03/10/2009 - Lawmakers want welfare slowdown (Evansville Courier & Press)

Lawmakers want welfare slowdown
But state agency urges don't interfere

By Eric Bradner
Monday, March 9, 2009

Understaffed county offices. Lost documents. Long waits at the call center.

Family and Social Services Agency Secretary Anne Murphy has heard the complaints and said her agency is trying to fix the problems arising from the rollout of its modernized welfare-eligibility system.

But if lawmakers interfere, they'll only slow the agency down in correcting those problems, Murphy told a Senate panel Monday.

Problems with the rollout grew worse in the last quarter of 2008, Murphy told the Senate Appropriations Committee as she presented the budget she's asking lawmakers to include in the state's next spending plan.

Murphy said her agency is acting quickly to correct those problems.

She said the agency is boosting staff levels in some county offices and is ramping up efforts to train employees.

A team led by IBM Corp. signed a $1.16 billion contract to update the state's welfare-eligibility screening system. The changes included cutting back paperwork at local agency offices and having Hoosiers apply for Medicaid, food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits online or through a toll-free call center.

Those changes already are in place in 59 of Indiana's 92 counties.

But legislators say they're swamped with complaints that the modernized system is too difficult to navigate.

Among those complaints:

n A jammed call center makes it difficult to wait long enough to talk with a representative, especially for those using prepaid cell phones.

n Elderly and disabled Hoosiers say they need the one-on-one help they used to get at local agency locations.

n IBM's system routinely fails to correctly sort documents, forcing clients to refile paperwork.

Responding to those complaints, two Southwestern Indiana lawmakers are backing a bill that would halt the modernization rollout in the remaining counties until the agency is able to fix those problems.

It would give legislators inundated with complaints some oversight, too, by requiring the Select Joint Commission on Medicaid Oversight to approve any more rollouts of the system.

Rep. Suzanne Crouch, R-Evansville, introduced House Bill 1691, which cleared the House with support from most Democrats and some Republicans.

Sen. Vaneta Becker, another Evansville Republican, is urging her colleagues in the Republican-led Senate to pass the legislation as well.

Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, told Murphy on Monday that such a move would give some measure of input to legislators concerned by a large number of constituent complaints.

But Murphy warned that such legislation would slow down the agency in fixing its plagued modernization rollout because the oversight commission meets too infrequently.

"We're just concerned that once we reach a point where we feel like we can move forward ... it would slow us down," Murphy said.

Family and Social Services Agency spokeswoman Lauren Auld said the agency wouldn't offer a barometer to gauge the progress it has made thus far. But Murphy said the agency would fix its problems "before we'll entertain any discussion of moving forward."

House Bill 1691 awaits a hearing in the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee.