Federal officials: Texas could lose food stamp funds if problems aren’t fixed

[sonias]

AAS 9/25/09
Federal officials: Texas could lose food stamp funds if problems aren’t fixed

Federal officials have warned Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs that unless Texas fixes serious problems with its food stamp enrollment system, it could lose federal funds.

"The current status of (food stamp) administration in Texas is unacceptable and actions must be taken immediately," says the letter from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, which administers the food stamp program.

Specifically, the letter says, the state is not complying with federal law on processing applications on time. Applications must be processed within 30 days, but the state is failing to process more than a third of applications by the deadline, according to state data. Processing in the Dallas and Houston areas is especially slow, and in Austin, it’s better than the rest of the state.

Celia Hagert of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low- and middle-income Texans, called the letter "a warning sterner than we’ve ever seen before" from federal officials.

Good for them. Hold Texas accountable. People need their benefits.

Perry and his crew had already said no to hiring extra workers to catch up on the backlog. More evidence of Perry's compassion. His solution is always - do nothing. That is until the State gets sued or is threatened by the Feds.

Sonia

[sonias]

1. Releated story on the refusal for more workers

AAS 9/25/09
Budget board denies request for more food stamp workers

The Legislative Budget Board has denied a request from the Health and Human Services Commission to hire about 650 state workers to relieve the state’s food stamp enrollment system, which is struggling with backlogs and errors.

The additional workers could help address both of those problems, now-retired Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins told the budget board and the staff of Gov. Rick Perry in an August letter.

This week was the deadline for the budget board or the governor to decide on the request; if they did nothing, the request would be automatically approved.

In an e-mail yesterday, a budget board senior analyst, Melitta Berger, wrote to commission officials: "This notice is to inform you that (the staffing request) is disapproved. We will continue to work with you to further understand the agency’s needs and to address them in a timely manner."

Remember Hawkins was at the center of the failed privatization attempt of HHS. He's since retired, but the state is still spending huge amounts of money getting this agency functioning again. They let go a whole lot of "experienced and trained" workers when they tried to privatize the benefits program. Now they have a bunch of new hires who are still learning and creating very high error rates.

Republican's attempt to privatize and save money - FAIL. It's cost Texans more in the long run. :grr:

Sonia

[art3]

2. hell to be poor

ughhhhh. im on food stamps right now. the process is horrid and they screw up so much. its hell to be poor in america.

[sonias]

3. Nice to see you friend

America the land of opportunities but very little compassion sometimes.

Hang in there. Best of luck to you riding this out in Texas. I hope we get the Feds on our backs in Texas - big time. Otherwise Perry and Co. will drag their feet even more.

:hi:


Sonia

[Aragorn]

4. nice post

been gone a couple days - glad to see you posted this. All we know for sure about the problems in Texas is, they are UNDER-reported.

[art3]

9. oh we have fallen

if ever tx needed a dem its now. so much suffering here so needlessly. since ann richards our state has gone to hell. i watched michael moore on cnn. what is wrose is many dems are making matters more horrid. withgetihner and summers at the wh its alarming...

[tammywammy]

5. Reminds me of the problems with unemployment and the state schools just this year....

Perry once again proving that he's incompetent to run the state. This must fall under the whole "states rights" bullshit he's been harping on about.

[sonias]

6. Exactly

Problem? We got a problem? What problem?

Privatization FAIL. Which is exactly why you don't want PerryCare - it will kill ya.


Sonia

[tammywammy]

7. What recession?

I really hope all this stuff comes up during the race.

[GOPisEvil]

8. Back when I worked there, we got federal bonuses.

We were so good at being timely and accurate, the feds had to write us multi-million dollar checks for a few years.

How far that agency has fallen...

[sonias]

14. Today's story prooves your bonus point

AAS 10/6/09
Federal officials: Texas needs food stamp czar

(snip)
Texas wasn't always in this position.

From 1998 to 2004, the federal government gave the state bonus payments for payment accuracy. Last year, Texas had a higher error rate than the national average.

We have fallen very low now. More Texans are going hungry in a bad economy unnecessarily.

Sonia

[sonias]

10. State board OKs hiring of more food stamp workers

AAS 10/03/09
State board OKs hiring of more food stamp workers
State officials asked for more employees to relieve application system struggling with backlogs and errors.


A state board on Friday approved the hiring of some — but not all — of the food stamp enrollment workers the Health and Human Services Commission had requested to relieve a system struggling with application backlogs and processing errors.

The 10-member Legislative Budget Board, which includes Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Joe Straus and members of the House and Senate, gave the commission permission to hire 250 workers. The commission had requested about 650.

After the initial workers are hired, the board will evaluate whether up to 399 more workers are needed, officials said.

Meanwhile, the budget board directed the commission to immediately fill 400 vacant enrollment jobs, which also involve processing Medicaid applications.

"It is unacceptable to me that Texans who are eligible are waiting for food stamps only because of bureaucratic delays and staffing shortages that we can fix," Dewhurst said.

Amazing how fast things work out when the Feds start to threaten to take your money away. Thank you federal government.

Sonia

[white cloud]

11. and we pay these guys to sit on there cans

Shame. They have to react instead of act. Vote them out !!!!

[sonias]

12. A food stamp fingerprint feud

AAS 10/2/09
A food stamp fingerprint feud
USDA says it's wasting valuable time; state says eliminating the requirement won't do much to fix the application backlog.

The federal agency that oversees food stamps wants Texas to stop fingerprinting applicants as a way to save resources and speed up what the agency says is an unacceptably slow application system. But because state law requires the fingerprinting, the Health and Human Services Commission finds itself caught between what the Legislature mandates and what federal officials want.

"One of the things I think Texas needs to do is streamline their operations," said William Ludwig, a regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service. "Finger imaging is very time-consuming."

(snip)
Ludwig said that it's time-consuming to have people come into the office for a fingerprint when the interview can be done by phone. And he said Texas hasn't provided proof that the imaging is deterring fraud.

State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, an Austin Democrat who tried to repeal the requirement in 2003, said the program is "obviously a boondoggle."

"Just because you're low-income, you should not be subject to the suspicion that you have fraudulent behavior," Rodriguez said.

Note that the electronic fingerprinting program costs $3 million a year. What a horrible waste of money. Wonder how Cogent Systems ended up with this sweet little contract?

Representative Eddie Rodriguez is right about this being a boondoggle!

Sonia

[sonias]

13. Federal officials: Texas needs food stamp czar

AAS 10/6/09
Federal officials: Texas needs food stamp czar

Federal officials say Texas should appoint a food stamp czar to take charge of fixing the application backlogs and high error rates plaguing the program.

"All states are feeling the pinch right now because of the economic recession, but I'm not aware of any state that is having it to the degree that Texas is," said William Ludwig, a Dallas-based regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service.

Ludwig, who rarely gives interviews, oversees food stamps for Texas and four other states. He attributed the state's problems last week to a "whole series of missteps, mismanagement over the last four years," starting with thousands of state workers getting pink slips in advance of a massive privatization effort.

In September, Texas failed to process 41.4 percent of applications by the federal government's deadline: 30 days for regular applications, seven days for emergency applications.

Privatization = FAIL. And this failure is on Perry and the Republican controlled legislature. In their effort to send public money to private corporations they have wasted millions, gutted an agency that was run well before, and are now failing to provide critical food benefits to families that are qualified to receive it.

And the only thing that's keeping them even focused on it is the Feds telling them they may lose that federal money. Otherwise they would just let more poor Texans go hungry - unnecessarily! :grr:


Sonia

[onestepforward]

15. I hope that the food stamp program will be fixed soon.

In these tough economic times, many families are really hurting and food is such a basic necessity. Privatization does often equal fail.

[white cloud]

16. Federal official: Texas needs food stamp chief

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6654314.html

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas should appoint one official to eliminate food stamp application backlogs and fix high error rates, a top federal official said.

William Ludwig, a Dallas-based regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service, told the Austin American-Statesman that food stamp programs in all states "are feeling the pinch right now because of the economic recession." He said, however, he was "not aware of any state that is having it to the degree that Texas is."

[sonias]

17. Maybe if they called him "chief" rather than "czar" we can get this done

I frankly don't care what they call the job, let's just get this fixed! People are suffering needlessly. The benefits are there, these people are eligible - let them feed their families!

Sonia

[sonias]

18. Texas ranks 49th on food stamp processing

AAS 10/6/09
Texas ranks 49th on food stamp processing

Texas comes in 49th out of 53 states, territories and the District of Columbia in a new federal ranking of how quickly food stamp applications are processed.

The Lone Star state was ahead of Florida, Alaska, Colorado and Guam.
(snip)

The data — released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees food stamps — is from the 2008 budget year. So it doesn’t take into account Texas’ most recent problems with food stamp processing. In September 2009, Texas processed 58.6 percent percent of new applications and 68.9 percent of renewals on time, according to state data.

49 out of 53 and sinking. We thought 50 was last. Wrong - we might be 53rd this year. :(

Sonia

[white cloud]

19. Worst in the nation

Never thought it would get this bad and these are last years figures.

[sonias]

20. More news on food stamp program and jobs in Texas

AAS 10/29/09
Food stamp workers work longer hours and get less training
New workers are entering a system in crisis.

As Texas begins hiring hundreds of food stamp workers to help erase an application backlog that has left families waiting months for aid, no one expects the problems to disappear any time soon.

The new state workers are entering a system in crisis. They'll have far fewer experienced colleagues than they would have five years ago. Training is shorter. Mentoring has mostly fallen by the wayside. And employees are working an average of 13 hours of overtime per week — which, in some cases, is mandatory.

"We're just overrun," said Sheila Badzioch, a caseworker in Houston, one of the state's slowest processing areas. "The attitude of the higher-ups is, 'You can do more.' Well, you can't. There are only so many hours in a day."

For all the struggles that the state employees known as eligibility workers are facing, several said it's not lost on them that some of the 2.9 million Texans on food stamps are coping with tremendous stress, too. In September, Texas processed 58.6 percent of applications within the 30 days required by the federal government. By the end of that month, nearly 42,000 families were waiting for a decision even though the deadline had passed.

And related bad news on the job front:

First Reading blog AAS 10/29/09
(snip)
Stat of the day

Texas lost more jobs in September (44,700) than California (39,300) and Michigan (21,500). The only state that lost more than Texas that month was New York. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Sonia