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CLT UPDATE
Friday, May 31, 2013
The state EBT Card Scandal expands
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Maybe we needed the long weekend to recover from
last week on Beacon Hill.
Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, the personification of the
nonessential state worker, announces he is decamping to his native
Worcester, taking with him the real story of his 108-mph, predawn
crash in his state car.
State Rep. John Fresolo, a fellow Democrat and
Worcesterite, abruptly quits amid reports he is the target of a
House Ethics Committee investigation for unspecified Statehouse
shenanigans.
Stephen W. Doran, the former chairman of the
aforementioned Ethics Committee, is arrested as he leaves the Boston
school where he now teaches on charges of trafficking in
methamphetamine.
Did we miss anyone? Never mind. The real
skulduggery on Beacon Hill last week was being committed both in
plain sight and behind closed doors as the Legislature pushed ahead
with a juggernaut $34 billion budget and accompanying $500 million
tax increase.
A Salem News editorial
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
State's investment strategy: Take more of our money
Republican lawmakers who have repeatedly pressed
for welfare system and EBT card reforms hope news the state welfare
agency was paying benefits to dead people will be the “straw that
broke the camel’s back” to force changes.
Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, a Taunton Republican,
said a state auditor’s report released Tuesday proves the need for
reforms in a system “infested with abuse.” She called the Department
of Transitional Assistance - which oversees $1.7 billion in state
and federal benefits - a “runaway train.” ...
Rep. James Miceli, the only Democrat who stood
with Republicans at the press conference, said his Democratic
colleagues are “getting restless,” and the latest news about welfare
fraud could push lawmakers to pass reforms.
“A lot of Democrats are really upset with this,
and I think you are going to see it reflected in some votes down the
road,” said Miceli, who has served in the House since 1977.
Miceli (D-Wilmington) called the state’s welfare
system a “disaster” that wastes millions of dollars.
“Bottom-line the system isn’t working, and it is
a horrible system,” he said.
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Dems "getting restless" as GOP renews call for welfare reforms
A proposed state Senate welfare reform bill will
target, among other things, the growing number of waivers that
litter the state welfare system and undercut the true intent of
public assistance, Senate President Therese Murray said today.
Murray, poised to release what she’s touted as
comprehensive legislation in the coming weeks, said “very glaring”
problems in the waiver system have allowed people to latch on and
stay on the dole long past what officials, including herself,
envisioned when they passed welfare reform in the mid-1990s....
Murray’s comments, the first public details she’s
provided on the scope of the bill, come a day after state Auditor
Suzanne Bump released a scathing report detailing how DTA, over a
two-year span, gave $2.4 million in welfare benefits to more than
1,160 people who were dead.
But Murray defended the agency, saying that under
interim commissioner Stacey Monahan it has already begun addressing
many of the issues the audit highlights.
“She’s already taken this ball and run with it,
and has already closed down a lot of the activities that were taking
place,” she said.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
State Senate president airs proposed welfare reforms
Massachusetts officials are investigating whether
to pursue criminal or civil charges against hundreds of people
identified in a new state audit who may have fraudulently collected
welfare or illegally sold food benefits for cash.
The report Tuesday by state Auditor Suzanne Bump
found $18 million in suspicious welfare payments, including money
sent to more than 1,160 recipients listed as dead, and signs that
some participants may have sold their electronic benefit cards,
which is illegal.
Bump said Wednesday that she sent a copy of the
audit to the attorney general’s office and referred the findings to
the Bureau of Special Investigations, the unit in her office charged
with investigating public assistance fraud and identifying cases for
potential prosecution....
“We have requested access to all of the cases
mentioned in the audit, so we can conduct a full review of each
case, said Department of Transitional Assistance spokesman Matt
Kitsos. “These errors highlight the need for a full review.”
But the auditor’s office retorted that welfare
officials have not explained how they concluded that the 178
dependents figure was inaccurate and noted that a separate federal
review last year also found hundreds of dead beneficiaries on the
Massachusetts welfare rolls.
“We cannot just accept what an agency says based
on their word,” Bump said, explaining that the department has
repeatedly declined to provide supporting documents to auditors. The
auditor’s office acknowledged that it has responded in kind by
refusing to provide the list of 1,164 dead recipients....
Welfare fraud is not unique to Massachusetts....
The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Mass. considers charges after welfare audit
Gov. Deval Patrick — who has downplayed welfare
abuses as “anecdotes” — played hide-and-seek with the Truth Squad
yesterday as we hunted for him and his answers on why the state
doled out millions in welfare benefits to dead people.
"I know where he is, but I’m not going to tell
you,” said Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray, who fielded questions meant
for Patrick about a bombshell auditor’s report that millions of
dollars were paid to more than 1,100 dead people, while millions
were collected in places like Florida, Hawaii and the Virgin
Islands.
Patrick was expected to be at his “Sweet P”
estate in the Berkshires but apparently decided to come into the
State House at the last minute. He slipped in and out virtually
undetected by the press.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Deval Patrick MIA after audit
A federal audit found last year that the
Department of Transitional Assistance was handing out food stamps to
520 dead people — an alarm apparently unheeded by welfare officials
who were shamed this week when a shocking state audit found more
than twice that number of dead recipients on the dole.
The USDA, which funds the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program, slammed oversight of the state welfare program
in an audit quietly released in April 2012....
Though they say they’re still waiting on details
on the 1,164 people identified as dead, DTA officials said that
among a sample of 178 guardians claiming dead people as dependents
that the auditor found, only 17 were actually deceased and had open
cases. They’ve all since been closed.
“These errors highlight the need for a full
review,” DTA spokesman Matt Kitsos said.
[State Auditor Suzanne] Bump countered that the
point of the audit was to test the agency’s systems and “make things
work better.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
USDA: 520 dead got benefits in ’10
It’s time to slap photos on EBT cards and
crank up oversight of the state’s “broken” welfare system before
more dead people can collect benefits, an incensed House Speaker
Robert DeLeo told the Herald yesterday.
“Why do we have to let the wound fester? We
have to stop this fraud, and we have to stop it now,” DeLeo
said, adding he was “appalled” by a state audit released Tuesday
that showed $2.4 million paid to more than 1,100 dead people and
$27 million to live recipients collecting EBT benefits out of
state, including in Alaska and Hawaii.
DeLeo said House proposals to put photos on
EBT cards, create a Bureau of Program Integrity and allow the
Inspector General to monitor the embattled agency “are needed
now more than ever,” and promises by the Patrick administration
that they are addressing the problems aren’t enough....
The House reforms are expected to be a hot
topic in conference committee after the state Senate — vowing to
wait for a comprehensive bill promised by Senate President
Therese Murray — gutted the proposals from their budget.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
DeLeo proposes EBT cards with photos to prevent fraud
Dead people are collecting welfare benefits
and there’s a ghost in the governor’s office.
Only in Massachusetts.
Here’s how bad it’s gotten: Gov. Deval
Patrick is hiding out in his Berkshires compound this week,
refusing to talk about or take responsibility for the obscene
waste of millions of taxpayer dollars.
Patrick’s second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Tim
Murray, is left in the State House to fend off media questions
about a welfare abuse scandal just days before he quits on
voters who elected him to take a higher-paying job at an obscure
business group....
No matter what you think of Mitt Romney or
Charlie Baker, can you imagine either of those two Republicans
not overhauling an agency that’s been throwing money at the dead
or people who are very much alive and spending tax money in Las
Vegas? ...
If the governor really doesn’t want to work
for Massachusetts taxpayers, he should step down and take a job
in the Obama administration. His incompetence and inaction will
be welcomed in the White House.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Welfare zombies, political ghosts
By Joe Battenfeld
The Patrick administration assures us the
number of dead people who collected welfare benefits in
Massachusetts is actually far smaller than the more than 1,100
cited in a scathing report by the state auditor this week.
Now don’t we all feel better!
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Following up on fraud
The next welfare scandal is going to be the
huge balances on some of these EBT cards.
Wait until the Department of Terrorist
Assistance (DTA) finally coughs up how much money is on these
cards. And yes, Gov. Deval Patrick, this is another one of those
“anecdotes.”
Last January a radio listener from Pittsfield
sent me a receipt from a local convenience store. Some loafer
had run up a tab of $3.28, so he whipped out an EBT card to pay
for it. After paying his three bucks, he had $7,066.58 left on
the card.
I kid you not. Over seven grand on an EBT
card....
The Herald, meanwhile, filed a FOIA for the
top 100 EBT card balances. The DTA said it would cost $500 to
research its records.
O’Connell asked the DTA for an accounting of
the top EBT card balances. This was sometime last winter. When
the phone didn’t ring, she knew it was the DTA.
The keeper of public records in the
commonwealth is the secretary of state, Bill Galvin, a Democrat.
So O’Connell called Galvin’s office and asked them to intervene.
But the DTA apparently doesn’t answer to anyone, Democrat or
Republican.
“They don’t discriminate on stonewalling,”
said O’Connell. “That’s one thing you have to give them.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Next scandal: Platinum EBT cards
By Howie Carr
The Patrick administration assures us the number of
dead people who collected welfare benefits in Massachusetts is actually
far smaller than the more than 1,100 cited in a scathing report by the
state auditor this week.
Now don’t we all feel better!
A Boston Herald editorial
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Following up on fraud
A testy Gov. Deval Patrick, speaking for the
first time about a scathing audit showing $2.4 million in
taxpayer money going to dead people, defended his embattled
administration last night and questioned whether the abuse was
that widespread.
“Wait a minute. Be real careful. Be real
careful,” Patrick told the Herald Truth Squad when asked if he’s
downplaying the amount of fraud. “Nobody in this administration,
including me, is minimizing the seriousness of this.”
But then Patrick proceeded to minimize the
findings...
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 31, 2013
Gov: Put fraud in perspective
Patrick downplays extent of state’s welfare abuse
House lawmakers are ready to do battle in a
closed-door clash with Senate Democrats after Speaker Robert
DeLeo, in the wake of a scathing audit, demanded action on
welfare reform even as senators continue to insist any overhaul
needs to wait.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 31, 2013
Emboldened by audit, House renews efforts
The agency that hands out welfare benefits —
the one that has failed so spectacularly in its oversight duties
over the past year — insists it has embarked on a thorough
overhaul of its systems, tightening its screening of applicants,
its oversight of beneficiaries and adopting a series of other
recommended reforms. The state Department of Transitional
Assistance, its leaders insist, is on the case.
They’ll pardon us if that doesn’t exactly
inspire confidence. Foxes and henhouses come to mind....
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, May 31, 2013
Watchdog with bite
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Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
We taxpayers are "getting hammered," as a recent
candidate and now U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren infamously declared. We're
getting hammered by government — which
is I'm sure not what she intended to message.
"Welfare fraud is not unique to
Massachusetts...." reports the Boston Globe.
How darned comforting.
Even the Democrats are recoiling. The Boston
Globe is offering only that "Welfare fraud is not unique to
Massachusetts...."
Alleged-Governor Deval Patrick has been holding out in
his Richmond “Sweet P” estate in the Berkshires, ducking the media
and taxpayers. He finally deigned to speak on the issue yesterday:
“Nobody in this administration, including me, is minimizing the
seriousness of this,” he asserted, as he went on to minimize again.
No more excuses are available: Not
"anecdotal" nor "leakage."
Today the governor's operative word is “minimize.”
Like the mounting abuse-of-power scandals in
Washington, c'mon don't think we're all stupid.
It's rumored from knowledgeable sources that
Deval Patrick is President Obama's pick to replace more-by-the-day
disgraced U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as he crashes and burns.
The Obama Administration apparently is considering recruiting
another Chicago-bred pol, our governor. Talk about "out of the
frying pan and into the fire".
With Tim ("Crash") Murray already taking the big
walk, resigning as Lieutenant Governor this week, that would leave
us with Secretary of State Bill Galvin as acting-governor.
Secretary Galvin, a statewide officeholder by his own election, has
always been fair to CLT, with his support for the initiative
petition process, his oversight of the elections in which our PAC
supports taxpayer-friendly candidates, and with his execution of the
state's freedom-of-information-act. So he would be a big
improvement over what we have now: but we shouldn’t wish Deval
Patrick on our country, either. It’s a dilemma.
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Chip Ford |
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The Salem News
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
A Salem News editorial
State's investment strategy: Take more of our money
Maybe we needed the long weekend to recover from last week on Beacon
Hill.
Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, the personification of the nonessential state
worker, announces he is decamping to his native Worcester, taking
with him the real story of his 108-mph, predawn crash in his state
car.
State Rep. John Fresolo, a fellow Democrat and Worcesterite,
abruptly quits amid reports he is the target of a House Ethics
Committee investigation for unspecified Statehouse shenanigans.
Stephen W. Doran, the former chairman of the aforementioned Ethics
Committee, is arrested as he leaves the Boston school where he now
teaches on charges of trafficking in methamphetamine.
Did we miss anyone? Never mind. The real skulduggery on Beacon Hill
last week was being committed both in plain sight and behind closed
doors as the Legislature pushed ahead with a juggernaut $34 billion
budget and accompanying $500 million tax increase.
Together, they threaten to flatten the Bay State’s still struggling
economy.
The Senate approved the $34 billion spending plan late Thursday, one
month after the House passed a budget with a similar bottom line but
different details.
The two bodies will spend June trying to bring the two plans into
alignment and deciding how best to pick the pockets of their
unsuspecting constituents. By the time the budget goes into effect
July 1, those constituents will be in full
summertime-and-the-living-is-easy mode.
The tax-and-spend plan will nickel, dime and dollar them at a time
when many are hard-pressed to support their own households, never
mind their insatiable state government.
Increases in taxes on gasoline, tobacco and businesses are also in
the mix. We don’t know the details yet because the tax proposal is
being hammered out in secret after a six-member Senate and House
conference committee closed its deliberations to the public.
Meanwhile, the state’s real problem — spending — remains largely
unaddressed.
The Senate said no, for example, to efforts to amend the budget to
require photo ID on electronic benefit transfer cards to reduce the
EBT fraud that costs the state millions of dollars a year. Senate
leaders promised to work on a “comprehensive” welfare reform plan
later. Promises, promises.
As usual, the guardians of the public treasury described their
spending increases as “investments” in the future.
But a new study by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University
found the Legislature’s “investments” won’t pay off for average
citizens of Massachusetts. In fact, they’ll hurt them.
The study said the half-billion dollar tax plan favored by House
Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray will result
in 2,460 fewer jobs in Massachusetts and reduce disposable income by
about $250 per household, according to the Statehouse News Service.
It may not sound like much, but we’re betting most people would
prefer the $250 in their own pockets, rather than DeLeo and
Murray’s. And the 2,460 unemployed would rather be working.
But there’s good news.
The Beacon Hill Institute said the Legislature’s plan wouldn’t be as
rough on the economy and Bay State families as the $1.9 billion tax
increase recommended by Gov. Deval Patrick. That plan, which would
include an income tax hike, would kill 17,800 jobs and shrink
disposable income by $480 per household, the institute said.
Patrick and the Democratic leadership assure us that our short-term
pain will translate into a long-term gain for the commonwealth as
they wisely use our nickels, dimes and dollars to — as a Statehouse
News Service story put it — “make long overdue investments in the
state’s transportation network, creating construction jobs and
putting the state in better position for long-term economic growth
by making it more attractive to existing and potential businesses.”
We have our doubts about that, given how the state’s previous
“investments” of billions and billions of our dollars have left us
with decaying infrastructure and a soft economy.
If only the governor and Legislature would make some long overdue
investments in the citizens of the commonwealth by reining in
spending so they can keep more of their own money.
Then we might see a real return on investment.
State House News Service
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Dems "getting restless" as GOP renews call for welfare reforms
By Colleen Quinn
Republican lawmakers who have repeatedly pressed for welfare system
and EBT card reforms hope news the state welfare agency was paying
benefits to dead people will be the “straw that broke the camel’s
back” to force changes.
Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, a Taunton Republican, said a state auditor’s
report released Tuesday proves the need for reforms in a system
“infested with abuse.” She called the Department of Transitional
Assistance - which oversees $1.7 billion in state and federal
benefits - a “runaway train.”
O’Connell, who said she grew up in public housing with her parents,
said fraud in the system is hurting people who truly need benefits.
“We need to save this program. This program is being destroyed by
people who are looking away from fraud,” O’Connell said Wednesday at
a press conference detailing reform proposals.
Rep. James Miceli, the only Democrat who stood with Republicans at
the press conference, said his Democratic colleagues are “getting
restless,” and the latest news about welfare fraud could push
lawmakers to pass reforms.
“A lot of Democrats are really upset with this, and I think you are
going to see it reflected in some votes down the road,” said Miceli,
who has served in the House since 1977.
Miceli (D-Wilmington) called the state’s welfare system a “disaster”
that wastes millions of dollars.
“Bottom-line the system isn’t working, and it is a horrible system,”
he said.
The state auditor discovered 1,164 cases where welfare benefits
worth nearly $2.4 million continued to flow to enrollees after they
were deceased or to recipients using a dead person’s Social Security
number. In some cases, store purchases and ATM transactions were
made after a recipient’s date of death, pointing to unauthorized
people using the welfare benefits, according to the auditor’s
report.
Auditor Suzanne Bump said DTA did not do enough to validate Social
Security numbers and there was not enough emphasis within the agency
on preventing fraud and abuse. One in eight people in the state
receive welfare benefits through DTA.
Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz said the auditor
did not provide DTA with detailed information on the majority of the
cases identified in the report, “and therefore we cannot verify
those findings.”
O’Connell and other lawmakers said DTA should be required to
validate Social Security numbers before anyone receives a “dime of
taxpayers’ money.” The practice of self-declaration, allowing
someone to give their Social Security number without verification,
or the use of temporary numbers, needs to end, they said.
Lawmakers also renewed their call for photos on electronic benefit
cards (EBT), a proposal House lawmakers passed in the fiscal year
2013 state budget, but the Senate did not include in its version.
DTA also needs to stop reissuing cards to people who have requested
more than four new cards, lawmakers said. O’Connell estimates more
than 1,000 cards a day are replaced by the department.
The audit report said more than 9,800 people requested and received
10 or more EBT replacement cards since 2006, with one individual
receiving as many as 127 cards. DTA officials said starting in
December 2012 they began monitoring clients who request four or more
replacement cards within a 12-month period.
Rep. James Lyons, an Andover Republican, said taxpayers are being
forced to subsidize people who defraud the system. Lyons said he has
repeatedly asked the Patrick administration to detail spending on
benefits.
“To date, the governor refuses to answer those questions. So my
question is to the governor, governor is it that you have absolutely
no idea where our tax dollars are going? Or is it that you do know
and what we are finding out by different reports from the inspector
general and the auditor is that the hardworking taxpayers are being
continually forced to subsidize those folks who are breaking the
rules,” Lyons said.
DTA officials say they have already taken action to correct the
problems, pointing to a 100-day action plan released in March aimed
at preventing fraud.
“There is no amount of fraud or waste or abuse that I will tolerate.
One dollar is too much,” Interim DTA Commissioner Stacey Monahan
said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday.
Monahan said the department last June began using a federal data
match known as the “Death Match,” to eliminate the lag time between
when an individual is deceased and when their benefits are shut off.
The auditor’s report looked at the period from July 1, 2010 to Dec.
31, 2012.
DTA asked the auditor’s office for a list of the 1,164 cases where
benefits were paid to dead people to conduct a review, according to
Monahan, who was appointed in February after former DTA Commissioner
Daniel Curley was asked to resign amid reports of lax oversight of
welfare benefit spending.
In some cases, welfare benefits to the deceased continued for six to
27 months. Monahan said she does not know how it went on for so
long, adding she was appointed to address problems.
Other lawmakers at the press conference calling for reforms
included: Reps. Geoffrey Diehl (R-Whitman), Marc Lombardo
(R-Billerica), Leah Cole (R-Peabody), and Peter Durant (R-Spencer).
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
State Senate president airs proposed welfare reforms
By Matt Stout
A proposed state Senate welfare reform bill will target, among other
things, the growing number of waivers that litter the state welfare
system and undercut the true intent of public assistance, Senate
President Therese Murray said today.
Murray, poised to release what she’s touted as comprehensive
legislation in the coming weeks, said “very glaring” problems in the
waiver system have allowed people to latch on and stay on the dole
long past what officials, including herself, envisioned when they
passed welfare reform in the mid-1990s.
“(Welfare) is not a lifetime commitment to care. It is a hand to get
you up when you’re having a hard time,” Murray said this morning
after speaking at the Boston Irish Business Awards breakfast, where
she was also honored.
“If you had a child and you had another child while you were on
welfare, there wasn’t supposed to be a waiver for that. You weren’t
supposed to be able to stay in the system and get money for the
second or the third or the fourth child. Those waivers have been
given over the last several years, and we’ve come to find this out
really last year when we started taking a look at it.”
Murray said the out-of-control waivers have extended to several
areas as well, including the welfare system’s work and education
programs.
“There are a lot of loopholes,” she said.
Murray also hinted that she’s in favor of adding photos to EBT
cards, a hotly debated topic that was passed in the House budget and
gutted in the Senate. She said that “while it may cost something,” a
measure requiring photos or some ID would help address EBT card
trafficking.
Department of Transitional Assistance officials have argued that
photos were cut from the cards during the Romney administration in
2004, and haven’t proven to cut down on fraud.
“I know there’s a difference in opinion whether you need a picture
on these cards or not,” Murray said, “But law enforcement arrest
these people, and they have two to three of these cards in their
pockets. And Social Security numbers.”
Murray’s comments, the first public details she’s provided on the
scope of the bill, come a day after state Auditor Suzanne Bump
released a scathing report detailing how DTA, over a two-year span,
gave $2.4 million in welfare benefits to more than 1,160 people who
were dead.
But Murray defended the agency, saying that under interim
commissioner Stacey Monahan it has already begun addressing many of
the issues the audit highlights.
“She’s already taken this ball and run with it, and has already
closed down a lot of the activities that were taking place,” she
said.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Mass. considers charges after welfare audit
By Todd Wallack
Massachusetts officials are investigating whether to pursue criminal
or civil charges against hundreds of people identified in a new
state audit who may have fraudulently collected welfare or illegally
sold food benefits for cash.
The report Tuesday by state Auditor Suzanne Bump found $18 million
in suspicious welfare payments, including money sent to more than
1,160 recipients listed as dead, and signs that some participants
may have sold their electronic benefit cards, which is illegal.
Bump said Wednesday that she sent a copy of the audit to the
attorney general’s office and referred the findings to the Bureau of
Special Investigations, the unit in her office charged with
investigating public assistance fraud and identifying cases for
potential prosecution.
“We identified some very suspicious and potentially illegal food
stamp misuse, and we will be pursuing those individual cases further
in order to determine whether charges should be brought,” Bump said
Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Martha Coakley said her office is
“carefully reviewing” the audit to determine if she should order a
welfare fraud investigation.
Also on Wednesday, a war of words developed over the audit’s
accuracy, as the auditor and welfare officials slammed each other
for withholding information. Officials at the Department of
Transitional Assistance suggested that the problem of dead welfare
recipients may be overstated.
Agency officials said Wednesday that they could not confirm whether
all 1,164 recipients actually received benefits after they died
because it has yet to receive the names from the auditor. And they
said a separate figure in the audit — the number of supposedly dead
dependents claimed by guardians for welfare benefits — was sharply
inflated. The agency said it discovered that nearly half of the 178
people were still alive, some were duplicates, and others had
already been dropped from the welfare rolls.
“We have requested access to all of the cases mentioned in the
audit, so we can conduct a full review of each case, said Department
of Transitional Assistance spokesman Matt Kitsos. “These errors
highlight the need for a full review.”
But the auditor’s office retorted that welfare officials have not
explained how they concluded that the 178 dependents figure was
inaccurate and noted that a separate federal review last year also
found hundreds of dead beneficiaries on the Massachusetts welfare
rolls.
“We cannot just accept what an agency says based on their word,”
Bump said, explaining that the department has repeatedly declined to
provide supporting documents to auditors. The auditor’s office
acknowledged that it has responded in kind by refusing to provide
the list of 1,164 dead recipients.
Regardless of the exact number of suspicious welfare payments, one
lawmaker urged the state to aggressively pursue charges against
anyone who wrongfully obtained benefits. In all, more than 885,000
people received cash or food assistance from the agency, or one in
seven Massachusetts residents, at a cost of $1.7 billion last year.
“I think the harshest penalties need to be imposed to send a strong
message that we are not going to tolerate fraud in public assistance
programs,” said Representative Shaunna O’Connell, a Taunton
Republican, who has been pushing for legislation to make it more
difficult to qualify for public assistance.
Welfare fraud is not unique to Massachusetts.
An audit last year by the US Department of Agriculture’s inspector
general found problems with food benefits in all 10 states it
reviewed, including more than 27,000 recipients who appeared to be
dead, used a deceased individual’s Social Security number, had
erroneous Social Security numbers, received benefits in multiple
states, or were otherwise disqualified from receiving the benefits.
In Massachusetts alone, the Agriculture Department audit identified
more than 900 participants with “questionable eligibility,”
including 520 who were listed in the Social Security
Administration's list of deaths.
Massachusetts officials confirmed that someone used the benefits
after the client died in 59 of the 268 cases it reviewed.
But there is no indication that Massachusetts was worse than other
states, and the incidents amounted to a tiny percentage of the
overall caseload. The federal audit flagged 0.12 percent of
beneficiaries in Massachusetts and 0.20 percent in all the states it
reviewed.
Bump’s audit is just the latest report to fault the Transitional
Assistance Department for not doing more to prevent fraud and abuse.
The agency’s former director resigned in January after a report from
the state inspector general suggested that the state was squandering
$25 million a year on improper benefits.
But the interim director said she has already made significant
progress in implementing a series of steps to make sure benefits
only go to those who are truly eligible, including cross-checking
data that recipients provided against other government databases.
In addition, department officials said they will do everything they
can do recoup overpayments, noting that the agency has already
referred 5,000 cases of potential fraud this fiscal year to the
Bureau of Special Investigations, including several flagged by the
latest audit.
Bump’s welfare review focuses on payments between July 2010 and
December 2012, meaning that virtually all of the suspicious welfare
payments occurred within the three-year statute of limitations for
prosecution if investigators determine fraud was committed.
State and federal prosecutors have already pursued cases similar to
the ones cited by Bump in the past.
Last year, two former owners of a market in Holyoke were sentenced
to more than a year in prison on federal charges they illegally gave
customers cash for food stamps.
A Quincy store owner and 21 others were charged in state court last
April with buying or selling food benefits.
And earlier this month, a Medford woman was indicted for
fraudulently collecting more than $161,000 in state and federal
benefits.
Bump said the state would probably not press criminal charges in
cases in which a family member simply neglected to alert the state
right away when a relative died, though the state could try to
recoup any aid received after the beneficiary died.
But Bump said the state would alert the Social Security
Administration if it finds any cases in which someone wrongfully
used someone else’s Social Security number to fraudulently obtain
government aid.
“You have to look at intent,” she said.
The federal audit figures reflect a broader challenge facing nearly
every company or agency that provides long-term benefits, whether
it’s Social Security, a pension, or welfare assistance. How do you
find out right away when someone dies?
In many cases, family members notify the agency or regulators find
out when mail is returned as undeliverable, but that doesn’t always
happen.
So agencies typically consult state or federal lists of deaths. But
not every database is complete.
And matches sometimes fail because of data entry errors or different
spellings of names.
Nor is the issue new. In 1991, the General Accounting Office found
3,000 cases in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia
in which recipients continued to draw food stamps and other welfare
benefits long after they died.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Deval Patrick MIA after audit
By Hillary Chabot
Gov. Deval Patrick — who has downplayed welfare abuses as
“anecdotes” — played hide-and-seek with the Truth Squad yesterday as
we hunted for him and his answers on why the state doled out
millions in welfare benefits to dead people.
“I know where he is, but I’m not going to tell you,” said Lt. Gov.
Timothy P. Murray, who fielded questions meant for Patrick about a
bombshell auditor’s report that millions of dollars were paid to
more than 1,100 dead people, while millions were collected in places
like Florida, Hawaii and the Virgin Islands.
Patrick was expected to be at his “Sweet P” estate in the Berkshires
but apparently decided to come into the State House at the last
minute. He slipped in and out virtually undetected by the press.
Murray, when asked why he had to take the welfare hit instead of his
boss, waxed nonsequitorial.
“Most days in my 15 years as a lieutenant governor, governor, city
councilor have been good days, so I’m going to miss it,” Murray
mused.
His spokeswoman later explained the soon-to-be-former lite guv meant
“mayor,” not “governor.”
This is Murray’s last week in office. The ex-Worcester mayor took a
job heading the Worcester Chamber of Commerce, after his political
career hit speed bumps with a mysterious predawn car crash and ties
to disgraced former Revere Housing Authority Chairman Michael E.
McLaughlin.
Murray ultimately passed the welfare buck to Health and Human
Services Secretary John W. Polanowicz.
“One of the things and the decisions in why we brought in Secretary
Polanowicz he’s a proven, capable administrator,” he said.
And that, apparently, is Murray’s way of saying the state is in the
best of hands.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
USDA: 520 dead got benefits in ’10
By Matt Stout
A federal audit found last year that the Department of Transitional
Assistance was handing out food stamps to 520 dead people — an alarm
apparently unheeded by welfare officials who were shamed this week
when a shocking state audit found more than twice that number of
dead recipients on the dole.
The USDA, which funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
slammed oversight of the state welfare program in an audit quietly
released in April 2012.
The USDA audit from fiscal year 2010 states:
• 820 Bay Staters on welfare were using an “invalid” temporary
Social Security number for more than one year.
• 611 households exceed “gross or net income” levels of the SNAP
program.
• 520 Massachusetts SNAP participants were listed as dead.
• 222 were cashing in under “two separate households” in the state.
• 126 people were also enrolled in the SNAP program in other states.
The findings, according to state Auditor Suzanne M. Bump, back up
her office’s audit released this week, which found $2.4 million
going 1,164 people who were either dead or using a dead person’s
Social Security number.
DTA has blasted Bump’s audit for what it called “errors” and said it
is working on a “100-day plan” to fix it all.
“I stand by the findings in my audit,” Bump said. “Repeatedly, after
revealing our findings to DTA, they would offer their explanation
but not offer the supporting documentation. So we must trust our own
analysis.”
Though they say they’re still waiting on details on the 1,164 people
identified as dead, DTA officials said that among a sample of 178
guardians claiming dead people as dependents that the auditor found,
only 17 were actually deceased and had open cases. They’ve all since
been closed.
“These errors highlight the need for a full review,” DTA spokesman
Matt Kitsos said.
Bump countered that the point of the audit was to test the agency’s
systems and “make things work better.”
The back-and-forth comes on the heels of months of Herald reports
describing tens of millions in welfare benefits being mismanaged by
the DTA.
Officials have also said the state and the USDA have been in
discussions to resolve more than $27 million DTA overpaid to welfare
recipients in food stamps. Kitsos said he had no updates yesterday.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
DeLeo proposes EBT cards with photos to prevent fraud
By Matt Stout
It’s time to slap photos on EBT cards and crank up oversight of the
state’s “broken” welfare system before more dead people can collect
benefits, an incensed House Speaker Robert DeLeo told the Herald
yesterday.
“Why do we have to let the wound fester? We have to stop this fraud,
and we have to stop it now,” DeLeo said, adding he was “appalled” by
a state audit released Tuesday that showed $2.4 million paid to more
than 1,100 dead people and $27 million to live recipients collecting
EBT benefits out of state, including in Alaska and Hawaii.
DeLeo said House proposals to put photos on EBT cards, create a
Bureau of Program Integrity and allow the Inspector General to
monitor the embattled agency “are needed now more than ever,” and
promises by the Patrick administration that they are addressing the
problems aren’t enough.
“Maybe they’re doing their best,” DeLeo said, “but as speaker of the
House, I’m not going to just sit back and wait for the next
auditor’s report to make sure that everything is OK. It’s a system
that is just broken.”
The House reforms are expected to be a hot topic in conference
committee after the state Senate — vowing to wait for a
comprehensive bill promised by Senate President Therese Murray —
gutted the proposals from their budget.
Murray yesterday outlined part of the bill’s scope, which she said
will hone in on “very glaring” loopholes that have allowed waivers
to run wild and recipients to stay on the dole well past what
officials, including herself, envisioned when they passed welfare
reform in the mid-1990s.
She also hinted at supporting photos on EBT cards in the state’s
battle against card trafficking. “Law enforcement arrest these
people, and they have two to three of these cards in their pockets,”
Murray told the Herald. “And Social Security numbers.”
DeLeo said he’s excited to see the bill, but asked: Why wait until
then?
“We need to act immediately,” he said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Deval Patrick, who despite reportedly slipping in
and out of the State House, remained mum on state Auditor Suzanne M.
Bump’s findings.
“I want to hear the executive branch say, ‘You’re right, it is bad,
and we’ll fix it.’ And I haven’t heard that,” said state Rep. David
P. Linsky (D-Natick), chair of the House Committee on Post Audit and
Oversight, which is currently investigating welfare practices. “I’m
not going to tell them how to do their business, but I haven’t heard
anything from the governor.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Welfare zombies, political ghosts
By Joe Battenfeld
Dead people are collecting welfare benefits and there’s a ghost in
the governor’s office.
Only in Massachusetts.
Here’s how bad it’s gotten: Gov. Deval Patrick is hiding out in his
Berkshires compound this week, refusing to talk about or take
responsibility for the obscene waste of millions of taxpayer
dollars.
Patrick’s second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray, is left in the
State House to fend off media questions about a welfare abuse
scandal just days before he quits on voters who elected him to take
a higher-paying job at an obscure business group.
The governor’s former political aide, Stacey Monahan, who just a few
years ago was organizing parties for Democratic convention
delegates, is supposed to be in charge of fixing the dysfunctional
Department of Transitional Assistance. Guess who gave her the job?
Massachusetts right now is rudderless, even by Beacon Hill
standards. The welfare department is a national joke, a state drug
lab screw-up led to the release of dangerous prisoners, and lax
oversight at the state board regulating pharmacies helped contribute
to dozens of meningitis deaths across the country.
We need a strong chief executive to kick butt, cut waste, fire
people and restore confidence in our government. Chris Christie
comes to mind.
Instead we’ve got Deval Patrick camped out in the Berkshires Tuesday
while a fellow Democrat, Auditor Suzanne Bump, was holding a press
conference to announce the results of a scathing investigation into
welfare abuse.
“Who is leading our state?” state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell (R-Taunton)
said. “We have no leadership.”
That’s not entirely true. Patrick did rush back to Beacon Hill to
address a crisis yesterday — but not to address the massive problems
in the DTA. He only came back in case he was needed to break a
crucial tie vote in the Governor’s Council. Turns out he wasn’t
needed, because he didn’t even have enough juice to win approval of
a lowly district court judge.
But while Patrick was back in his office, he made sure not to show
his face and steered clear of prying reporters. That’s leadership
for you.
No matter what you think of Mitt Romney or Charlie Baker, can you
imagine either of those two Republicans not overhauling an agency
that’s been throwing money at the dead or people who are very much
alive and spending tax money in Las Vegas?
Now the Herald has discovered there was an earlier federal audit
showing more than 500 other dead people got food stamp money.
This should have been a clear sign it was time to blow up the
welfare department, but nothing was done and the problems just got
worse.
If the governor really doesn’t want to work for Massachusetts
taxpayers, he should step down and take a job in the Obama
administration. His incompetence and inaction will be welcomed in
the White House.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
Following up on fraud
The Patrick administration assures us the number of dead people who
collected welfare benefits in Massachusetts is actually far smaller
than the more than 1,100 cited in a scathing report by the state
auditor this week.
Now don’t we all feel better!
Yes, in the hours after Auditor Suzanne Bump released her report it
was all about parsing the numbers. But may we humbly suggest that
those who would quibble with the accounting actually sit down and
read the whole report?
Because it isn’t just the zombie-benefits problem.
It’s the individual who claimed to have had his EBT card lost or
stolen — *127 times.* It’s the use of a Massachusetts benefits card
in St. Thomas — over a period of four months (surprise, they
happened to be the coldest months of the year in New England). It’s
the double-dipping, and all of the other clear signals of fraud that
DTA missed along the way.
In sum, it’s the utter failure of the overseers of public assistance
programs to do much overseeing.
The Department of Transitional Assistance under interim commissioner
Stacey Monahan is committed to reforms, the administration insists,
spelling out changes already made in response to the auditor’s
findings. But more needs to be done to restore public confidence.
Senate President Therese Murray yesterday said she plans to release
a comprehensive welfare reform bill in the coming weeks. She’s
eyeing the waivers that allow some individuals to collect welfare
seemingly *ad infinitum.* She hinted at support for putting photo
IDs on EBT cards, to reduce fraud.
Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo understand the politics of
this. It’s important they get the policy right, too.
Calls for reform are hardly an attack on the poor, as some have
argued. Reforms are needed not just to protect taxpayers — but to
protect those individuals who have a *legitimate* need for
government assistance.
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Next scandal: Platinum EBT cards
By Howie Carr
The next welfare scandal is going to be the huge balances on some of
these EBT cards.
Wait until the Department of Terrorist Assistance (DTA) finally
coughs up how much money is on these cards. And yes, Gov. Deval
Patrick, this is another one of those “anecdotes.”
Last January a radio listener from Pittsfield sent me a receipt from
a local convenience store. Some loafer had run up a tab of $3.28, so
he whipped out an EBT card to pay for it. After paying his three
bucks, he had $7,066.58 left on the card.
I kid you not. Over seven grand on an EBT card.
There aren’t too many ways to run up seven grand plus on your EBT
card. Of course it’s easy if you never use the card while every
month you’re getting a new direct deposit of taxpayer cash.
But the only ways not to spend down the balance are because 1) you
don’t need an EBT card at all or 2) you have more than one EBT card.
It’s got to be one or the other, right?
A month or so after getting the receipt, I gave it to state Rep.
Shauna O’Connell (R-Taunton). She’s served on some of these
commissions investigating the fiasco that is Deval Patrick’s DTA, so
I figured maybe she could get an answer.
The Herald, meanwhile, filed a FOIA for the top 100 EBT card
balances. The DTA said it would cost $500 to research its records.
O’Connell asked the DTA for an accounting of the top EBT card
balances. This was sometime last winter. When the phone didn’t ring,
she knew it was the DTA.
The keeper of public records in the commonwealth is the secretary of
state, Bill Galvin, a Democrat. So O’Connell called Galvin’s office
and asked them to intervene. But the DTA apparently doesn’t answer
to anyone, Democrat or Republican.
“They don’t discriminate on stonewalling,” said O’Connell. “That’s
one thing you have to give them.”
At the end of Auditor Suzanne Bump’s scorching report on EBT fraud
this week, she asked the DTA for an accounting of last year’s
“missing” 47,000 recipients — a scandal that came to light after a
Herald front-page story.
The DTA had conducted what amounted to a Democrat voter-registration
drive among layabouts, by sending out a first-class mailing to all
480,000 of the state’s EBT card holders.
Just under 10 percent of the letters came back as undeliverable.
Either because 1) they no longer lived at their previous addresses
or 2) they never existed to begin with, except for the purposes of
committing welfare fraud.
It’s got to be one or the other, right? Deval Patrick dismissed it
as mere “leakage.” The DTA told Bump to take a hike.
The DTA called Secretary Galvin’s office the other day and told them
that O’Connell should be hearing something by yesterday. Well, today
is Thursday, and guess what?
When the phone doesn’t ring, Shauna, you’ll know it’s the DTA.
--------------------------------
The Boston Herald
Thursday, May 30, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
Following up on fraud
The Patrick administration assures us the number of dead people who
collected welfare benefits in Massachusetts is actually far smaller
than the more than 1,100 cited in a scathing report by the state
auditor this week.
Now don’t we all feel better!
Yes, in the hours after Auditor Suzanne Bump released her report it
was all about parsing the numbers. But may we humbly suggest that
those who would quibble with the accounting actually sit down and
read the whole report?
Because it isn’t just the zombie-benefits problem.
It’s the individual who claimed to have had his EBT card lost or
stolen — 127 times. It’s the use of a Massachusetts benefits
card in St. Thomas — over a period of four months (surprise, they
happened to be the coldest months of the year in New England). It’s
the double-dipping, and all of the other clear signals of fraud that
DTA missed along the way.
In sum, it’s the utter failure of the overseers of public assistance
programs to do much overseeing.
The Department of Transitional Assistance under interim commissioner
Stacey Monahan is committed to reforms, the administration insists,
spelling out changes already made in response to the auditor’s
findings. But more needs to be done to restore public confidence.
Senate President Therese Murray yesterday said she plans to release
a comprehensive welfare reform bill in the coming weeks. She’s
eyeing the waivers that allow some individuals to collect welfare
seemingly ad infinitum. She hinted at support for putting
photo IDs on EBT cards, to reduce fraud.
Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo understand the politics of
this. It’s important they get the policy right, too.
Calls for reform are hardly an attack on the poor, as some have
argued. Reforms are needed not just to protect taxpayers — but to
protect those individuals who have a *legitimate* need for
government assistance.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 31, 2013
Gov: Put fraud in perspective
Patrick downplays extent of state’s welfare abuse
By Joe Battenfeld and Hillary Chabot
SPRINGFIELD — A testy Gov. Deval Patrick, speaking for the first
time about a scathing audit showing $2.4 million in taxpayer money
going to dead people, defended his embattled administration last
night and questioned whether the abuse was that widespread.
“Wait a minute. Be real careful. Be real careful,” Patrick told the
Herald Truth Squad when asked if he’s downplaying the amount of
fraud. “Nobody in this administration, including me, is minimizing
the seriousness of this.”
But then Patrick proceeded to minimize the findings.
“What I’m asking you to do, and the public and the auditor to do, is
also put it in proper perspective,” Patrick said.
“One instance of someone gaming the system is wrong. But 99.9 plus
percent of it being done the right way is also something that has to
be acknowledged,” Patrick said after addressing graduates at
Springfield Technical Community College.
The governor, who has been at his Berkshires compound most of the
week without even releasing a statement about the audit, defended
his absence from the State House, saying “I’m still in the state.”
Patrick is leaving for Chicago today for a speaking appearance.
State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump’s audit has caused a furor in the
Legislature, with some lawmakers asking for immediate reforms. The
governor’s Health and Human Services Secretary, John Polanowicz, has
said he’s looking into criminal charges against those caught with
improperly getting benefits.
Patrick said he’s open to reform but still has confidence in his
team and the acting head of the Department of Transitional
Assistance, Stacey Monahan, a former executive director of the
Democratic Party.
“She’s got a good plan, she’s working on it and I think the takeaway
is it would do everyone well to remember that 99.9 percent of that
money is spent appropriately,” he said. “We’ve got to track down the
fraction of a percent that’s not.”
Patrick repeatedly questioned whether Bump’s report was accurate,
and asked whether Bump, a former Patrick Cabinet member, is doing a
bad job, replied: “I think it’s too soon to say.” But he said he
wants Bump’s office to produce all the cases cited in the audit, not
just those reviewed by his administration.
“We’ve been given 178 and all but 17 are not a problem so that is
concerning when we look at a report that says some 1,200 cases are
ones where people have been paid benefits that are dead,” he said.
“We want to get to the facts and beyond the sensationalism.
“Obviously it’s an infuriating audit; if even one person is abusing
that’s a serious problem ... but it’s also infuriating that of 178
samples we’ve been given a small fraction are problematic,” he
added.
Patrick’s warning comes as a war of words erupted yesterday between
HHS Secretary Polanowicz and Bump. Polanowicz sent a sharply worded
letter yesterday blasting facts in the report as “false.”
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 31, 2013
Emboldened by audit, House renews efforts
By Matt Stout
House lawmakers are ready to do battle in a closed-door clash with
Senate Democrats after Speaker Robert DeLeo, in the wake of a
scathing audit, demanded action on welfare reform even as senators
continue to insist any overhaul needs to wait.
House Ways and Means chairman Rep. Brian Dempsey (D-Haverhill) is
poised to take up DeLeo’s fight to reform the embattled Department
of Transitional Assistance, including adding photos on EBT cards,
after lawmakers yesterday set a conference committee to hash out the
budget.
The speaker renewed his push for reform this week after Auditor
Suzanne Bump’s report found $18 million in questionable welfare
benefits, including $2.4 million to people who were dead or using
dead people’s Social Security numbers.
But senators pushing Senate President Therese Murray’s plan to
tackle welfare reform in a separate bill are sticking to their guns.
“I don’t think you’ll ever hear someone say we don’t need reform of
this system,” Sen. Jennifer Flanagan (D-Leominster) said. “It needs
a true vetting.”
Federal authorities also are digging into Bump’s audit. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federal food stamps
program, is working with the DTA “to ensure that the program is
administered in full compliance with program rules and regulations,”
a USDA spokesman said.
Meanwhile, Plymouth County District Attorney Tim Cruz said he plans
to keep in contact with auditors for evidence of chargeable fraud.
“This appears to be a concerted effort by individuals to cheat the
system,” Cruz said. “It’s absurd. I’m more than happy to prosecute
as strong as we can people who are stealing public funds.”
Also yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz
disputed some of Bump’s findings, saying a number of cases have been
resolved. Bump stood by her audit, however, saying that the DTA had
been given an opportunity to address the findings before they were
finalized.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 31, 2013
A Boston Herald editorial
Watchdog with bite
The agency that hands out welfare benefits — the one that has failed
so spectacularly in its oversight duties over the past year —
insists it has embarked on a thorough overhaul of its systems,
tightening its screening of applicants, its oversight of
beneficiaries and adopting a series of other recommended reforms.
The state Department of Transitional Assistance, its leaders insist,
is on the case.
They’ll pardon us if that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Foxes
and henhouses come to mind.
But there’s an intriguing proposal floating around Beacon Hill that
deserves serious consideration by the Legislature as it considers
adopting welfare reforms in the coming weeks.
The House of Representatives, in its budget proposal for fiscal
2014, called for appointing a representative of the state inspector
general’s office to an oversight role within DTA. Rep. Shaunna
O’Connell (R-Taunton) floated a similar idea back in February.
House Speaker Robert DeLeo and his team understand the need for
close oversight, but as with all other EBT benefits reforms this one
hit a roadblock in the Senate, which is still compiling a mystery
reform bill behind closed doors.
That roadblock ought to be temporary. The IG himself sees an
important role for third-party oversight of an agency responsible
for distributing $1 billion in taxpayer-funded cash benefits.
“There’s been precedent for that, because we have a similar type of
position at the Department of Transportation,” Inspector General
Glenn Cunha told the State House News Service. “It allows us to
maintain our independence and do what our statutory mandate is, to
prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse.”
The state auditor’s office, of course, plays a critical role here.
The bombshell report released this week by Auditor Suzanne Bump has
surely helped prod the Patrick administration toward overdue
changes.
But an audit of DTA’s systems and controls reveals waste, fraud and
abuse after it has happened. Embedding a representative of the
inspector general’s office within DTA might help ensure it never
happens in the first place.
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