http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/120933409.html<snip>
Madison —Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to privatize work determining who is eligible for food assistance in the state would violate federal law and could expose the state to a loss of more than $20 million in federal money, federal officials say.
In an April 14 letter to state Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith and Children and Families Secretary Eloise Anderson, Ollice Holden, a Midwest administrator for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, warned that the work of interviewing applicants and deciding who is eligible for the Wisconsin FoodShare program needs to be done by public workers who are essentially civil servants. If not, he said, the state could lose some of the federal funds supporting FoodShare, the successor in Wisconsin to the food stamp program.
In a statement released Thursday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "Recent state agency privatization initiatives in Texas and Indiana have been complete failures, marked by technical difficulties, staffing shortages, and inadequate training of private call-center staff and resulting in adverse impacts on the state and its people.
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Turns out the only problem with having the State manage the program is that Ryan's wealthy contributors are unable to skim money from the system.