PORTLAND, Maine — City officials say steps they’ve taken to streamline welfare distribution and weed out those overusing the system provide a good model to take statewide.
Portland Mayor Michael Brennan and city Department of Health and Human Services Director Douglas Gardner are reiterating calls for the state to form a working group in search of greater efficiencies in the welfare system, arguing that Gov. Paul LePage’s budget proposals will create more problems than they’ll solve.
The Portland leaders say lessons learned in Maine’s largest city during the recession may be the starting point for a blueprint to help the entire state save money.
“I think there’s a longstanding perception that Portland has a generous assistance program and I would dispute that,” Gardner said. “Three or four years ago, we had to take a look at our program because of the numbers of people seeking aid. We had to find efficiencies.”
Brennan will join mayors from Maine’s largest municipalities, which recently formed a coalition, in Augusta on Thursday to speak out against LePage’s supplemental budget proposal. LePage’s proposal would impose cost-saving measures in general assistance that would greatly affect population centers, where most general assistance aid is administered.
Among the governor’s proposals are a 90-day cap on housing subsidies, reducing the 90 percent reimbursements now granted to the top distributors of general assistance aid, and blocking recipients of federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds from also receiving general assistance money.
Gardner said the reimbursement cuts alone would leave Portland with a $2.25 million local budget hole, and limiting housing aid to three months would make it difficult for city officials to find landlords willing to work with them.
Brennan, a trained social worker and former state lawmaker, had more forceful words.
“Anyone from the administration or at the Department [of Health and Human Services for the state] who would propose a 90-day limit to housing assistance is demonstrating a total lack of understanding of general assistance programs and how they work,” the mayor said Monday. “What we’re running into here is not a money problem — $12 million is a relatively small program at the state level, but it has a huge impact across the state. The governor just doesn’t want to fund the program for ideological reasons.”
The LePage administration has defended its budget plans, which include proposed tax cuts for retirement and out-of-state military incomes, as steps toward controlling a growing dependence on public funds and putting money back in control of private citizens.
Brennan and Gardner said the growing use of public aid is a direct result of the economic downturn.
“Just because we’ve had an increase in spending, it doesn’t mean there’s some flaw in the way the program has been run,” Brennan said.
Gardner said there may be ways to control state general assistance spending without implementing the long-term changes LePage has proposed. He said Portland officials were among many calling for the establishment of a working group during the last legislative session to help find ways to more efficiently distribute welfare aid statewide. They, alongside other municipal leaders on Thursday, will be asking again this year.
“Our message is that we think the program should remain intact, and we’re willing to take part in a working group to find best practices,” Brennan said.
In Portland, general assistance applications skyrocketed from fewer than 12,000 in 2005-06 to nearly 24,000 in 2010-11. The cost to the city shot up accordingly, from around $3 million to $6.8 million over that same time. Bangor City Council Chairman and Mayor Cary Weston said during an interview about the working group earlier this month that Bangor has nearly 900 people on its rolls. Weston said the recipients are not necessarily from the Bangor area, but come to the service center for the methadone clinics, subsidized housing, nonprofit services and community health and counseling.
Gardner said he expects Portland’s general assistance expenditures to begin to level out now that they’ve implemented systemic changes to better track applicants’ financial situations. He said the city now checks with all major banks for financial records of applicants, instead of just the bank listed on applications, for instance, to make sure there are no other accounts where money is being kept.
He also said the city updates its search for other applicable state and federal programs for individuals on public assistance each month, regularly making sure applicants are taking advantage of all other options before turning to the city’s general assistance rolls.
Gardner said the city set out to make the systemic changes in the face of increased demands and limited funds. He said city officials intended for the changes to help those in need navigate complicated networks of welfare programs, but in the process caught some people trying to get more public funds than their qualifications allowed.
“We do discover once in awhile that all of an individual’s resources have not been disclosed,” Gardner said. “Whether that’s intentional or accidental, we can’t always say for sure, but it does happen.”
That type of streamlining, he said, is the sort of day-to-day reform that can be implemented statewide and perhaps save the Maine government some money.
“We always verified resources, but it wasn’t as systemic and comprehensive as it is now,” Gardner said Monday. “We know what we’ve been able to put in place in terms of verifying eligibility and resources — I do believe we’ve gained efficiencies and saved money — but there may be an even better way to do it. We just need to have that conversation.”
I’m in full support of this. The problem, of course, is that Portland is trying to give help to a schoolyard bully.
I suggest you back Brennan for governor. Lepage would win by a landslide !
Wouldn’t
want anyone in the gov’s office with some intelligence.
LOL. Portland can help? Their too busy worying about how “global warming” is going to flood the place. Bwahahaaa!
Just like we should also take advice from someone who works in the Social Welfare sector , and while in the Legislature help create alot of the mess we have now. No thanks just cut these programs and cut them now. This gentleman supports everyone on Welfare that was his view while he was in Augusta as Senate Majority Leader. So why should we believe what he says now.
If the mayor’s programs are working then why is he asking the state for more G.A. money?
How about ending Welfare to those able to work that is what Maine should be doing not keeping everyone on these programs.
Because he has a sensible approach to finding fraud without throwing the baby out with the bathwater? If an idea is a good one, we should listen to it regardless of what you think of the source.
This guy is about keeping those on the programs he is the problem. He helped accelerate the growth in Welfare while being Senate Majority Leader in the Legislature. He is on record for everyone getting Welfare Benefits. This guy wants more of the Handout Bucks coming to his community. It should be time to kick the people off of the Welfare Habits not putting more folks on the wagon.
I hope all of the farmers in the county plan on returning their donations from the government…..
Enjoying a beach day in March?
If we simply end welfare nobody can cheat..
These are excellent, practical suggestions that are based on actual experience in our state’s largest city. They have much more promise of being long-term solutions to the problems in General Assistance than does LePage’s desire to spend an additional $675,000 to look for hypothetical “fraud” at DHHS. This article documents the difference between a leader who is trying to solve a problem, and an ideologue who is interested in stirring up fear to promote an agenda.
So you know for certain that there is no fraud going on? Based on what?
In 2007, I worked on the PARIS (Public Assistance Reporting Information System) project for the State of Maine which was created by the federal government that allowed states to submit their entire list of welfare recipients to be compared to other states to see if people were receiving benefits from another state as well.
When I submitted the file for the State of Maine, a list of 1949 people came back who were on the list receiving concurrent benefits from Maine and other states. So don’t tell me that there is no welfare fraud going on because I know better.
I still keep in touch with the investigators and they have often stated that there are not enough of them to do the job.
Here is the link to PARIS:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/paris/
Here is the link to the “success stories”:
http://transition.acf.hhs.gov/programs/paris/success-story
Here is the link to the last state submission:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/paris/state_info/interstate_match_2011.html#nov
The state of maine has:
People receiving benefits: 357,273
No. of SSNs from Maine that matched an SSN in another State: 2,083
Yes, Virginia, there is welfare fraud going on.
You won’t get any responses from the liberal trolls around here. Your comment was obviously so well documented that even their slow witted brains can see the futility in arguing with you.
I know. The tragic part is that there are (as of this writing) 16 other einsteins who agree with the original poster. It’s like Goebbels said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Yeah, this is exactly like Nazi Germany.
Most of these systems have a high initial “hit” but when legitimate cases, where someone moved from one state to another and never had simultaneous benefits for example or typos on SS#’s for another) then the number of fraud instances go done to a tiny % of the initial hits. If this were not the case then the states fully using the system would have high hits the first month then an ever decreasing number until it comes close to zero. The data shows that did not happen.
I have never seen anyone (in these comments or elsewhere) claim there is NO fraud. The question is whether there is so much fraud that it would come close to the more than one half $ million per year that LePage proposes to spend on top of the hundreds of thousands annually already being spent to search for these cases.
A true fiscal conservative would have done a sample to determine the expected rate of verifiable fraud, then devised an investigation unit at a size and cost to optimize investment/return on investment. Because Lepage did not do that, it is glaringly obvious that the policy underlying this proposal has nothing to do with fiscal conservationism.
As a B-School graduate he must understand the ROI concept, so he is pandering plain and simple.
The “initial” hit does not hold water in this case:
2007 – 1949
2011 – 2083
I was instructed to only submit “active” cases of welfare recipients as were all the other states that are participating. Granted there may have been some overlap but if you read the success stories of the numbers I posted below it appears to be minimal.
As I stated in my previous post, there are not enough investigators to follow up on this. Since you obviously did not read the “success stories” (I really did not expect any liberal to do so as it would not support any counter-argument especially yours) here are the success stories with the state involved and the numbers:
Washington – $1 million (projected $22 million)
Tennessee – $2 million (initial run)
Rhode Island – $631,353
Oklahoma – $779,349
New Mexico – $3.7 million
Here is the link for New York’s cost savings:
http://transition.acf.hhs.gov/programs/paris/success-story/new-york
So, do you state that we should just do nothing?
I believe a state rep from Bangor has stated that there is no welfare fraud in Maine. Can’t recall her name but I am glad I am not represented by her.
As for a comment about no welfare fraud, here it is from the original poster:
“LePage’s desire to spend an additional $675,000 to look for hypothetical “fraud” at DHHS.”
The states closest to us in population appear to have “succeeded” with less collected/avoided than LePage’s proposed budget increases.
I doubt that any Rep said “no” fraud exists. If she did then either she misspoke, was misquoted or she should not have any input because that would be a dumb statement.
So you advocate doing nothing at all? You don’t have a problem with people stealing from other people who need the benefits?
How refreshing to see a liberal more concerned with cost than benefit. Perhaps your stance would be different if the governor proposing this were a democrat (not that one would ever lift a finger to remove someone from their electorate)?
Your comment is a bit absurd since I have been a registered Republican for almost 60 years.
I have always been a moderate (most Maine Republicans were over most of the 60 years I have been involved) and I have always advocated for fiscal responsibility.
A fraud investigation unit already exists. It MAY need to be beefed up and that MAY be a good use of resources.
The decision on what to do should be fact based. So far with LePage it has not been. I want fraud dealt with but I do NOT want to spend $1000 for every $1 we get back.
Perhaps. Let’s say someone robs a convenience store. Should we calculate the cost before sending the police to the scene?
Kent, thank you for the links and information. I appreciate data. I don’t appreciate your sarcasm and comparing my comment to Nazis simply because I disagree with Gov. LePage. Nowhere in my comment did I say I believed there was no fraud in the DHHS system. In fact, this article talks about ways to eliminate fraud in the Gen.Assistance program without making across-the-board cuts. I agree with that approach.
I did use the word “hypothetical” in relation to fraud DHHS because I saw no data being given to support this claim. I don’t trust statements by LePage about “welfare fraud” because he has made many, many unproven claims and repeatedly used this issue to scapegoat poor people. I also am tired of his constant justification of needing to cut social programs on the premise that the state is “broke”, then turning around and proposing to spend money on other things, like this project or the East-West highway study.
So, based on the data you provided, the number of people identified by this system is about 1/2 of a percent of the MaineCare population. Compared to other states with somewhat similar populations on the chart, Maine had far less people on this list, which speaks well to a low level of fraud. I have no problem with trying to identify people who are misusing the system, but I’m still not convinced that we would see the kind of payback that would justify this large expenditure at a time when we are “broke”. If there is solid data to justify a bigger investment in investigators, I’d rather see an incremental approach of adding a couple of staff and seeing what the return on investment is. More staff could be added in future years if it proves fruitful.
My name is not Virginia. It’s possible to respond to different viewpoints without name calling and insults.
Theft is still theft regardless of the amount involved. In my mind, they are still stealing from people who really need it. That and people who have made careers collecting welfare. Yes there are plenty of those as well.
As you recall, I worked on the PARIS project. Another interesting event that occurred was when I created the program to write data to the file being sent to the federal government. When I submitted the file, I received a message stating that the file had failed due to an incorrect column size. The file the feds wanted had specified column sizes defined. The column in question was the months someone had been receiving benefits and was limited to two characters in size which would have not caused the error had Maine been adhering to the 5-year (60 months) limitation of welfare which it was and is not doing. Anyways, I had to change the programming to when it encountered months on welfare in the triple-digits (and there were a lot of those) to change it to a ’99’.
So, here is another area that needs to be investigated.
The “Virginia” thing is related to a letter that was written either in the latter half of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th asking about the existence of Santa Clause. At the end of the reply, it stated “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”. So it was a play on that nothing more.
The quote I felt was applicable as I felt your initial posting was based upon no facts whatsoever. Just because it came from a nazi does not mean I believe you to be one.
Finally, there are two sides to a story and the MTM seems to print the negative side of Lepage rather than providing a balanced approach just as they have taken a lot of his quotes either out of context or only printing the parts of the quotes that make him look bad. You can believe what you want to believe but I like to see both sides to a story before forming an opinion. Might I suggest you do the same?
The only LePage agenda, i.e. ideology, is to get Maine’s spending within its means. Years of poor operational oversight and fiscal controls at DHHS and other agencies has left the state in an untenable financial hole. The state no longer has the ability to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. The days of fiscal chicanery practiced for years in Augusta are over. Its time to pay the piper.
The LePage agenda is exactly what MHPC tells him it is – nothing more, nothing less. As Le Page himself has stated, he sold his soul to the devil long ago and these are the devils that own it, lock, stock, and barrel. He is not a leader. He is a follower of this “of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation” ideology. De-regulate everything and let the corporations take it all over including your children’s education.
If the state is in such an “untenable financial hole”, why does LePage continue to propose tax cuts? Shouldn’t we get our financial affairs in balance before cutting revenue sources?
And again, no one in this article is disputing that costs need to be contained. They are just going about it in a targeted, systematic way that identifies & eliminates actual problems rather than just arbitrary cuts which harm everyone who usesthe program.
I’ve talked to DHHS before, and know others who have dealt with DHHS. Do not blame the people who are calling about disclosing their information, because DHHS did not get it right, was told three times on three different phone calls and managed to mess it up differently each time. I am unemployed, let me try to do that job……..
I also agree, there is a new breed of people, so they say, who could use help and do not understand or know the system, and I support helping them figure it out.
It is not all due to “fraud.” I agree. Been there as to talks with DHHS and given wrong advice. Sure, there is fraud involved by some but the people being paid to answer our questions should be held accountable for a huge part of the present problem.
Can’t have this level headed approach it’s scorched earth or nothing LePage said as he boarded the flight for his 20 vacation in a year.
He’s taken 20 vacations in a year? Wow, and the sad part is that (as of this writing) there are 4 other einsteins that agree with you.
I would dare say that Obama has taken more vacations in a year than LePage has.
Just another Portland politician named Brennan that thinks the whole state wants to hear his opinion on everything! Go take a nap Michael.
Gee, you don’t suppose he’s trying to use the mayor’s position as a media incubator for his run for governor, do you?
That’s just what Maine needs: Another do-nothing Brennan keeping the seat warm in the Blaine House. The State would be better served if he joined Joe in the pool halls on Munjoy Hill.
We could do a whole lot worse than Brennan for Governor…oh wait, we already are doing worse….
im so sick o fpeople saying millions is small money and 2 why are we funding people who arent from Bangor get the heck outta here, go back to what ever town you came from.
And please spend it on people who can’t type an intelligible sentence.
The “Grammar Knobs” are out again I see.
Liberal play #1 “If you can’t prove something is false, move to attacking said person’s grammar & spelling.”
Liberal play #2 “If rule #1 does not work, call them a racist.”
Liberal play #3 “If rules #1 or #2 do not work, hurl slanderous remarks towards George Bush.”
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat……
Don’t forget name calling.
You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you
want to concentrate on. – George W. Bush
You are correct…
Oh don’t forget… when disagreeing with the “Gay lobby” be prepared to be called “an ignorant homophob”. Re-education camp for you comrade if you don’t agree with that crowd.
These liberals had over 40 years to straighten this out and all they did was increase the eligibility and cost. Now they state they can save the state money.
Does this pass the credibility test?
Does this pass the credibility test? Absolutely not.
This is Neidameyer speaking ! WhAT , NO PLEDGE PIN ? WHERE IS YOUR PLEEEDDDDDGGGGGE PIN ? Only a few will get this !
Yeah…but you got killed by your own troops in Vietnam. :)
More ‘get it’ than you realize…one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. A classic, to be sure.
Well Brennan…if you had taken care of business in the first place, we wouldn’t have to put a leash on you. Now heel.
“Brennan, a trained social worker and former state lawmaker, had more forceful words.”
That says it all.
The actual working people of Portland, Mass must be so proud.
Maybe Brennan and Gardner should run for governor! I think they’d do a better job than LePage is doing anyday!
Taking general assitance from the people that honestly need it to try and basically survive is just wrong.
corporate fraud/welfare/theft and any other way you want to word it is by far much larger than any welfare fraud. Why not go after the big guns………….wouldn’t it make more sense?
Cut welfare fraud to the fullest, but please, don’t forget to cut the corporate/government fraud as well. If your short-sighted mind can’t wrap around this concept, don’t comment on this thread. The right’s (mostly ‘Christians’) mantra of “everyone receiving benefits is using the system” is getting incredibly old.
If you witness fraudulent activity, report it.
As I read this article I take away: Ok so the big thing portland does is 1.) pay for a credit check and go through bank records… which should be easy I will get back to that.
2.) try to pawn the people on Public assistance off on state or federal programs. How is this helping? How can you make this a model for the state? How does this help? You go into DHHS now for Food stamps they try to sign you up for liheap SSD tanif wick and other popular welfare programs. ME already does this the model exists.
When someone applies for assistance they should use their SSN which should be tied into the credit reporting system and the IRS which tracks banking activity. If they dont put something on their application not only should they be denied assistance they should be prosecuted for trying to defraud the government.
Here is an idea lets also conduct criminal background checks. Felons should go to the bottom of the list. Not saying they shouldn’t get assistance if they legitimately need it but they have already had their prison stay paid for which should have included training and reeducation.
I thought there wasn’t any fraud.
I also thought there is a santa clause
No Thanks! To heck with streamlining… The plan should be to Cut, Gut and Roll Back benefits… Bring some pride and motivation back to the people of this State. Assistance yes, but limited and of a short duration. I’m tired of dodging Oxy Zombies that seem to wander the parking lots these days. Tired as well of waiting in line behind a perfectly healthy and able individual who is talking on their iPhone while paying for groceries with an EBT card.
Even if Portland is able to follow through on these assurances, in another year or so LePage will want even more.
what assurances?
Doesn’t it drive you nuts when a bureaucrat suddenly gets a serious case religion, when their funding is threatened.
The sloppy accounting and extremely top heavy administration in that system cries out for reform.
So the City of Portland, which seems to be able to waste the taxpayers’ money more effectively than any other municipality in the State, is going to show the State how to save money on general assistance. We’re talking about the City that can blow $50,000 on park benches and $250,000 on a failed piece of public sculpture, folks.