new timeliness nightmare.....changes

Now that local offices in Region 7 are responsible for their own SAVERR *and* TIERS cases, one thing that was left was changes.  Local offices were told that CCC (Customer Care Center) would still handle TIERS changes on cases.  Wonderful!  No way could local offices do that TOO, right?   Wrong.   See, what happens is client is in TIERS.  Cl has a loss of income, for example, and calls 2-1-1 to report this.  A task is generated and assigned to the CCC portal for completion.   a month goes by- nothing.   2 months go by- nothing.   Finally, client calls local office in frustration, and guess who then has to complete the change?  THE LOCAL OFFICE.    This also usually generates supplements on the case.  Not for just one month either, mind you.    Supplements, because of the inefficiency of TIERS- can sometimes be erroneously generated, therefore all cases that have any kind of "extra" benefits they are entitled to for a previous month, must be caseread first.  Oh but wait!  Not just caseread.  But approved through a process called a "second level review" which has to be done by a Program Manager (in some areas).    If the second level doesn't get done the same day as submitted, the worker has to go in again the NEXT day and request it AGAIN.   Then, and ONLY then can a supplement be done.   CCC is not to blame, they are stacked unbelieveably with changes from across the state.   Who loses?    The client.   And the local office.   Why the local office?   Because we usually don't hear about the problem until it's a HUGE problem, meaning someone has to stop doing interviews or their own work to work this change because it MUST BE DONE NOW.   A change that, while local offices would be overburdened if they had to take them all, could have been worked before 2 months later had we known about the problem TO BEGIN WITH.   This post done through Yahoo! Mail. You can email me at hhscemployee@yahoo.com. Please know all emails are kept confidential, and your identity will never be disclosed.

Tenured Staff

Long time, no post.  Sorry about that.   I don't have an article this evening, but more of a rant/shout out.   You know, back in 2005 when the "jsap" thing happened, alot of people left the agency.  I don't blame them either, because you have to do what you have to do.   However, there are alot of us that did not leave.  We stuck it out.  Some of us stuck it out for personal reasons that had nothing to do with the "mission" of the agency.  Some were too close to retirement to jump ship.  Some of us actually enjoyed working for the agency and believed in what we did.  So we stayed.   In doing so, many "tenured" staff were put in a horrible position.  Being tenured, and being one of the few in some offices that were tenured (I'm talking 5+ years here)- we took on a lot of work.  We did more because we could.  We knew policy, we were fast and could get the job done.  However, as almost 3 years have passed- tenured staff are still bearing the brunt.  Unreasonable expectations.  Do it all.  Do it right now.  Do it timely.   QC was discussed at one point, and the error rate among those who are "tenured" has risen.  Is it any wonder?  It's not that those staff don't care, it's just that in a mess like the one the offices are STILL in, it's quantity over quality.  Do more.  Just get it done.  Don't care how tired you are.  Don't care if you are burnt out.  Oh look!  Here's some trainees that have a fast track in training- help them too.   Throw TIERS in the mix and it's a literal nightmare.  If you happen to be in an office that is now taking on their own TIERS cases in addition to the SAVERR cases, and are TIERS trained, you are getting SLAMMED.  I know.  I've seen it, know workers in lots of offices and they are seeing/feeling it too.   What is the solution?  Unfortunately, with the jsap mess that started this, offices are in a quandry.  On paper, they might be staffed or almost fully staffed.  However, when most of the "new" people are barely trained, then you have a problem.  How fast or slow do you schedule new people?  Throw them in there?  That's dangerous.  You not only risk QC errors and cases being worked correctly, but you also risk burning out new people early on before they have THEMSELVES invested in the job.  They leave.  Then the cycle starts all over again.    What are the priorities?  Getting clients taken care of?  Doing reports?  Doing "busywork" that really has nothing to do with the business at hand?  Either upper management wants cases worked, or they want reports done (for example).  Which?  Surely "upper management" does NOT EXPECT staff to work until 9 or 10 each night?  That's the new fear among staff.  That while overtime is allowed, it's also becoming expected.  And if you do work overtime, chances are you are having to take time to document every case you touch after 5:00.  You have to justify your work now.  There is no more "honor system" because too many people abused the overtime and the pay from it, and now EVERYONE gets to pay for that.  I know one worker in a HUGE office that said it takes her close to 2 hours per week to do the logs for overtime each week.  TWO HOURS.  That's how many CASES that didn't get done?  Sometimes, that's ONE TIERS case.    My point is that someone somewhere needs to realize something- the last thing "the powers that be" should want is to burn out the very staff that have stuck it out.  Forget that their employees are also moms, dads, husbands, wives, and caregivers.  We have families too.  We have obligations outside of work as well.  This is a JOB.  Not a "life" for us.  I certainly don't live and breathe the Food Stamp office.  It's a JOB.  I will certainly do my best and not ever change my work ethic.  But I know that I, along with many of those just like me in the field, am not willing to sacrifice my family and my personal obligations for a JOB.    I'm sure someone reading will likely tell me to just quit the job then and go somewhere else.  And it's a valid reaction.  However, I believe in what I do everyday.  I'm not there just to pass the time each day.  I've invested many YEARS into this agency and have always produced top notch work.  I have the stats to prove it.  I've always done over and above what is expected of me.  The LEAST TPTB could do it recognize that and adjust accordingly.  Supervisors are strapped.  Worker IV's are strapped.  PM's are strapped.     Does everyone realize who really pays for this?  Aside from our co-workers?  The clients do.  The taxpayers do.  The food banks do.  Other social service agencies do.    We are not super-humans.  We are people who work at an agency designed to help people.  That's what we do.  All the field staff want is someone to take away some of the fluff until we can get back on our feet.  Seriously.  That's it.  Don't give me a certificate.  Don't even bother giving me performance leave.  It's not even like anyone can take off.  Taking 1-2 days off just throws workers further behind.  Take away something that, in the big scheme of things, doesn't have any affect on client services.  Let me do what I was hired to do.  Interview clients, and help them.  Finish cases.  Complete them correctly.    I'm a caseworker.  It's what I do. 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State, Accenture still haggling over money after privatization bid fell apart (my comments in red)

Contract canceled a year ago, but talks continue State, Accenture still haggling over money after privatization bid fell apart By Corrie MacLaggan AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Sunday, May 18, 2008   More than a year after Texas canceled a deal with Accenture LLP worth hundreds of millions of dollars to run call centers enrolling people in public assistance, the breakup is still not final.   Yes, and guess who is paying for this screw-up?  The clients, and the employees in the field.   "It's a complex contract with lots of moving parts," said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission. "I don't expect anything soon."   Of course not!  The wheels of "justice" turn slow, don't they?   Since Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins announced the end of the Accenture deal in March 2007, the divorcelike process has involved negotiating over money and assets tied to what started as a five-year, $899 million deal. Texas has paid Accenture nearly $243 million, Goodman said.   $243 MILLION TAX PAYER DOLLARS!  Insanity!   As Hawkins disentangles his agency from the privatization attempt, he's moving forward with plans to hire a different company to run the call centers when he gets federal approval.   It took months of negotiations before the state agreed in September to pay Accenture $25.8 million for thousands of items from computers and software to office furniture and phones, according to a state report. And nine of the 10 office leases related to the contract have been transferred to the state, Goodman said.   Still under negotiation: money, she said.   Accenture spokesman Peter Soh said there is no particular sticking point.   "We knew this was going to take some time, and we are just working through the unwinding process," Soh said.   Goodman said there's no legal obligation to finish the negotiations by a certain date. "There are basically two options," she said. "We reach an agreement, or we go to court."   Of course there is no "date".  Nevermind, that there is a legal obligation to finish a case by a certain DATE...but hey!  What's a "date"?  Those due dates never mattered, so why should this?   Goodman said she can't discuss details of the negotiations because they're related to potential litigation. But she said the talks include what to do about $30 million the state has sought from Accenture since December 2006.   Accenture didn't take the contract to pay US any money- they only wanted to be PAID no matter how screwed up it all was.  I bet if a client owed the state money, they'd get it.   That's when the contract was scaled back to $543 million, with the state taking over some tasks originally assigned to the contractor.   Yes, the STATE took back the work we had always DONE and did WELL.  So with a reduced workforce, we now have all that work BACK.  (Yes, the State is hiring, but when you have an office that's 80% NEW and it takes 2-3 months to even get new workers TRAINED, then guess who the burden falls on?)   State officials said Accenture would pay Texas the money to compensate for unexpected costs such as sending state employees to help call center employees with policy questions.   But the state and Accenture never agreed to final terms of the revamped deal, and the contract was soon canceled.   When Hawkins announced on March 13, 2007, that the state and Accenture had agreed to part ways, he said the final transition of services would take place by Nov. 1, 2007.   Although that happened ahead of schedule — enrollment work is now done by state employees and former Accenture subcontractor Maximus Inc. — the legal separation continues.   "They made it sound like it was going to be a quick and neat exercise," said Celia Hagert of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for low- and middle-income Texans. "It could drag on so long, we could have forgotten about what happened and who owes who what."   Goodman said it took the state and Accenture nine months to create the contract after Texas received bids for the project.   About 3.7 million Texans receive public assistance.   The state hired the Texas Access Alliance — led by Accenture — to run call centers to enroll Texans in programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. Much of that work had been done by state employees; the ambitious privatization effort was supposed to save the state money and give applicants the option of signing up by phone or online instead of only in person.   But the project hit problems — such as applicants receiving letters asking them to send information they'd already sent and eligible people losing benefits — and the savings never materialized.   And the beauty of that was, in "the old days"- if a WORKER in a local office had done that kind of SHODDY work, and people were losing benefits, I'm pretty sure that worker would have been terminated.  But see, when "the contractor" made errors, there was no FACE for the client to go back to and question.  They'd call and call and call and call, talking to different people- when had this been a local worker, it could have been resolved much quicker.  The State lost control over client services, never hearing of a problem the client was having until it had escalated to a point that it was "serious".   Unraveling a contract of this size is largely uncharted territory for the agency, said state Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, co-chairman of the joint House-Senate panel overseeing the health and human services eligibility system.   "I don't know what we really have to compare it to," he said. "We do want to make sure that the state, the taxpayers get everything they're entitled to as the contract is wound down."   Meanwhile, Accenture and Maximus are engaged in arbitration to resolve a dispute over the Texas deal. Maximus, which claims Accenture failed to deliver required technology and made unfounded assertions about Maximus' work on the Children's Health Insurance Program, is seeking more than $100 million from Accenture, according a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.   Accenture disputes the claims and is seeking unspecified damages from Maximus.   As Texas officials look toward hiring a new company, their approach draws on lessons learned from the Accenture deal about what work is best to assign to contractors, Goodman said.   Wow.  The State is going to try this again.  To the tune of how much money THIS time?   Under the new deal, contractors will scan documents, for example, but state workers will decide who is qualified to receive benefits, she said.   Wow.  We are paying out all this money- taxpayer money- for someone to SCAN documents?  But state workers have been the ones to decide eligibility from DAY ONE.  It's FEDERAL POLICY.  The state workers are the ones with the policy knowledge to do that.    "We do think this will be different," she said.   We can only hope so.   cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548 This post done through Yahoo! 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Article

Check out this article from the Dallas Morning News.

 

I'll try to comment on it tomorrow.

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Have you heard?

Region 7 will be doing all their own TIERS cases locally effective Monday.  So for all offices in Region 7 except Austin, good luck in figuring out how to have a SAVERR schedule, a TIERS schedule, and have your workers try and do both.

 

Many offices think they are ready, however word is that many really aren't.  New users aren't familiar enough with TIERS to be able to handle the workload.  Take them away from SAVERR cases, and then THAT caseload gets delinquent- quickly.

 

If anyone is reading from Region 7, please check in and leave a comment on how it's going in your office next week.  At least rumor is that ART is keeping everything through today.

 

Good luck fellow workers!  It's going to be rough!  Hang in there!

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Check this blogger out!

Bluebonnet Blog has a take on the Statesman Article

 

 

 

 

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Media

Media attention is up again, so you must have your voices HEARD!

 

Does anyone out there have a contact AT ALL at FNS?

 

Isn't it true that FNS has forbidden Hawkins, Co from "rolling out" TIERS?  Then why are there rumors that TIERS is about to expand and start handling CHIP cases?  We all know what that means.

 

How many of you "non-pilot" offices have lost a worker(s) to help Pilot area or ART?

 

Who's helping you?

 

 

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Read this, go there, and get in on the action in the comments section! BE HEARD!!!!!!

Privatization failure is taxpayers' burden

Go HERE to comment!

 

By The Editorial Board | Tuesday, March 25, 2008, 05:04 PM

 

Because of an effort five years ago to run part of state government more like a business, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission is struggling to provide food and medical services to some of the state's poorest people. It's a disaster that ought to be remembered every time a legislator or lobbyist starts babbling that "privatization" of this or that state service will boost efficiency, lower costs to taxpayers and cure all fraud and waste.

 

As the American-Statesman's Corrie MacLaggan outlined in a Sunday story, the commission's staff of about 6,500 workers — down from about 10,400 in 1998 despite the state's population growth — who determine the eligibility of applicants for aid is heavily overworked and increasingly inexperienced. Since September, the commission has hired 1,010 workers, even as 733, including veterans who know the system, quit.

 

These employees process applications for food stamps and Medicaid for about 3.7 million people. To do so, they must master both the rules for qualifying and the computer systems to track applicants. Because of the staff's workload and inexperience, many applicants are having to wait too long for help.

 

Those tempted to shrug off the departures as "good-bye, good riddance" should understand that such turnover hits taxpayers in the pocketbook. It costs $7,500 to train an eligibility worker, so when one leaves, the investment in training is not only lost, more must be spent for the next worker.

 

Not surprisingly, part of the problem is pay. Starting workers make $26,000. The agency is trying to attract and keep more eligibility workers with raises averaging 5 percent and faster promotions, which also bring raises. And to reduce the workload, the agency is adding 600 employees.

 

The agency, though, really is engaged in damage control. The damage was inflicted by the Legislature, which for years slashed away at the ranks of the eligibility workers and, in 2003, ordered the commission to consider farming out its work to a private company. The theory was that a profit-seeking company would do a better of job wringing out inefficiencies than any state bureaucracy. And Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins decided to try.

 

An $899 million contract was signed with a business alliance led by a major consulting company, Accenture. Hundreds of state eligibility workers were told to prepare to lose their jobs; some did and others began leaving rather than wait. To make a long story short, the experiment failed. In fact, it failed so badly that the state and Accenture agreed to end the contract last spring, and the Legislature later made provisions to try to salvage the state's eligibility work force.

 

You can argue that the privatization theory is correct but, in this case, was badly carried out; or that the theory is wrong and no amount of competence could have saved it; or that the theory is wrong and it was incompetently carried out.

 

What's not debatable is that this attempt to run state government more like a business failed. And the price for that failure is being paid by taxpayers, the state workers and poor people who truly need the help.

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Austin American Statesman Article

Texas struggles to retain caseworkers

Pay raises, faster promotions aim to combat rapid turnover.

By Corrie MacLaggan
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, March 23, 2008

 

First thing Thursday morning, a dozen new state caseworkers arrived at a North Austin office building for a training class on enrolling Texans in the food stamp and Medicaid programs. Just a couple of months into their jobs, one after another said they're excited about helping people and confident they can handle the work. But if history is any guide, eight of them will be gone by fall.

 

Employees overwhelmed by their workload are leaving the Health and Human Services Commission in droves. With fewer experienced workers on staff, applications are piling up, and the state is failing to handle them as quickly as required by the federal government. Since September, Texas has hired 1,010 employees known as eligibility workers; 733 resigned in the same period.

Bret Gerbe/FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN (enlarge photo) Krystle Carr of Austin trains on the computer system known as TIERS. Complications with that system have been blamed for part of the state Health and Human Services Department's backlog of food stamp and Medicaid applications. (enlarge photo) Jennifer DeLuna (enlarge photo) Doug Bell (enlarge photo) Mohammed Ali MORE ON THIS STORY Health and Human Services employees talk about the heavy workload and burnout

 

"Right now, there's a very vicious cycle," said Mike Gross, vice president of the Texas State Employees Union. "New hires barely replace the people who are leaving, they're trained thinly, they're thrown into the work, the work is demoralizing because the workloads are so high ... and they leave."

 

The problems have plagued the agency for years and can be traced in large part to 2003 state budget cuts and a decision to hire a private contractor to enroll Texans in public benefits, a partnership that didn't work out.

 

In recent months, the problems have spiraled, and last month, Texas was forced by the federal agency that oversees food stamps to come up with a plan to correct poor performance. The state announced it will raise entry-level salaries (which now average $26,000), give current workers raises and promote workers more quickly.

 

Texas officials hope to attract more workers — and retain current employees — with the plan. Most of the raises are 5 percent, but the new promotion schedule means workers could see a larger raise than that within months.

 

Texas' 6,500 eligibility workers are especially struggling to quickly handle the 12 percent of cases that are in a controversial new computer system known as TIERS. This month, federal officials warned Texas that TIERS use should not be expanded as the state had planned.

 

Slightly fewer than half of Texas food stamp applications processed in December using TIERS were completed within the 30 days required by the federal government.

 

"It's been hard to get ahead," said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission.

 

Such delays mean that some of the 3.7 million Texans on public assistance are struggling to make ends meet and straining resources of nonprofit organizations, according to local groups.

 

Austinite Doug Bell, who started as an eligibility worker in January, got a sense of the work ahead of him when, between training sessions, he was assigned to answer the phone at a South Austin office on Eberhart Lane.

 

"People were calling who had applied in November or December, saying, 'We still haven't gotten our benefits,' " said Bell, who attended a Medicaid training class Thursday. "Some of these people really needed it bad. They had medical issues; they needed food."

 

The stress of having applications piling up drove El Pasoan Sandra Blanco to quit her job this month. The 15-year veteran took another state job, saying the new raises weren't enough to keep her in a position where there were not enough hours in the day to do her work.

 

"It's just been horrible," Blanco said during one of her final days on the job. "I felt I was being forced out the door because I just couldn't handle the work anymore."

Blanco said she had never had problems completing cases on time, but as she was assigned more work, she recently slipped to the lowest rate of on-time application processing of her career.

 

Meanwhile, the state is replacing workers who leave and adding 600 more employees, spending $7,500 per worker to train them, Goodman said. That cost includes the worker's salary and the trainer's salary but not travel costs for employees who go to other towns for training.

 

At the Eberhart Lane office, about two-thirds of the 60 workers arrived in the past year, said program manager Susan Lozano.

 

So with three years' experience, caseworker Jennifer DeLuna is considered a veteran. Like her colleagues, she stays late many evenings, but she said she thrives on helping people and the workload doesn't get to her.

 

"Some people are overwhelmed here," said DeLuna, who meets with a different client about every 30 minutes in person or by phone. "I guess I'm good at multitasking."

 

But her colleague Mohammed Ali, an aspiring politician who said he likes having a job that's considered admirable, said he's thought of quitting many times. He said he's seen his workload triple in his year and a half on the job. Colleagues regularly call in sick because they can't handle the stress, he said, leaving more cases for those who show up.

 

Like many eligibility workers, he often works overtime, putting in an extra 12 to 15 hours a week, he said. Nearly 400 eligibility workers took home at least $10,000 last year in overtime pay — and some earned much more — according to records from the commission. The state spent $18.2 million on overtime last year for eligibility workers, who make up 68 percent of the commission's employees but 99 percent of its overtime spending, Goodman said.

 

Part of the problem, said Judy Lugo, a supervisor in Blanco's former office in El Paso, is that the state is pulling hundreds of employees to work on cases in TIERS, which stands for Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System, leaving the rest of the workers to handle the majority of cases still in the old system.

 

Employees "are on the verge of a nervous breakdown," said Lugo, who is also president of the employee union. "I find them in their offices in tears."

Goodman acknowledged that transferring workers to TIERS cases "is a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul."

 

"No one thinks this is a perfect solution," she said, "but TIERS cases are growing faster" than those in the old system.

 

That growth is mostly because the state has added a women's health program to TIERS, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins told William Ludwig of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a letter. And, though there is no set timeline, Texas does plan to roll out TIERS to the entire state.

 

But Ludwig, whose agency oversees the food stamp program, cautioned Hawkins: "We are not convinced that a continued roll-out of TIERS is warranted unless accompanied by strong measures to improve timeliness and ensure customer service."

 

Some of the agency's staffing problems date to fall 2005, when Hawkins informed 2,900 eligibility workers that they would not have a job after the start of a privatization plan. The agency hired Accenture LLP to run call centers to enroll Texans in benefits. After a troubled pilot program in Central Texas in 2006, the state parted ways with Accenture and canceled layoff plans. But hundreds of state employees had already left.

 

Texas is in the early stages of selecting another private company to run call centers, though the new plan leaves more decision-making in the hands of state workers. Delays in food stamps have strained the resources of organizations such as Caritas, which provides rent, utilities and food in times of crisis, said Jo Kathryn Quinn, director of self sufficiency services.

 

"These families are utilizing our food pantry as a primary food source, and it's certainly not intended to be that way," she said.

 

After Bell, one of the new eligibility workers, spent time talking to such families by phone and watching others file in and out of caseworkers' offices, he said the chaotic situation didn't seem fair to clients or workers. "I don't know how they cope with it," he said of employees.

 

But when asked whether he'll be able to do it, Bell — who said he's "been very blessed" and wants to help make life easier for people in need — responded confidently: "I think so."

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TIERS mentioned in another BLOG

Off the Kuff talks some about TIERS......AMEN!

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All Staff Meetings

Have any of you been to the "All Staff Meeting" that are being done around the state with Anne and company?

 

Feedback?

 

Was it a waste of time?  Did you learn anything new?  Anything to share?

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Misc

Wow, here's a BLAST FROM THE PAST......too bad those days are LONG GONE.

 

 

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Raise? woohoo?

http://capitolannex.com/2008/02/21/tiers-system-failing-texas-families/

 

 

You know, we all got an email the other day about "raises" that we will be getting this summer.

 

Woohoo!  That 5% is a start, but you know, it's not going to "solve" the problem like HHSC is hoping it will.  You can pay someone more money, but if it doesn't reduce the workload and expectations (BE TIMELY BY GOD OR YOU GET COACHED, never mind that you are having to do the work of 2-3 because TIERS?  Takes a WHOLE lot longer to work a case than the "old world" system, SAVERR) then the raise won't help.  I realize that the state is trying to hire and get new workers trained.  I get that.  I also know that to be a GOOD worker, it takes about a YEAR of doing cases to get really comfortable with all the ins and outs of the system.  So if you have an office where 80% of the workers have 2 years or less of tenure, then you aren't able to produce like we did back in the day when ALL our workers were fairly tenured (5+ years). 

 

Not to mention that caseloads are INCREASING while all this is going on. 

 

 

You can throw money at this all day, and it's not going to change the fact that TIERS is still around, and cases are being backdoored into the system EVERY DAY.  We do NOT have enough workers out there to handle the influx of cases into the TIERS system statewide. 

 

I cannot express enough how much the clients HATE this program.  Those not in Austin or Round Rock that are in TIERS are interviewed by someone from anywhere in the state.  No local worker to talk to, no local worker to hand information to.  They can't even get a worker's number from 2-1-1 if they forget to ask for it during an interview.

 

I feel sorry for the workers in ART (Assistance Response Team- the workers who are TIERS training statewide that handle the cases that aren't in the pilot area).  These workers are stacked UP everyday, and every single case they touch is delinquent when they get it.  By the time they get to do an interview, the client is BEYOND frustrated and all that anger is taken out on the worker.  In the "old days", a client had a local worker and things were handled on a LOCAL level.  You just cannot outsource or privatize the benefit that comes from local people handling a case for a local client.  You just CANNOT. 

 

So for all my fellow HHSC employees- I hope the raise helps a little. 

 

Especially when you are having to work late in the evenings and on weekends to just stay caught up.

 

I KNOW how hard it is.  I do. 

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Texans Waiting Longer for FOOD STAMPS

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/politics/entries/2008/02/19/texans_waiting_longer_for_food.html

Texans waiting longer for food stamps

By Corrie MacLaggan | Tuesday, February 19, 2008, 12:57 PM

 

To Texans applying for food stamps, it may not seem to matter whether their application goes through the state's old computer enrollment system or the newer one.

 

But new state data show that fewer than half of Texas food stamp applications processed using the updated computer system, known as TIERS, are completed within the 30 days required by the federal government. TIERS average of 48 percent of applications within 30 days is significantly lower than the 90 percent under the old system, SAVERR.

 

That 48 percent — which is from December, the last month available — represents a steady decline from last summer. The federal standard is 95 percent. See page 26 of this report.

 

Timeliness is also an issue for Medicaid applications.

 

"If we are that abysmally low on meeting federal timeliness requirements," State Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, told state health officials during a Capitol hearing today, "it makes sense to figure out what those kinks are before we begin to expand (TIERS) further."

 

But TIERS expansion is already under way. About 350,000 cases for programs such as food stamps and Medicaid are in TIERS, compared to about 150,000 a year ago, Rose said.

High staff turnover is one of the main reasons for the backlogged applications, state officials said. Attrition of employees who enroll Texans in food stamps and Medicaid has tripled since 2003, state officials said.

 

The Health and Human Services Commission today announced a plan to hire more state workers and to give existing employees raises.

 

"We recognize that we have got to make a serious infusion and fast" in the number of state workers who can handle TIERS cases, said deputy executive commissioner Anne Heiligenstein.

 

TIERS, which is now in use in Travis, Hays and Williamson counties and elsewhere for certain programs, was first mandated by the Legislature in 1999 to replace the outdated SAVERR system — which stands for System of Application, Verification, Eligibility, Referral and Reporting.

 

State auditor John Keel reported last year that because of chronic problems, TIERS is not ready to be used statewide.

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TIERS

Anyone familiar with TIERS- can you email me? It's all anonymous. I disclose NOTHING. I just have some questions.

Food stamp proposal would force Texas shift

Food stamp proposal would force Texas shift (my comments in red)

By JASON EMBRY, CORRIE MacLAGGANWednesday, February 06, 2008

WASHINGTON — Texas would have to rework its plans to privatize food stamp enrollment under a proposal that is moving through Congress.

Language in a major farm bill approved by the House would bar states from allowing employees of private firms to interact with people who are applying for food stamps or to decide someone's eligibility for the program.

The author of that language, Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., said it was inspired in part by problems in Texas, where some eligible families were improperly denied food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance during a 2006 privatization test in the Austin area.

"The disastrous attempt to privatize food stamps in Texas was a large reason behind my anti-privatization provision in the House farm bill," Baca said. "The Texas project was a complete fiasco."

Although Texas canceled what was originally a five-year, $899 million contract with Accenture LLP to run call centers enrolling people in services, the state did not abandon its plans for private call centers. Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins has said privatization will save the state money and give Texans more ways to apply for services: by phone and online instead of just in person.

Here we go AGAIN with the "ways" to apply for benefits line. Hawkins loves it, doesn't he? Guess what? You can apply ONLINE OR BY PHONE EVERYDAY- but if your case either never gets worked, gets lost in the shuffle, takes 45 days to get an APPOINTMENT (like in ART), then applying "by phone" suddenly isn't so convenient.

A draft request for proposal that the state released in November would allow for private companies to enroll clients in food stamps in the future. The Baca proposal "would mean a change in our plan for food stamps," said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. "It does reduce the states' flexibility — and does potentially increase the cost — but we're certainly prepared to comply with whatever goes through."

Under Texas' new plan, state workers would continue to have the final say on who is eligible for food stamps, but employees of a private company would answer applicants' questions about the status of their case, Goodman said. That is the sort of contact Baca's proposal would prohibit.

A private company — Maximus Inc., a former subcontractor of Accenture — now answers food stamp application questions at call centers in Midland and Athens. Maximus handles applications for about 275,000 of the state's 2.35 million food stamp recipients, Goodman said. Most of the applications Maximus handles come from Central Texas.

And alot of the "questions" that the vendor answers for clients are answered WRONG. I cannot tell you HOW MANY CLIENTS end up the the local offices that have been told something totally completely wrong. I've SEEN some of the case comments left by TAA (Maximus? Whoever)- and let me tell you, state employees are having to go through alot of hell calming down clients who were told one thing, but policy states something else. Example: Client calls 2-1-1 to see if they can have an appointment sooner (let's say they are in ART, and right now- ART is scheduling appointments well into MARCH already)....2-1-1 tells the client to just go into the local office and apply for EMERGENCY food stamps if they want to be seen sooner. No, this is NOT correct. Clients LOSE benefits if they do this. I've seen more than I can post on this blog. But beleive me, clients get a much bigger RUN AROUND through the VENDOR (who do NOT know policy) then they EVER did in the local office.

She said the legislation is so broadly written that it may stop Texas' use of private workers to scan in documents and process mail.

The provision also may keep states from relying on private companies — or even nonprofits — to help prevent fraud, connect food stamp recipients with jobs or conduct nutrition education programs, said Larry Goolsby, director of legislative affairs for the American Public Human Services Association, a nonprofit organization of state agencies.

"There are many, many very innocent and helpful activities like that that this law would potentially bring to a complete halt," he said. The provision seems "to be very ill conceived to address what some are worried about going on in one or two states and in fact (would) have huge consequences for many, many states."

The House and Senate have each passed separate versions of the farm bill, but a conference committee that will work out a final bill has not yet been named. The Senate version does not include the privatization ban, but it calls for greater federal oversight when states make major changes to their programs, such as the push for call centers.

"I am committed to ensuring the anti-privatization provision stays in the final version of the farm bill," Baca said. "If we open the door for the privatization of food stamp administration, we risk putting sensitive information about millions of families into the hands of private companies, with no way to monitor how this data will be handled or protected."

But Mary Katherine Stout, vice president of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which supports limited government, said privatization has a long history of improving performance and that private companies have shown they can handle sensitive information. She said Texas' call center pilot demonstrated the importance of testing an ambitious effort. After initial problems — such as long hold times and call center representatives who couldn't answer applicants' questions — Accenture's performance improved, she said.

Ahh, of course Mary Katherine Stout would say that all these issues are improved. She's not a client having to navigate it either. She has no idea.

"It would be unfortunate to see the federal government close this option to Texas," Stout said.
Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Midland, called Baca's proposal an attempt to please public-employee unions.

Please. Appease the unions? How about the employees? You know, the ONES ACTUALLY DOING THE WORK? What do you think the union is made of? Us. We are the ones who are completely overwhelmed. Totally without a doubt overwhelmed.

Privatization was a bad idea from the start. Field staff called it a long time ago. The years of service/knowledge that the state has lost in employees is staggering. No one has ever listened to US.

"Texas might have bitten off more than they could chew," Conaway said. "But to categorically eliminate the opportunity for outside help — helping government be more nimble and quicker and less expensive and more efficient — to me is just bad public policy."

But Celia Hagert of the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for more spending on programs that aim to help low-income families, said states can still modernize their programs using public workers.

You know, the public workers in Texas are the ones who previously had the General Fund in Texas benefit in enhanced funding. Sure- change can be good. But, we had a fairly decent oiled machine across the state (the big cities- Houston, Austin, Dallas- have always and will always have a high turnover rate due to the opportunities in those places). We had tenured staff. We had good training. Not just initial training- we had supplemental trainings all the time that made workers better at their jobs. We had those who actually wanted to and planned to retire from the State. Not so much anymore.

"In general," Hagert said, "these types of functions are better performed by trained eligibility workers who don't have a conflict of interest, for whom the bottom line is making sure clients get benefits on time and that benefits are delivered accurately, and not the profit of their company."

Amen.

a day in the life as a client in TIERS

Client needs Food Stamps for her family.  She has lost a job.  File application in local office on 11/16/07.  They are not expedited, so they are not eligible for same day service.

 

Local office faxes the application to TAA on 11/16/07.

 

Client calls 2-1-1 to see if an appointment has been set on 11/30/07 because her last check has come and gone and now client has NO income.

 

Client calls back to 2-1-1 on 12/3/07 to check and see if an appointment has been set yet- and is told that they have an appointment by phone on 1/9/08 at 4 p.m.

 

Client calls back to 2-1-1 two days later to see if there is any way client can be seen earlier- but there are no slots available, so the answer is no.  However, TAA tells client that if she wants expedited she can go to local office and FILE ANOTHER APPLICATION (which is incorrect).  Client does not realize that if they were to do that, she will lose benefits from 11/16 to 12/5.  This is why this is wrong information.

 

Client gives up and goes to overburdened food bank to get help- remember, she has NO income coming in for bills (rent/utilities) much less food.

 

Mind you, a food stamp case- according to the Feds- must be either certified or denied within THIRTY days of date of application- that due date would be 12/16- we all know that won't happen, because the appointment isn't until JANUARY 9th.

 

January 9th finally gets here.  The ART worker that is going to interview client is overwhelmed and doubled up at every appointment slot that day- so the Advisor is unable to call client until 4:30.

 

Interview is FINALLY done.  Guess what?  There is information that is needed to complete the case- since all interviews are done by phone, rather than someone locally, there is no way to have information at the interview to hand the worker (wow, phone interviews are GREAT!)......client has until 1/22 to get the case done.  MORE THAN 60 FULL DAYS AFTER THE CLIENT HAS FILED THE APPLICATION. 

 

Client gathers information and faxes information to TAA.

 

Calls 2-1-1 to find out if they have received fax, and is told that it can take a couple of days to be scanned.  Client is, of course, frustrated. 

 

Cl calls 2-1-1 again on 1/14/08 to see if they have the information yet.  They do.  She asks them when case will be done, and they tell her to contact her caseworker.   Client may or may not have access to long distance mind you.  Also, TAA may see who the advisor is in the case comments, but continue to put client off and won't give her the workers number.  Instead, they offer to transfer her so that she can file a complaint.

 

On the worker.

 

Client is transferred and sits on hold, gives up and hangs up.

 

Client finally gets ahold of caseworker- and because the worker is double booked everyday, and may or may not get a full workday that week (thereby doing the cases that have HAD information turned in before THIS client) so the worker may not even GET TO IT.

 

The client still has no food or income.

 

Client calls 2-1-1 and is taken through transfer hell.

 

Complaint is filed.

 

Against the caseworker.

 

Emails are sent out to everyone, and the worker is directed to complete case that day.

 

Worker works until 8 p.m. to do so.

 

Client still can't get benefit access until the next day when she can go to the local office to get a lone star card.

 

Now, think about that for a minute.

 

Let me say this- if the client had missed the phone call and had called to reschedule, she would have been able to- and the next interview available would have been in FEBRUARY.

 

 

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Links

See these:

 

Grits for Breakfast Blog Posting- talks about Gregg Phillips and Wohlgemuth .... a comment on there said to try this search in Google to see what comes up- so here ya go:

 

Google Search for Phillips and Wohlgemuth...HERE are the results.  Interesting.

 

 

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Happy Holidays!

Just wanted to send out a Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays to all my fellow HHSC Employees.  What you do is important, and we are all doing the best we can under the circumstances.  Here's to hoping that the time off over the Holidays will refresh each and every one of you and here's to hoping 2008 sees some changes in our Agency for the better and overall changes for Texas. 

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Good Comment

Saw this in comments and thought it deserved to be on the page so no one missed it:

 

Demand on food banks reflects lack of adequate benefits through "safety net" programs
The news has been filled with stories of food pantries and soup kitchens that are struggling to meet the growing problem of hunger. These groups are frequently staffed with volunteers and depend on donations. They deserve our gratitude. The growing demand on food banks reflects the failure of our elected officials to provide adequate benefits through “safety net” programs. What happened to the safety net of Food Stamps, Supplemental Social Security Income and TANF cash assistance? These programs were intended to meet the basic needs of low income citizens. It is extremely distressing to see that the official government policy for feeding hungry people is to rely on the charity of food pantries and soup kitchens.

Forty years ago the Food Stamp program was established to end hunger in America. Yet, it was only designed to provide 75% of what the U.S. Department of Agriculture determined necessary to meet minimum nutritional needs. Poor families were expected to make up the rest with cash. Unfortunately, that is nearly impossible for those who must rely on SSI or TANF. The payment levels for these programs are very low. It is difficult for these people to find extra cash to buy food when they spend every dime available for rent, utilities, and other essentials. As a result our food pantries must deal with constant demands from people who are already receiving help from the safety net.

This is unconscionable. This is not the Depression. People need to be able to get their food from the grocery store and should not have to wait in lines to get a meal or box of food. We cannot continue to rely on the kindness of volunteers and donations to meet a responsibility that we all have towards our less fortunate neighbors. We must insist that our government officials ensure that our safety net does its job.

http://athensjfs.blogspot.com/

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