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Indiana last year ranked among the worst five states in improper denials or termination of food stamp benefits, according to federal data.
Advocates and welfare recipients say such mounting error rates illustrate the need for dramatic changes, such as those proposed – and defeated – during the recent legislative session.
The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s "negative error rate," which measures such denials, averaged more than 12 percent during the last fiscal year of October 2007 to September 2008. The information was collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and then reposted by the National Association for Program Information and Performance Measurement, an affiliate of the American Public Human Services Association.
More than 623,000 Hoosiers a month received food stamps last year, according to the Food and Nutrition Service, which regulates the federal food stamp program.
An error rate of slightly more than 12 percent means about 75,000 people could have had their aid improperly denied or terminated. The error rate the previous fiscal year was 5.9 percent.
The worsening error rates coincide with the rollout of the state’s modernized welfare program, which was introduced in 12 counties in October 2007. That month, the error rate was less than 4 percent; at the end of 2007, it was nearly 7 percent.
Last spring, the state began the program in 47 more counties, including most in northeast Indiana. The error rate continued to increase, reaching more than 14 percent by September.
Not only were food stamp applications doled out less accurately, but applications were also being processed more slowly. The Journal Gazette last month reported that the state has not met its goal for processing food stamps within the two-month time frame it allows and that by the end of last year, timeliness fell to the worst rate since the privatization rollout began.
Anyone with $2,000 or more in assets, such as bank accounts, bonds or stocks, doesn’t qualify for food stamps in Indiana. A client with a disability or who is 60 or older can have $3,000 or more.
The state’s 10-year, $1.16 billion contract with a team of vendors led by IBM Corp. and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. – the former employer of then-FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob – was pushed as a way to streamline services and fight waste and fraud.
The state eliminated its system of county caseworkers and created a call center to encourage service by computers and telephones.
But the new system has prompted complaints of slow processing time for food stamps, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Applicants have complained of lost paperwork, long wait times on the phone and impersonal service. Advocates say the needy are falling through the cracks.
In December, the governor appointed Roob, FSSA secretary since 2005, to secretary of the Indiana Economic Development Corp. His successor, FSSA veteran Anne Waltermann Murphy, suspended the rollout shortly after taking office and traveling to Evansville to hear complaints about the privatized system.
Murphy declined to be interviewed for this story. FSSA spokesman Marcus Barlow said Friday the agency has no timeline or target date for continuing the rollout.
The state is negotiating some changes with the private vendors it expects to announce by the end of the month, Barlow said. He did not offer details of those changes.
Barlow said the food stamp error rates do not take into account improvements and that the agency believes its overall performance matches where it was in 2007.
"We’re just above where we were before (privatization)," Barlow said.
Rich Adams, deputy director of the FSSA’s Division of Family Resources, said the state has not completed its 2008 data. But Adams acknowledged the state’s error rate jumped last year and said the number early this year has "taken a dip to the bad side," although he declined to disclose the current error rate.
Adams said more than half of the cases he has seen classified as improperly terminated or denied last year were in error only in that the state’s computer system failed to send notice of an interview. That problem has been addressed, he said.
"We’ve scrambled to automate that part of the process," he said.
Many of the errors, though, have nothing to do with the modernization, Adams said.
Meanwhile, Fort Wayne resident Yeena Nelson said she and others like her are making difficult changes of their own.
"You have to make decisions on whether to buy groceries, pay your bills or buy medication," Nelson said.
Nelson, a diabetic with three children at home, believes she has been a victim of the new system in her attempts to get Medicaid and food stamps.
Nelson says she was told she could get food stamps but was then denied. She complains she never received notification of an interview, and on another occasion, she waited by the phone for a call from the FSSA that never came.
The agency had called an old telephone number, even though she had provided her current number, she said.
She’s been waiting months for Medicaid. Every time she calls, she speaks with a different person or is asked to send more paperwork.
"I understand they’re trying to save money – I’m the first one for it – but this is just ridiculous," she said. "They don’t know me from Adam."
Gavin Rose, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said complaints like Nelson’s are among the most common. The call center has had trouble matching faxed paperwork with individual cases, Rose said, and it repeatedly asks for documents from clients that have already been sent.
That complaint has been so common that it has led to a pending class-action lawsuit against the state.
"There are several very serious and very routine problems that are being experienced," Rose said.
The mounting error rates and a host of complaints from constituents combined to prompt some lawmakers to propose changes. But the only significant welfare-related bill that passed this year was House Enrolled Act 1572. It will require the FSSA and its hired contractors to report to the Select Joint Committee on Medicaid Oversight on how it plans to address problems.
"We didn’t get much of anything accomplished," said Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville. "It’s just slightly better than nothing, but not much."
Becker called the bill a placating measure, because it won’t affect how soon the agency can continue its rollout, which the agency voluntarily paused early this year. The state’s two most populous counties, Marion and Lake, haven’t been brought into the new system.
Along with fellow Evansville Republican Rep. Suzanne Crouch and Rep. William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, Becker introduced legislation that would have returned state-employed caseworkers to county offices.
She and the other legislators participated because they have received daily complaints from constituents for months. Becker said that in her district, some people have been waiting on food stamps and Medicaid since August.
"We’re now acting as caseworkers," she said.
Becker blames the senior leadership in the Senate – her own party – for not giving the bills hearings.
"Republicans in Senate leadership chose to ignore the issue," she said. "I don’t understand the reticence, the lack of initiative by the Senate to act on this issue."
Becker said she doesn’t plan to let the issue drop, because the poor can’t afford to hire lobbyists on their behalf. And she said she’s encouraged that Murphy wasted no time in suspending the rollout and meeting with critics of the new system.
"I think Anne is very seriously dedicated to solving the problem," she said.
