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Friday, October 23, 2009
Ind. Gov't. - "Welfare officials to reveal post-IBM process"
Mary Beth Schneider reports in the Indianapolis Star:
The State Budget Committee, a bipartisan panel of state representatives and senators, will hear more this morning on how the state's welfare system will work now that Gov. Mitch Daniels has canceled a $1.34 billion contract with IBM.Anne Murphy, secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, is to testify before the committee, which also includes State Budget Director Chris Ruhl, at the meeting that begins at 9:45 a.m. at Indiana University in Bloomington. * * *
he continued complaints from the public and legislators about long delays, erroneous rejections, lost paperwork and other issues prompted Daniels on Oct. 15 to cancel the contract with IBM.
But the state is continuing to work with Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas, which had been a subcontractor to IBM. Daniels has said the state will now have a "hybrid" welfare delivery system. The state will use ACS employees -- many of them former FSSA caseworkers who were transferred to the private sector when the IBM contract was signed -- to take the initial applications for food stamps, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. But instead of being pushed to apply via computer or phone, which has proved unworkable for many, those applications will be taken as they were in the past, in person in a county office.
Murphy is expected to face questions today from legislators who want more details on how the new system will work, and also on how much the modernization effort has cost the state.
Lawmakers also are expected to raise concerns about the continued involvement of ACS. The man who was in charge of FSSA at the time the contract with IBM and ACS was negotiated was Mitch Roob, a former ACS executive who now is head of the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 23, 2009 09:27 AM
Posted to Indiana Government