former Gov. Jeb Bush, who cut thousands of state jobs and handed the work to private vendors.

Officials with the Agency for Persons with Disabilities say that hiring state employees would in fact, save the state money.

Source: Tom Walker/Eyewitness News, WTHR (IN), Aug 7, 2007 05:23 PM

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels wants to privatize part of the state welfare system, but his opponents are vowing to go all the way to the top to stop him.

....... Now a bill in Congress may force Indiana to back out of a $1 billion contract to screen Hoosiers seeking welfare. One of the largest public employee unions says that only shows what a bad deal it is. "If in fact that's true that it's gonna cost the state of Indiana $60 to $125 million to get out of a contract that's not working, then that seems to me a prime example of a government getting fleeced by a private contractor," said Kerry Korpi, AFSCME.

Source: By Tim Evans, Indianapolis Star (IN), August 7, 2007

State officials are turning to Indiana's two U.S. senators to help eliminate a potential federal roadblock to a $1 billion welfare privatization project, Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Mitch Roob said Monday.

The impediment -- a restriction on how food stamp applications are handled -- is included in a farm bill passed last month by the House.

...... Andy Fisher, spokesman for Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, said the House version of the bill already faces many other challenges in the Senate and is unlikely to pass as written. President Bush has indicated he would veto the House version.

Source: By MELANIE AVE, St Petersburg Times (FL), August 3, 2007

Two state Democratic lawmakers asked for a legislative review of Florida's public-private child welfare system Thursday, on the heels of several high-profile debacles involving dead, raped and missing children under the state's care.

……. Lawmaker input is needed to help clarify the murky relationship between DCF and its subcontractors, the private agencies responsible for foster children in the state's 67 counties, said Andrea Moore, director of the advocacy group Florida's Children First.

Source: Elizabeth Pierson Hernandez, The Monitor (TX), July 31, 2007 - 8:40PM

The state paid more than $53 million in questionable claims to the insurance company that administered the Children’s Health Insurance Program to rural Texans for four years, according to a private audit.

The audit report, obtained by Valley Freedom Newspapers on Tuesday, raises new concerns about the contract between the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and Clarendon National Insurance Co., which has been the subject of scrutiny for at least three years.

The audit found the company may have overcharged the state by as much as 37.66 percent between 2000 and 2004.

...... The report is particularly troublesome considering other problematic contracts the state health commission has entered into in recent years, including the nearly $900 million contract with Accenture that was canceled earlier this year, she said.

Source: By Maureen Groppe and Karen Eschbacher, Indianapolis Star, July 28, 2007

The House passed a farm, nutrition and energy bill Friday that would force Indiana to undo its private contract for screening food stamp applicants. "We feel it is fundamentally unfair," Mitch Roob, secretary of Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration, said of a provision in the bill that would bar states from hiring private contractors to screen food stamp applicants.

……. Lettie Oliver, associate director of Council 62 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Friday's action was a step in the right direction because it would return the running of Indiana's welfare system to state employees. Oliver said privatizing welfare erodes transparency and accountability because a private company doesn't have to answer to the public the way the government does.

Source: Lori Holcomb, The Battle Creek Enquirer (MI), July 28, 2007

....... A new bill before the state Senate that would privatize 20 percent more of Michigan's foster care system has parents like the Tomkys worried that foster kids' well-being will be jeopardized. "I think it's a disaster," Tomky said.

Source: Waco Tribune (TX), Thursday, July 26, 2007

Back when Ronald Reagan could get taxpayers frothy over tales of “welfare Cadillacs,” the real scandal they didn’t hear about until too late was corporate welfare.

……. In Texas, lawmakers went to great lengths this session to make sure working-poor families don’t con Texas by exceeding income limits for the doctors’ visits and flu shots made possible by the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Fire up your ire, boys. Where was the umbrage four years ago when, with thousands of children being dropped from CHIP, auditors found that the state had overpaid a vendor $20 million for administering the program, including millions for individual consultants? But, you see, that’s just the cost of privatizing government.