Taking benefits to the grave

I am sure that most of you have heard of the stereotypical anecdote of yesteryear, where a welfare recipient drives up to the surplus food distribution center in a new Cadillac and leaves with a large box of groceries. I have spoken to at least a half-dozen welfare recipients who swear they have actually seen such scenarios.

Nothing makes our blood boil more than when we learn that cheats are gaming the system and taking advantage of our generosity and hard-earned tax dollars.

While we expect that there is always going to be some waste in a bureaucracy and that there will always be a few who will slip through the elaborate detection devices set up to prevent fraud, even we were shocked when a recent state audit identified 2,324 people who had been dead at least 60 days had received a total of $693,161.

Instead of being contrite, Department of Human Services officials said the amount was closer to $331,400, which represents just 0.01 percent of payments under the program.

Unlike the old days, benefits today are provided by the state on Electronic Benefits Transfer cards called ACCESS.

In examining cardholders' accounts between July 2013 and June 2014, auditors found multiple instances of fraud and abuse. In one case, a cardholder, who had died in May 2013, had made nearly $800 in purchases in December 2013 and January 2014.

To prove how not on top of the situation the Human Services Department was, state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said that it did not even know of the theft until the state inspector general brought it to the department's attention this past July, more than two years after the violation.

We need a virtually foolproof system to guarantee our hardworking taxpayers that public assistance benefits are given only to those who need them and qualify for them.

"Americans have big hearts, and, clearly, some people need assistance," DePasquale said. "However, when someone gets money that they should not, it hurts those who need it and taxpayers. With state budget dollars strained, it is critical to get this right."

There has been some good that has come from the audit. The department changed its policy in August after receiving the findings. It now requires verification to confirm that benefits are not issued to dead people, a procedure that should have been a no-brainer.

The result of the audit uncovered another troubling finding: There is a high use of the ACCESS cards in other states. While there has been an improvement in monitoring these expenses, the audit recommends greater vigilance. Closer inspection led to closing the accounts of 15,000 recipients avoiding paying out $22 million between 2012 and 2015. While it is not illegal to use these cards in other states, they must be used for qualifying purchases.

Federal regulations mandate that states make ACCESS cards operational in all states. Where we are troubled by the audit's findings is card activity in nonadjacent states; the most - more than $14 million of these expenditures - was spent in Florida, North Carolina and Hawaii. This makes us wonder whether Pennsylvanians with these benefits are spending them legally in some of the warm-weather locales to which snowbirds flee when winter sets in. Many working taxpayers cannot afford to make the trip to a warm-weather port, so the question is whether our tax dollars are allowing some welfare recipients to pay for unallowable expenditures that help make such a trip possible.

Tracking these expenditures is hampered by software limitations, DePasquale said, so his department has recommended that a comprehensive software package be used to give the department greater oversight capabilities.

The issue of welfare is a complicated one that has been debated six ways from Sunday without any significant conclusions, and we don't pretend to know the solutions to this complexity.

What we do insist upon, however, is a fair and equitable system for those who are truly in need and for taxpayers who must foot the bill.

A recent edition of National Public Radio's Planet Money contends that "for more residents who live near the poverty line, it is more lucrative, in the form of actual disposable income, to sit, do nothing and collect various welfare entitlements than to work."

A number of states now require able-bodied welfare recipients to work or to show proof of attempting to get a job before they receive benefits. Logic tells us, however, that a system that, at the end of the day, provides almost as much in benefits to someone who is not working compared to someone who is needs to be fixed.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com