Recently in Social Services Category

Source: By KEITH ROYSDON, Muncie Star Press (IN), July 27, 2007

MUNCIE -- Hundreds of jobs at a planned IBM call center in Daleville could be lost if Congress passes the 2007 farm bill with language to limit the privatization of state welfare functions, Rep. Mike Pence said Thursday.

The farm bill -- which could come to a House vote before noon today -- has a provision that prohibits states from entering into contracts to privatize some welfare programs, Pence said.

....... The bill's provisions would "mandate that only state employees deal with food-stamp applicants and determine their eligibility," Gannett News Service reported. "It would also prevent states from using federal funds to cancel the private contracts they'd no longer be able to have."

Source: Associated Press (IN), Friday, Jul 20, 2007

A provision in the federal farm bill moving through Congress would force Indiana to cancel its $1.16 billion deal to privatize parts of its welfare system and force rollbacks of some of the child protection gains the state has made, top aides to Gov. Mitch Daniels said Thursday.

……. The provision also would affect food stamp operations that have been privatized to varying degrees in 21 other states, plus five other states where such contracts are being considered, according to the National Governors Association, which is lobbying to defeat the provision. However, a coalition of unions, anti-hunger groups and social services agencies have aligned themselves behind the language, saying in a letter to members of Congress that it's aimed at guarding the integrity of the food stamp program “and ensure and fair and equal access and treatment for all applicants.”

Related article from the Indianapolis Star: State welfare revamp at risk

Source: By ROBERT T. GARRETT, The Dallas Morning News (TX), Thursday, July 19, 2007

Texas' efforts to hand off social services duties to private companies have enriched lobbyists while hurting poor people and wasting tax dollars, a watchdog group said Wednesday. Over the past decade, 13 companies ultimately hired by the state after four big pushes toward privatization paid 102 lobbyists between $4.5 million and $11.3 million, according to a report by Texans for Public Justice.

Source: Associated Press (IN), July 19, 2007

Federal official says Indiana broke the law by failing to interview all those who applied Indiana's rollout of its privatized welfare program has broken federal food stamp rules in some cases by bypassing state employees, and a key official on Wednesday ordered steps including more training for state workers.

……… Indiana risks losing millions of dollars in federal money if it does not fix the problem. The letter from Ollice Holden, regional administrator for the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service, gave FSSA 15 days to submit a plan to fix it.

Source: Crystal Collins-Camargo, State News, January 2007, Vol. 50 no. 1

The National Quality Improvement Center on the Privatization of Child Welfare Services (QIC PWC) will be administering research grants in January or February 2007 to test innovative strategies for implementing performance-based contracting and quality improvement systems in the private sector.

Source: Dave Mann, The Texas Observer, Vol. 99 no. 7, April 6, 2007

In a misguided, poorly executed effort to let the private sector bring “efficiency” to Texas government, the state has squandered at least $100 million, cheated hundreds of thousands of needy Texans out of benefits, and now risks millions of dollars in federal fines for botching things up so badly.

Source: By Jim McTague, Barron's (subscription req.), 16 July 2007

Big labor and its democratic allies on Capitol Hill have failed twice in recent months to overcome GOP opposition to pro-union legislation. The third time may be the charm. There's a major pro-union provision in the farm bill that will be marked up this week by the House Agricultural Committee.

It is tailored to kill Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' $1.6 billion food-stamp/welfare outsourcing contract with International Business Machines, an arrangement that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees says is being championed by right-wing ideologues at the expense of the needy.

The impact would be felt beyond Indiana. If Afscme and its allies, which include farm groups and nutrition advocates, are successful, that would throw a wet blanket on new outsourcing projects in other states.

Source: By Paul McDougall, InformationWeek, July 6, 2007 02:20 PM

Outsourcer Affiliated Computer(ACS) Services has agreed to pay more than $2.6 million to settle charges it over billed the federal government for business services. Under a deal disclosed earlier this week by the office of U.S. Attorney Richard Roper, ACS will pay $2.65 million to the U.S. government to resolve charges under the False Claims Act.

The federal government alleged that ACS employees submitted a number of fake claims for payment from 2002 to 2005 for work related to outsourcing contracts funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, and the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

....... In a statement released Tuesday, Roper's office said ACS voluntarily reported that some of its employees were inflating the number of enrollees in order to boost revenue from the program.

Source: Associated Press (IN), July 2, 2007 06:58 AM

Internal and federal reports on the state's privatization of welfare eligibility note problems with staffing, large caseloads, delays in processing applications for benefits and other issues. State human services chief Mitch Roob said most of the problems are not new and have long plagued the state's application process for the food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits received by 1.1 million people.

……. A spokesman for the union that represented that the caseworkers when they were employed by the state cited a section of the federal report saying welfare clients wanted to talk to their former state caseworkers or to learn who their new private caseworkers were. "People want a caseworker they can call their own. They want face time," said Dave Patterson of Council 62 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Source: By STEVE SCHULTZE, Journal Sentinel (WI), June 20, 2007

Wisconsin officials have improperly denied benefits to W-2 applicants who are unemployed but considered capable of working, a state Court of Appeals panel ruled (.pdf) Tuesday. The 2-1 ruling from the Milwaukee appeals court branch found that the state's creation of a "job ready" category and subsequent denial of cash assistance to those clients of the Wisconsin Works welfare reform program were at odds with the 1996 law.

……. The ruling came in the cases of two Milwaukee women, Yolanda Weston and Sherrieck Nelson, who sought help from W-2 in 2005. Both had held jobs before, but were unemployed and unable to find work. Both had children and were broke when they sought help from Milwaukee W-2 agencies Maximus Inc. and the YWCA.

....... Even though the state officially enrolls relatively few "job ready" people in the program, many more are discouraged from completing W-2 applications because they've been told they seemed to be capable of working and would likely be denied benefits, DeLessio said. She and other advocates have accused Gov. Jim Doyle's administration of using that tactic to trim the W-2 rolls.