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Friday, April 03, 2009

Ind. Gov't. - Yet more on: Issues continue with state's new welfare eligibility system

Updating this ILB entry from Jan. 19th, quoting a report from the Evansville Courier & Press that began:

Although the governor of her own party did not want her to, state Rep. Suzanne Crouch has gone ahead with her plan to introduce a bill to halt temporarily the expansion of Indiana's new welfare eligibility program.

Crouch, a Republican from Evansville, last week filed House Bill 1691 to pause the administration's welfare modernization process from expanding to the 33 remaining counties it has not yet reached.

Today Eric Bradner of the C&P reports:
INDIANAPOLIS — In another effort to halt the state welfare agency's roll-out of its troubled modernized eligibility system, the Indiana House passed a second bill this morning to bring the Family and Social Services Administration before a legislative oversight panel.

The FSSA has voluntarily paused the roll-out until it can fix the problems in-house, but Secretary Anne Murphy says requiring lawmakers' approval would only slow down progress.

But the FSSA hasn't provided any updates on what they're doing to correct the roll-out issues. Southwest Indiana legislators swamped with constituent complaints are demanding more openness from the agency.

Although two Evansville Republicans -- Sen. Vaneta Becker and Rep. Suzanne Crouch -- are spearheading the legislation, their first effort cleared the Democratic-controlled House but hit a wall in the Republican-controlled Senate.

This time, they've amended the legislation into an unrelated bill that deals with the Department of Child Services. The theory: The child services legislation is too important for Republicans to vote against, even with the FSSA language added.

The House and Senate will meet in conference committee to negotiate final changes to the bill. Crouch and Becker hope the language bringing the FSSA in front of the Select Joint Committee on Medicaid Oversight to discuss how it's improving its modernization efforts can survive those negotiations.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 3, 2009 09:32 AM
Posted to Indiana Government