- Texas hit with fine for food stamp errors, By Corrie MacLaggan, June 28, 2010, Austin American-Statesman: “Federal officials have fined Texas $3.96 million for errors in issuing food stamp benefits, according to a letter to House Speaker Joe Straus. The penalty is for a high rate of overpayments or underpayments two years in a row, said the letter from U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon. Among the four states hit with penalties, Texas was fined the most. Also fined were Indiana ($1.2 million), Maryland ($742,238) and Iowa ($205,730), federal officials said. Texas plans to appeal, said Geoff Wool, a spokesman for the state Health and Human Services Commission. He said the commission learned of the fine on Friday. Wool said Texas’ appeal will focus on the fact that the number of food stamp recipients in Texas spiked after Hurricane Ike in 2008, increasing 26 percent in the year that followed…”
- U.S. fines Texas $4 million for botching food-stamp claims, By Robert t. Garrett, June 29, 2010, Dallas Morning News: “Federal food stamp officials have fined Texas nearly $4 million for making too many errors in calculating people’s monthly benefits. U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Kevin Concannon notified state officials late last week, offering to waive half of the $3.96 million fine if Texas would use the money to improve administration of the program. But Texas Health and Human Services Commission spokesman Geoff Wool said Monday that the state will appeal. A penalty is unfair because hurricanes and the recession overwhelmed the state workers who process food stamp requests, Wool said. Texas either overpaid or underpaid on food stamp benefits 6.9 percent of the time in fiscal 2009, according to the federal Food and Nutrition Service. In Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth, the most error-prone regions, the state miscalculated benefits more than 10 percent of the time. Among all states, only Indiana and Maryland performed more poorly. Both had payment error rates of just over 7.1 percent last year, while the national rate was 4.36 percent, ‘the lowest rate in the history of the program,’ the service proclaimed…”
Month: June 2010
State Budgets and Medicaid
- Congress blasts Medicaid hole in states’ budgets, By Tami Luhby, June 28, 2010, CNNMoney.com: “Young children in Massachusetts will lose state-funded mental health services. Welfare recipients will see their employment and training programs slashed. And homeless families will lose nearly all their state assistance to move into more permanent housing. Massachusetts lawmakers had to make these and other difficult cuts last week after discovering they had to slash another nearly $700 million out of the state budget. The Bay State had assumed Congress would pass $24 billion in additional Medicaid funding for states before their fiscal years start on July 1. But that money hasn’t materialized. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., effectively killed the bill last week after deficit-wary Republicans blocked it for a third time. So officials in Massachusetts and 29 other states that counted on the funds to balance their budgets are left with the task of slashing services and payrolls once again…”
- No Medicaid money as new fiscal year draws near, By John Gramlich, June 28, 2010, Stateline.org: “A new fiscal year is set to begin, and at least 22 states are counting on federal Medicaid money that has yet to materialize. A congressional proposal to approve more Medicaid funding – which was originally part of the stimulus package and is set to expire at the end of 2010, halfway through the fiscal year that begins in most states on Thursday (July 1) – ran into Republican opposition in the Senate last week. The provision was part of a larger package that included an extension of unemployment insurance for jobless Americans. Republicans argue that the programs are worthwhile, but that the government must curtail spending…”
Gulf Oil Spill and Low-Wage Workers
Don’t ignore low-income spill victims, advocates urge BP, By Deborah Barfield Berry, June 26, 2010, USA Today: “Vicky Townley is waiting to hear whether BP will compensate her for tip income she says she’s lost because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. ‘Things are so slow we’re basically living from paycheck to paycheck, which is not very much,’ said Townley, a bartender in Gulf Shores, Ala., who filed her lost-wages claim three weeks ago. Before the spill, she said, she earned $60 a day in tips during the summer months, which helped in the long slog to rebound from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. ‘Things were just starting to pick up,’ she said. ‘Then the recession, then the oil. What next?’ Gulf Coast groups representing low-income workers say they want to make sure BP’s claims process doesn’t overlook workers like Townley in the rush to compensate fishermen and other high-priority spill victims…”