Friday, July 07, 2006

Posting

Sorry for not being around....work has been, well- crazy- and I've worked late everyday- by the time I get home, I'm beat.

The speeding implosion of local offices continues to spiral down faster than we thought it would. Just a month ago, we were still holding on and "ok". Now? We have stacks and stacks of applications that need to be scheduled, and more coming in faster than we can take them. What is also happening are workers are so stressed and overburdened that they just call in sick sporadically. Usually this happens when they are scheduled a full load for that day- and everyone else is to. So you know what happens to those applications? Well, they can't be worked in because there is nowhere to put them. So they go back to that worker to deal with when they come back to work. Meanwhile, clients are calling wanting to know why they haven't been called for their appointments. Front line staff are the ones bearing the brunt of the frustration that clients have. I don't blame the clients at all. I mean, at this point they are waiting anywhere from 3-4 weeks to get an appointment, and then no one is there to see them? It just goes round and round and makes it worse and worse. With or without a permanent placement in the "new system" virtually employees are seeking work somewhere else. What will become of our offices if we lose another 50% of the staff we have left? 75%?

Changes aren't being entered timely, or worked timely. Timeliness is falling off the charts in every area of what we do. Yet, we still will get emails from 'those up above' telling us that the problem with timeliness is not acceptable and something must be done. But what, exactly- can be done?

What the public has to realize is that the worse the system gets in Texas, the more likely Texas will be sanctioned by the Feds. Sanctions not only mean loss of funding from FNS, but it also means fines to be paid TO FNS. I'm talking MILLIONS of dollars that the State of Texas will have to pay out of their funds for this mass chaos occuring.

How bad will this get? I can totally see this fiasco being another reason to bring a State Income Tax to Texans.

Rumor also has it that HHSC is not being completely cooperative with records requests that have been made by the Comptroller's office. Rather than full disclosure, it's been said that pieces are sent, little by little. Could it be that the Powers that Be are hoping that nothing comes of the audit until AFTER the elections in the Fall?

THE SYSTEM IS IMPLODING. THE POOR IN TEXAS ARE BEARING THE BRUNT OF THIS COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAILURE. THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAVE SERVED THE STATE OF TEXAS FOR MANY MANY YEARS ARE BEARING THE BRUNT OF THIS FAILURE. FAMILIES ARE GOING WITHOUT ADEQUATE FOOD AND MEDICAL HELP. FAMILIES ARE UNABLE TO PAY THEIR RENT AND UTILITIES.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could be talking about our office...Any office for that matter. Workers are getting to the point where they can't (or don't) care anymore. Something's gotta give, either client services, stats, or sanity....My boss suggested I take a couple days off the other day. She said she got a call that I was rude to a client, probably the third one she has had on me in 9 years. I told her I wasn't rude, just told the client the honest the God's truth..."I don't have time to check on it right now. I'm interviewing, and I have over a hundred cases on my computer, and to look for some info for you would take too much time. If you brought it in, I should have it in the folder, and will work it as soon as possible. Give me your number, and I'll try to give you a call, but I can't promise anything." My boss said I shouldn't tell clients this, but had nothing in response to what I SHOULD tell them. A year ago I never would have thought to repond to a client like that, but I have always been honest with them, and I am letting them know the situation, even though we are supposed to be "hush hush" about the problems. Maybe the clients themselves need to start voicing their opinions. It doesn't seem like the powers that be care about what we as workers say. Somethings gotta give somewhere.

Anonymous said...

Well, all in all it is bad, even more so when you lose your supervisor and the new one doesn't understand or care why the lead times are bad or why you have over 170 cases to work and 1010's continuing to pour in.

Anonymous said...

I just took a week's vacation. I had to!! Came back to crap. I am tired, don't want to be back and am dreading starting another week tomorrow (Monday).
By the way, we lost our supervisor also. She was good too. They lost another good one...
I don't even know what the plan is at this point. She had 3 offices to supervise.
Our powers that be are retired and have returned. They don't understand what we are going through because I don't think either have ever worked a case. HHSC needs to make a plan. Do we just continue at this pace until another legislative session and pray something happens?
Where is my piddly bonus anyway?

Anonymous said...

This whole consolidation fiasco was to give contracts to friends of Rick Perry.
(kinda like his vaccination proposal he tried to sneak through for one of his supporters).
I heard some inside information that building leases were also give to friends of Perry and not to the best offers. The Texas Building Procurment Commission is obviously in Perry's back pocket.
Greg Phillips(HHSC commissioner for about 2 months?) is a failure and never should have been hired, thank God we were able to raise enough hell about that!
Do I need to even mention Albert Hawkins? He has been an embarassment in the recent questioning he is either out of the loop or just a dipshit...looks like they have their scapgoat all set up. If Hawkins had any balls he would take down Perry and maybe survive politically.

A while back we had the acting RD come in and give us shit about our attendance
(at the request of our inexperienced, vidicitve bitch of a program manager).
I got the floor and proceeded to tell her that if she wasn't willing to start getting us more staff and start sticking up for us the employees she might as will retire. I explained the many problems and lack of resources...as well as many other issues.
I got a PIP (performance improvement plan) for my efforts because I was aggressive. HMMM...strange... when I got the floor I was interrupted by my idiot PM about 5 times.

You know whats gonna happen...Perry will stroll in and throw some money at the problem and claim to be the savior of HHSC and all of Texas Health and Human Services...yeah right...CPS is still waiting for the promised 2500 new workers!

*Too many ignorant state office people writing policy for programs they know nothing about.
*Too many supervisors that have never worked a case or haven't for 20 years. *Too many people playing politics when that should be demanding change.
*Too many over worked caseworkers having to resort to short cuts or re-certifying cases without interviews...

Governor Perry is a criminal as are all the private companies he has brought in (Deliotte, Accenture, Maximus).

Before anyone thinks this is just liberal political rant, you are dead wrong! I am ashamed to say that I voted for him!

well, I feel a little better now...thanks for listening to my rant