FORT WAYNE – The state’s public-assistance agency said Thursday it will expand its revamped welfare intake system to northeast Indiana, 15 months after severing a private welfare contract with IBM Corp.
Local lawmakers who have watched the state struggle to recover from its failed welfare privatization said they plan to keep watch over the change.
The new system will be adopted Feb. 14 by Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Kosciusko, Huntington, Jay, Noble, Steuben, Wells and Whitley counties. It also will be expanded to Blackford, Carroll, Cass, Delaware, Grant, Howard, Madison, Miami, Randolph, Tipton, Wabash and White counties that day.
What the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration has called its “hybrid” plan continues to rely heavily on private, for-profit companies.
But FSSA said the hybrid plan allows for increased face-to-face contact between caseworkers and clients seeking food stamps, Medicaid or other benefits.
The current plan replaces a 2006 modernized welfare overhaul that Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration entered into with IBM, which eliminated individual caseworkers by shifting to a system of telephone and Internet service.
The 10-year plan – which used many subcontractors still in business with FSSA today – was never fully implemented and resulted in widespread complaints about error rates and backlogs.
Daniels canceled the remainder of IBM’s $1.3 billion contract in October 2009, and the state and IBM continue to hash out the financial consequences of the early termination in pending Marion County court cases.
The new system has been in place in southwest Indiana for a year, and other regions joined in July and September.
In a statement, FSSA Secretary Michael Gargano said changes under the hybrid system involve clients, employees, advocates and providers and have been met with success.
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees the federal food stamp program, approved the expansion to northeast Indiana last month, Gargano said.
In September, then-FSSA Secretary Anne Murphy told a legislative panel that backlogged benefits had fallen by 83 percent or more in those southern counties after implementation of the hybrid plan.
But at the same hearing, recently retired Fort Wayne caseworker Fred Gilbert told the panel that FSSA workers were instructed to give priority to bringing down backlogs in those regions.
Rep. Win Moses, D-Fort Wayne, said Thursday he still has concerns about the system. Essentially it’s described as a success because fewer people are having trouble getting benefits, he said.
“That is not the boldest recommendation,” he said. “It’s still unproven as to whether this is going to work. It’s an awkward system.”
Moses and colleague Rep. Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, said they continue hearing from constituents who are facing delays or errors through FSSA, and those people will help lawmakers judge the hybrid plan as it’s implemented in northeast Indiana.
“The greatest assessment is going to be the feedback we receive from the constituents themselves,” GiaQuinta said. “I think we’ll know rather quickly whether the system is working.”
In its statement Thursday, FSSA said it continues to show improvement even as demand increases. The number of Hoosiers enrolled in at least one program, such as food stamps or Medicaid, has increased more than 42 percent in the past five years, according to figures provided by the agency.
More than 1.2 million Hoosiers – about a fifth of the state’s population – currently are enrolled in at least one program.
Its error rates in granting food stamps have shown major improvement since summer 2009, when The Journal Gazette reported that Indiana ranked among the worst five states in improper denials or termination of food stamp benefits.
Error rates are now below national averages and place Indiana among the top three most-improved in the country, according to FSSA.
No comments:
Post a Comment