• State not paying bills: Social services in doubt, By Andre Salles, November 18, 2009, Geneva Sun: “Every day, Cindy Worsley looks through her mail, hunting for a check from the state of Illinois. And every day, she comes up empty. Worsley is the executive director of Fox Valley Older Adult Services. The not-for-profit company, based in Sandwich, has been providing help and care to seniors in the Fox Valley for 37 years. It operates three adult day care sites — one in Aurora (called Rachel’s Place), one in Sandwich, and one in DeKalb — and provides in-home care, meals and transportation services to more than 200 seniors each day. But now, Worsley is preparing for the worst. The services she provides are dependent on state funding to continue, and those payments are months late. She did receive a check from the state about six weeks ago, she said, which paid the state’s obligations through June. But she’s essentially been operating since July with no state cash at all, and she’s owed about $140,000…”
• Budget cuts will imperil state’s poor, By David Abel, November 17, 2009, Boston Globe: “Maria Bonilla - who has trouble walking because of a congenital heart defect - feeds, houses, and clothes her two young children with $942 of state and federal cash assistance every month, though it barely covers her rent, utilities, and everything else her family needs to survive, from diapers to subway fare. But in a few months the 27-year-old victim of domestic violence expects to be homeless. The Bonilla family is one of thousands of low-income families who will suffer from steep budget cuts. The state estimates that the children of 9,100 families with parents so severely disabled that they qualify for federal Supplemental Security Income benefits will lose their state cash assistance as a result of the $600 million in budget cuts that Governor Deval Patrick announced late last month. The $15.8 million reduction of the Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, on top of $8 million in cuts made earlier this fiscal year, means families who receive the assistance will lose an average of more than $400 a month…”

• Agencies, governments to study who can best deliver social services, By Kevin Bonham, November 14, 2009, Grand Forks Herald: “The North Dakota County Commission Association wants the state to shoulder the responsibility - and a share of the financial burden - of delivering social services, such as federal Medicaid, food stamps and temporary assistance for needy families programs. The resolution, initiated by the nine-county Northeast North Dakota County Commission Association, asks the state Legislature to conduct an interim study of the proposal…”
• Counties propose state delivery of social services, Associated Press, November 16, 2009, Jamestown Sun: “North Dakota county officials want the state to take over the delivery of social services programs, including federal Medicaid and food stamps, saying counties can no longer afford to do it. The North Dakota County Commission Association is seeking a two-year study of the idea starting in 2011, the year of the next legislative session. Its resolution says counties would contribute up to 15 mills of property taxes each…”

• Indiana trims Medicaid payments to hospitals, By Mary Beth Schneider, November 10, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Hospitals would get 5 percent less money from the state for caring for Medicaid patients under cuts announced today by the state. Gov. Mitch Daniels last week called for emergency budget cuts as the state’s revenue continues to fall short of projections. State tax collections already are a half-billion dollars short of what was collected at this time last year. To make the cuts, Daniels said state employees would not be getting pay raises, and asked agencies to come up with cuts, including the Family and Social Services Administration which administers Medicaid in Indiana…”
• Pain of budget cuts is hitting home, By Mary Beth Schneider, November 11, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “State budget cuts will begin to take a tangible toll on Hoosiers, from the pay in prison guards’ pockets to possibly the level of service people receive at hospitals. Faced with withering revenues, Gov. Mitch Daniels last week ordered state agencies to slash their expenses by 10 percent this fiscal year, on top of 10 percent cuts made last year. On Tuesday, the Family and Social Services Administration announced that it will reach some of its goal by cutting the amount it pays hospitals for caring for Medicaid patients by 5 percent beginning Jan. 1, a move that will save the state $10.6 million in this fiscal year…”
• Ind. budget cuts include $34 million in social services, By Ken Kusmer (AP), November 10, 2009, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Indiana’s human services agency said Tuesday it will slice $34 million from its budget by paying hospitals less to treat Medicaid patients, renegotiating contracts with most of its vendors, moving some offices and leaving about 400 jobs unfilled. However, the Family and Social Services administration will not reduce its Medicaid payments to doctors or cut ‘vital services’ to the young, elderly, disabled and needy Indiana residents who receive social safety-net benefits, agency officials said…”

• More people turn to state to fill basic need: food, By Angie Basiouny, November 2, 2009, Wilmington News Journal: “The number of Delawareans receiving food stamps has jumped by 27.5 percent in the past year, another sign of a recession cutting deeper into household budgets for the most basic of necessities. A total of 98,346 residents — 1 in 9 Delawareans — were enrolled in the food assistance program as of July. Officials said they expect that number to shoot up another 40 percent in the coming year as severance packages offered by many of the state’s biggest employers to laid-off workers expire…”
• Grand Forks County Social Services sees 30 percent spike in assistance, By Kevin Bonham, November 1, 2009, Grand Forks Herald: “North Dakota might not be feeling the full effects of the economic recession that has crippled the nation over the past year or so, but local taxpayers are feeling the pain. Some symptoms are surfacing in the Grand Forks County Social Services Department. The total number of households in Grand Forks County receiving some type of assistance has increased by nearly 30 percent in just two years. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps, represents the largest increase, with the number of households growing by 35 percent since 2007. In October 2009, 5,677 residents were receiving SNAP benefits. That’s about 8.5 percent of the county’s population, which the U.S. Census Bureau estimated at 66,585 in 2008…”

• Recession drives surge in youth runaways, By Ian Urbina, October 25, 2009, New York Times: “Dressed in soaked green pajamas, Betty Snyder, 14, huddled under a cold drizzle at the city park as several older boys decided what to do with her. Betty said she had run away from home a week earlier after a violent argument with her mother. Shivering and sullen-faced, she vowed that she was not going to sleep by herself again behind the hedges downtown, where older homeless men and methamphetamine addicts might find her. The boys were also runaways. But unlike them, Betty said, she had been reported missing to the police. That meant that if the boys let her stay overnight in their hidden tent encampment by the freeway, they risked being arrested for harboring a fugitive…”
• For runaways, sex buys survival, By Ian Urbina, October 26, 2009, New York Times: “She ran away from her group home in Medford, Ore., and spent weeks sleeping in parks and under bridges. Finally, Nicole Clark, 14 years old, grew so desperate that she accepted a young man’s offer of a place to stay. The price would come later. They had sex, and he soon became her boyfriend. Then one day he threatened to kick her out if she did not have sex with several of his friends in exchange for money. She agreed, fearing she had no choice. ‘Where was I going to go?’ said Nicole, now 17 and living here, just down the Interstate from Medford. That first exchange of money for sex led to a downward spiral of prostitution that lasted for 14 months, until she escaped last year from a pimp who she said often locked her in his garage apartment for months. ‘I didn’t know the town, and the police would just send me back to the group home,’ Nicole said, explaining why she did not cut off the relationship once her first boyfriend became a pimp and why she did not flee prostitution when she had the chance. ‘I’d also fallen for the guy. I felt trapped in a way I can’t really explain.’ Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the desperate struggle to survive often means selling their bodies…”

The foster child thought she had nobody left to love her. She was wrong., By Nancy Cambria, October 25, 2009, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “The search begins inside a sparse office in a corner of the St. Louis family court. Carlos Lopez, a 6-foot private investigator with a disarming smile, and his partner Sheila Suderwalla sit at a computer side by side, scouring court records, police files, motor vehicle records, occupancy permits and mug shots - any clue that would lead them to a woman named Karen. Karen is not a wanted criminal. And the partners are not looking to solve a crime. Suderwalla, a petite social worker with a driven passion for the underdog, and Lopez are on the trail of something far more elusive: a lost relative with a heart big enough and bloodlines strong enough to change the life of a 15-year-old foster child. Her name is Lisa, and she feels as if she has nobody. Lisa doesn’t know it yet, but she is at the center of a groundbreaking $2 million federally funded St. Louis program called Extreme Recruitment, one of the first programs in the nation that partners social workers with private investigators in a gumshoe effort to reunite foster children with long-lost family members…”

• Congress pressed to act to curb child-abuse deaths, By David Crary (AP), October 21, 2009, Washington Post: “Armed with grim statistics, experts and activists are mobilizing this week to demand expanded federal efforts - including more money and tougher oversight - to reverse a recent rise in the number of children dying from abuse and neglect. Child-welfare advocates gathering for a rally and conference in Washington say America should be embarrassed to have a child-abuse death rate far higher than other wealthy democracies. They cite the latest federal figures showing that an estimated 1,760 U.S. children died from abuse and neglect in 2007 - up 35 percent from 2001…”
• Abuse report: 10,440 children died 2001-07, By Wendy Koch, October 20, 2009, USA Today: “More than 10,000 children died from abuse or neglect in the United States from 2001 through 2007, a report released today says. The U.S. death rate is more than double the rate in France, Canada, Japan, Germany, Great Britain and Italy, countries that have less teen pregnancy, violent crime and poverty, according to the report by the Every Child Matters Education Fund, a non-partisan advocacy group…”
• R.I. spends most in U.S. on child-abuse prevention, By Karen Lee Ziner, October 21, 2009, Providence Journal: ” According to a new report that shows a sharp rise in child-abuse and neglect deaths between 2001 and 2007, Rhode Island spends more per capita - $181 - than any other state on child-welfare services aimed at preventing such deaths. South Carolina spends the least: $15 per capita. The report released Wednesday by the nonprofit Every Child Matters Education Fund, cites Rhode Island as one of only two states that reported no child-abuse deaths in 2007. Within the six-year time frame, Rhode Island reported 15 child-abuse deaths…”

• Welfare ‘hybrid’ to emerge, By Angela Mapes Turner, October 18, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “More than $360 million into the state’s largest private contract, Indiana faces uncertainty about how it will rebuild from its failed welfare privatization attempt and what it has actually gained. The state’s Family and Social Services Administration also faces the task of replacing its dinosaur of a core computer system down the road - a cost that had not even been included in the IBM contract. Gov. Mitch Daniels announced Thursday he was firing IBM Corp. as administrator of the state’s food stamp, Medicaid and welfare benefits and that the state would assume IBM’s role at the helm of a ‘hybrid’ system…”
• Daniels, GOP could face welfare deal fallout, By Mike Smith (AP), Chicago Tribune: “Democrats to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels: We told you so. The gloating was to be expected after Daniels announced Thursday that he was canceling a contract with IBM Corp. to automate applications for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare benefits. The project introduced in the spring of 2007 had been fraught with complaints of lost documents, delays in approving benefits, lengthy call hold times and severed eligibility for Medicaid and food stamps. Federal officials had closely scrutinized the state’s performance, and the state had put IBM on notice that it needed to improve…”
• Welfare critics await new system, By Eric Bradner, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “A human touch could have eased the anguish of Omega Young, an Evansville woman who fought for six months with Indiana’s welfare agency to have her Medicaid benefits reinstated at the same time she was fighting a losing battle with cancer. No one took note in time to help Young, whose benefits were approved March 2, the day after she died. But her struggle was vindicated when Gov. Mitch Daniels decided last week to cancel the state’s 10-year, $1.34 billion contract with IBM Corp. that created the modernized system she tried so hard to navigate, said her sister, Christal Bell. ‘She needed all the help she could get,’ Bell said. ‘But there are other people who need help, too.’ Now, thanks in part to Young’s story, others who face hardships such as disease, poverty and disability might get the personal assistance they need from Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration under a newly-announced hybrid system…”
• Firms downplay local impact of canceled IBM contract, By Dave Stafford, October 18, 2009, Anderson Herald Bulletin: “Companies in Anderson and Daleville that expanded two years ago when IBM won a contract to privatize Indiana’s welfare system downplayed local effects after the state canceled the deal. An IBM call center in Daleville and an Affiliated Computer Services facility at the Flagship Enterprise Park had expanded as part of an IBM pledge to create 1,000 jobs in exchange for getting a $1.34 billion contract to handle welfare applications and provide other services for the Family and Social Services Administration…”

• The lesson to learn from failure of IBM contract, Editorial, October 21, 2009, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel: “Gov. Mitch Daniels’ cancellation of IBM’s $1.37 billion contract to deliver welfare services will undoubtedly win praise from Republicans (he realized a mistake and corrected it) and criticism from Democrats (there was evidence to end it a lot sooner). There is some truth in both those positions, but the governor should be given credit for the honesty of his announcement. Daniels said it wasn’t a lack of resources that made the experiment in privatization fail. Nor was it a lack of effort…”
• Much to learn from state’s FSSA mistake, Editorial, October 18, 2009, South Bend Tribune: “There have been many concerns voiced throughout Gov. Mitch Daniels’ experiment in privatizing the Family and Social Services Administration intake process. Undoubtedly there will be many more in the months to come. But now, as Indiana pulls the plug on its $1.34 billion, 10-year contract with IBM to deliver crucial welfare services, the top priority must be the transition back to a state-operated system…”
• Welcome move to fix privatization of welfare, Editorial, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Last Thursday, after almost three years of missteps that interrupted vital services for some, Gov. Mitch Daniels admitted the welfare-privatization concept didn’t work and canceled the contract with IBM. The governor deserves credit for owning up to the failure. His persistence in getting problems fixed in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles suggests he will now redouble efforts to improve services provided through the Family and Social Services Administration. We wish him only success…”
• Back to the state for personal touch, Editorial, October 17, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Large, troubling questions remain about the fate of a public assistance system that affects one in every six Hoosiers. How will the transition back to the state from a failed privatization effort be accomplished? Will IBM express its ire over losing a $1.34 billion contract in the form of legal action, or a threat of legal action serious enough to prompt an expensive buyout? How long will it take, and at what cost, to clean up a mess that has cost countless elderly, poor, sick and disabled people vital services and imperils countless more?…”
• Local lawmakers got FSSA job done, By Mizell Stewart III, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels’ move to cancel the contract that privatized many of the intake functions of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration is a victory for benefit recipients and Southwestern Indiana lawmakers alike. The move was a disaster by nearly every account, notably because it turned much of the work of determining benefit eligibility over to call centers and Web sites. That’s fine for doing business in most instances, but it didn’t work at all for the poor, frail and elderly…”
• Cancelled contract, Editorial, October 18, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was right to cancel the state’s deal with IBM Corp., for privatizing the welfare application process. But let us not kid ourselves: the problems will not be corrected overnight. Daniels will be returning welfare application operations to the control of the Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration. However, remember that before privatization, applications were the responsibility of the state agency and it was a mess, fraught with errors and fraud. It was that way for years before Daniels came to office. It was that poor record of performance that led Daniels, an advocate of privatizing government services and assets, to seek a business-run welfare program. Unfortunately, that private system came with its own flaws…”

Indiana axes welfare contract with IBM, By Mary Beth Schneider and Bill Ruthhart, October 16, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Calling it an endeavor that ‘just did not work,’ Gov. Mitch Daniels on Thursday canceled Indiana’s 10-year, $1.34 billion contract with IBM to deliver welfare services. In its place, Indiana will develop a hybrid structure that keeps some elements of the modernized welfare system, Daniels said, while restoring the best of the past system: personal contact. The decision marked a major setback for the governor, who has championed efforts to privatize some areas of state government, and a rare admission that — this time — his critics were right. As he announced his decision, Daniels thanked those who had raised concerns that the system resulted in too many errors and too many people waiting too long for help they desperately needed. ‘In many respects, they were right,’ he said. ‘The system wasn’t working, and it wasn’t getting better, despite best efforts.’ Critics say it was a lesson that could have been learned long before Thursday’s announcement. Texas, for instance, pulled the plug in 2007 on a similar welfare privatization effort after thousands of people lost benefits they deserved. Critics here had argued that Texas had tried to do too much too fast, and said a slower rollout in Indiana would ease in the new system. The state’s rollout, though, was never completed…”

• Feds nix welfare data use in hiring, By Ken Kusmer (AP), October 14, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Indiana’s human services agency considered letting a private contractor use the state’s welfare database to screen potential employees until federal food stamp officials told them it was inappropriate and not allowed. Documents provided to The Associated Press under an open records request show that Affiliated Computer Services Inc. sought permission from the Family and Social Services Administration to use the state’s welfare data to screen job applicants for fraud or other welfare program violations. The U.S. Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees the food stamp program, objected when it learned from FSSA in July that the state agency might share the data…”
• Fixing the welfare fix, By Eric Bradner, October 13, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Critics of Indiana’s $1.34 billion contract to modernize the state’s human services agency on Tuesday called for a new approach that puts a premium on face-to-face interaction between welfare applicants and caseworkers. Pressure is mounting on Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration to either produce positive results or move toward altering or canceling the 10-year contract with a team led by Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp. and Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. However, with the new system implemented in Indiana Family and Social Services Administration offices in 59 of Indiana’s 92 counties, changing paths would be a messy process. Those who have called for the contract to be canceled have left one major question unanswered: What happens next?…”
• State cancels IBM/FSSA contract, By Eric Bradner, October 13, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Saying the idea looked good on paper but did not work in practice, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels announced this afternoon that the state has abandoned its attempts to modernize its welfare delivery system. Daniels said he informed Armonk, N,Y.-based IBM Corp., the lead vendor in the 10-year, $1.34 billion deal, that he is canceling the contract. ‘It was a concept that looked user-friendly and efficient on paper, but sometimes those things don’t work when you take them out on the road,’ Daniels said. However neither Daniels nor officials in Indiana’s FSSA were able to provide many details…”

Scattered in suburbs, and in need, By Julie Bosman, October 2, 2009, New York Times: “It is hard enough for the unemployed and others struggling financially to figure out how to obtain social services like food stamps, counseling and utility assistance for the first time. It can be even harder in the suburbs. There, many residents, including middle-class people unversed in the welfare system, have trouble making use of the shelters, government offices and nonprofit agencies that are less visible than in cities, spread out across a larger area and harder to reach using public transportation. So needy people are commonly sharing rides, walking and riding buses, often with small children in tow, in larger numbers than before the recession, officials said. And for advice on how to get help in the first place, they are seeking out priests, school nurses and small-town mayors, turning them into de facto social workers…”

State budget impasse threatens government-funded social services, By Brad Bumsted, October 2, 2009, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “A two-week-old state budget deal among legislative leaders and Gov. Ed Rendell fell apart Thursday as Pennsylvania reaches the 94th day of an impasse that threatens government-funded social services. ‘It is unconscionable that both sides cannot seem to find middle ground in order to pass a new budget,’ Grant Oliphant, president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation, said yesterday. ‘Increasing numbers of families and individuals depend on social- and human-services support for their very survival, and I am deeply worried that it is going to take a tragedy to bring our state leaders to a compromise.’ The Pittsburgh Foundation yesterday granted more money to a fund established to help people hurt by the recession - raising the emergency grants to more than $1 million…”

Conditions placed on completing Indiana’s welfare rollout, By Ken Kusmer (AP), September 29, 2009, Louisville Courier-Journal: “A federal food stamp administrator has told Indiana’s human services chief that his staff must be consulted before the state rolls out its troubled welfare automation program to additional regions. Regional Administrator Ollice Holden of the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service also said in the letter that his staff has ongoing concerns about the food stamp program, now known formally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program…”

• State’s social services suffering, panel learns, By Mary Beth Schneider, September 25, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Too many errors and delays and too little face-to-face contact with clients are hampering Indiana’s privatized welfare delivery service, the state acknowledged Friday to lawmakers. Despite those persistent problems, Anne Murphy, secretary of the Family and Social Services Administration, told the bipartisan State Budget Committee that no decision has been made on whether to end the $1.34 billion, 10-year contract that Indiana has with an IBM-led group to manage food stamps, Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program…”
• Indiana welfare problems linger, budget committee told, By Lesley Stedman Weidenbener, September 25, 2009, Louisville Courier-Journal: “Significant problems remain in Indiana’s welfare application system, and no decision has been made about whether to sever a controversial contract with the private firm handling the work, a key state official told lawmakers Friday. Some parts of the system have improved since Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered the private consortium - which includes IBM and Affiliated Computer Services - to fix problems or face losing a 10-year, $1.3 billion contract, said Anne Murphy, secretary of the state Family and Social Services Administration…”
• Political, geographical lines divide welfare solutions, By Eric Bradner, September 26, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration is working to improve its human services agency’s troubled attempt to modernize, and state lawmakers are grappling with how and where their pressure can be applied best. But geographic and political differences have made it impossible for all parties to agree on an approach that is suitable statewide. In some pockets, such as Evansville, frustration with the new system has reached a boiling point. Some lawmakers say the project is hopeless and the best choice is to cut losses and abandon it. In other places, such as Indianapolis, the changes have not been rolled out yet. In other areas, the new system is working relatively well, according to Indiana Family and Social Services Administration officials…”

More Nevadans will need help as economic storm worsens, By J. Patrick Coolican and David McGrath Schwartz, September 27, 2009, Las Vegas Sun: “The parking lot at Catholic Charities, which shares space with a state welfare office, is packed these days. That’s a new thing. In the past, clients were the type to take the bus or walk to the service center on Las Vegas Boulevard in North Las Vegas. Now it’s the middle and working classes driving here, desperate for help. Same at the Women, Infants, and Children program offices at Flamingo Road and Torrey Pines Drive, its waiting room teeming with young, weary mothers who need nutrition assistance for their toddlers. Nevada’s spiking unemployment rate, which officially hit 13.2 percent recently, is forcing the newly destitute to seek help from the state as unemployment checks stop coming, savings accounts run dry and there are no jobs to be had. This spreading pain is measured in the ballooning number of Nevadans receiving government help - food, medical care, cash assistance. In June, for example, the number of residents on food stamps rose 45 percent compared with a year earlier. That was the second-fastest rise in the nation, behind Utah’s, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation…”

Texas got less stimulus money per resident than almost every other state, By Dave Michaels, September 28, 2009, Dallas Morning News: “Texas has received less funding per resident from the stimulus package so far than almost any other state, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of federal grants and contracts. Texas lawmakers have long complained about one reason for the disparity: Federal funding formulas, often written by small-state lawmakers, disadvantage big states like Texas. But Texas is also a victim of its own thrift: With fewer research universities, less subsidized housing, and a smaller contribution to programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance, it stands to receive less emergency funds than if it spent more of its own money on the programs…”

Pa. budget stalemate is killing social services, By Jeff Gammage, September 17, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “A pile of unopened mail sits on the front counter. Incoming phone calls go directly to the voice-mail system. Beyond the front desk - unattended because the receptionist was laid off - are darkened offices and empty cubicles. The Caring People Alliance has operated in Philadelphia for nearly eight decades, battling an array of social ills and striving to help children in need. But unless something happens to end the state budget impasse, and soon, the agency may not see the new year. The 11-week-old stalemate in Harrisburg has cut off the flow of government dollars to the alliance and dozens of other social-service providers across Pennsylvania. Some survive through the generosity of their bankers. Others could soon go out of business…”

Social services suffered, Pa. budget deal or not, By Marc Levy and Ramit Plushnick-Masti (AP), September 12, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “A tentative deal in Pennsylvania’s Capitol that could release billions of state dollars for schools and countless social services has come too late for people like Megan Shreve, Avona Proctor and hundreds of others whose lives have been disrupted by the political stalemate. Even if the deal is approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Ed Rendell, who is threatening a veto, legislative officials say it could take weeks for money to actually arrive in the bank accounts of private service providers. And the budget is already more than two months overdue…”

States shut down to save cash, By Leslie Eaton, Ryan Knutson, and Philip Shishkin, September 4, 2009, Wall Street Journal: “California drivers can’t line up to renew their licenses Friday. Wisconsin natives can’t order copies of their birth certificates. Georgia consumers will have to postpone registering complaints with state watchdogs. And stranded motorists in Maryland may have to wait a little longer for highway-department help. Across the country, cash-strapped state governments are shutting down business for a day at a time to save money. State offices are shuttered Friday in California, Maine, Maryland and Michigan. Rhode Island had planned to join them until a judge on Thursday blocked its closure plan. Some state agencies are closed in Georgia and Wisconsin, and most Colorado state offices will be shuttered on Tuesday. Other states, such as Arizona, have been trying to keep their operations open while furloughing thousands of workers. So far the effect of furloughs appears to have been muted, with most people able to take care of state business in advance of closures or by filing forms online. But at the Detroit Center for Family Advocacy, which helps low-income families avoid sending children to foster care, furloughs have already slowed assistance efforts, said managing attorney Tracy Green…”

With donations and grants down, social service agencies feel the pinch, By Diane Cardwell, August 21, 2009, New York Times: “At a social service agency on Staten Island where budget cuts forced the layoff of a driver, the staff scrambles to arrange transportation to Brooklyn for an elderly homeless woman whose family has agreed to take her in. In Midtown Manhattan, a woman who has lost her job worries that she will not be able to send her granddaughter to an after-school program at the settlement house that helped the girl’s father and two uncles. And in Washington Heights, an agency is hard-pressed to prevent evictions after laying off half of its legal services team…”

Poverty on the rise in county, By Betty Ridge, August 20, 2009, Tahlequah Daily Press: “While Americans hope, and many experts predict, that the recession is turning around and the economy heading upward, the head of one local agency dealing with poverty isn’t so optimistic. Tom Lewis, CEO of Project O-Si-Yo, said demand for the shelter, which currently provides temporary housing for up to 15 homeless men, has grown more than expected. Based on preliminary reports he has seen from the latest U.S. Census figures, he expects more men to come to 118 W. Keetoowah looking for a place to spend the night, or a new start in life. The new figures will be released shortly after Labor Day, Lewis said…”

• State safety net makes up 46 percent of budget, By Cynthia Needham, August 20, 2009, Providence Journal: “State-funded safety net programs for the poor have grown into an expensive and sometimes chaotic system that doesn’t always effectively serve the neediest residents, according to a report to be released Thursday by the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council and the United Way. The result of a year-long study, the report combines data with analysis by an advisory council made up of anti-poverty advocates, union officials, clergy and members of the business community, who see first-hand the effects of these programs. Rhode Island, that data suggests, spends an a steadily increasing amount of money on its safety net programs — 46 percent of total spending in the current year’s budget…”
• Study: R.I. social safety net ill-managed, By Chris Barrett, August 20, 2009, Providence Business News: “Rhode Island’s social safety net is expensive and splintered, according to a report released jointly today by United Way of Rhode Island and the R.I. Public Expenditure Council. The 58-page report details federal and state programs that provide assistance to the state’s poor, unemployed and disabled residents. It comes as the state’s economy continues to struggle and state agencies deal with an influx of residents seeking social services. The report found that 46 percent of all spending in this year’s enacted state budget flows to grants and benefits for programs such as Medicaid, medical assistance programs, child care subsidies and unemployment benefits…”

Inmates grow, gather veggies, make soup for hungry, By Julie Carr Smyth (AP), August 18, 2009, Detroit Free Press: “The nation’s food banks, struggling to meet demand in hard times, are turning to prison inmates for free labor to help feed the hungry. Several states are sending inmates into already harvested fields to scavenge millions of pounds of leftover potatoes, berries and other crops that otherwise would go to waste. Others are using prisoners to plant and harvest vegetables. ‘We’re in a situation where, without their help, the food banks absolutely could not accomplish all that they do,’ said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for Feeding America, a national association of food banks. The number of Americans who couldn’t afford food jumped 30% from December 2007 to December 2008, according to a survey by the group. Demand at some pantries have more than doubled, Fraser said, as job losses and wage cuts have strained family budgets…”

Companies face heat on welfare modernization, By Eric Bradner, August 12, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Southwestern Indiana lawmakers, hospitals and social services agencies ramped up the pressure on the companies hired to modernize Indiana’s welfare agency during a closed-door meeting earlier this week. Family and Social Services Administration Secretary Anne Murphy brought officials from IBM Corp. and Affiliated Computer Services Inc., the companies working on a 10-year contract that now tops $1.3 billion, to Tuesday’s meeting so they could hear from those who are affected by the problems plaguing the new system…”

• Pa.’s budget stalemate frays its social safety net, By Marc Levy (AP), August 13, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Pennsylvania’s six-week-old budget stalemate has turned off the spigot that normally keeps billions of taxpayer dollars flowing for social services for the poor, prompting scores of nonprofit agencies to lay off workers, take out loans and cut back to survive. Another month or more without action to free up that money could irrevocably tear a safety net that is already jammed with waiting lists and relies heavily on low-wage employees, according to nonprofit directors and the government officials who deal with them. For now, dollars are drying up for everything from day care for children of the working poor to people who desperately need mental health counseling…”
• Impasse could end day care for many children, By Brad Bumsted and Debra Erdley, August 12, 2009, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Jody Van Varenberg isn’t sure how she’ll pay the bills this month at Today’s Tot, her small child-care center in Washington. The state subsidizes many of her children but hasn’t paid Van Varenberg since June. The skeleton budget that Gov. Ed Rendell signed last month hasn’t changed her circumstances. ‘I’m one of the people who still aren’t getting paid,’ Van Varenberg said, adding that she wonders how long child-care operators like herself will be able to hang on. There’s no relief in sight yet for day-care centers across Pennsylvania…”
• Phila. ‘a city being held hostage’, By Daniel Rubin, August 13, 2009, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Sign of the times spotted in the Criminal Justice Center: We are out of paper. No copying folks. (Unless you supply!!) Here’s another sign. Defense attorney Sanjai Weaver has started taking SEPTA to work. The court has not paid the former prosecutor and judicial candidate since May, though she continues her court-appointed advocacy. ‘It finally dawned on me last Monday,’ she says, ‘You can’t pay for parking, you can’t pay for the gas.’ She is owed more than $15,000. As the economy has turned downward, Weaver has relied more and more on assignments from judges to represent the poor in criminal cases. Such work now represents close to 90 percent of her income. But government work turns out to have been a gamble…”

Glitches mar Indiana’s effort to outsource social services, By William M. Bulkeley, August 12, 2009, Wall Street Journal: “Processing of welfare, food-stamp and Medicaid claims in Indiana was plagued with difficulties when the state outsourced the system to International Business Machines Corp. and Affiliated Computer Services Inc. two years ago. The problem hasn’t been resolved since then. ‘There’s a myriad of problems,’ said Anne Murphy, secretary of the state’s Family and Social Services Administration. ‘Error rates are too high. We’re not processing claims within federal guidelines.’ Naomi Mundy, a 59-year-old homemaker, said it took 15 months after she developed melanoma to get Indiana to pay her health-care benefits under Medicaid because of outsourcing snafus…”

• Proposed cuts to Mich. budget hurts poor, By Karen Bouffard, August 6, 2009, Detroit News: “Services for the poor would be decimated under cuts proposed to close Michigan’s $1.8 billion budget hole, according to more than two dozen groups who asked Lansing lawmakers Wednesday to protect vulnerable people from shouldering the state’s economic woes. The coalition of faith-based and human services organizations — from the Food Bank Council of Michigan to the Association of United Ways and the Michigan Catholic Conference — said disproportionate cuts to the state departments of Human Services and Community Health would obliterate the social safety net at a time when unemployment in the state has spiked to 15.2 percent…”
• Welfare to work program is latest budget victim, By Susan Haigh (AP), August 9, 2009, Hartford Courant: “A 13-year-old initiative that helps needy people move from welfare to work is the latest victim of Connecticut’s budget impasse. Programs ranging from on-the-job training to child care stopped as of July 1 for thousands of people - mostly women - who receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, a state cash assistance program that can last 21 months. The July and August executive orders, issued by Gov. M. Jodi Rell to run the state without a permanent two-year budget in place, slashed funding for the Jobs First program, leaving just enough money to cover some staff at the state Department of Labor.

• State welfare contract ballooning, By Ken Kusmer (AP), August 4, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Indiana will spend nearly $180 million more than it initially planned to privatize and automate many of its welfare functions just two years into a closely watched 10-year deal that is one of the most lucrative contracts in state history. The cost of the $1.16 billion contract Gov. Mitch Daniels signed in late 2006 has risen 15 percent, to $1.34 billion, under changes made to the agreement with a group led by Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM Corp…”
• Welfare woes, Editorial, August 4, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “Call us naive, but we thought the cost of adjustments to Indiana’s privatized welfare application system would be on the backs of the contractors - not the taxpayers - given that the businesses had agreed in late 2006 to give the state a modern, automated operation for $1.16 billion. But now we learn that the privatized system is costing Indiana an additional $180 million, some of it to fix the basic program, which has come under harsh criticism from advocates for welfare clients…”

Foster-care cuts put strain on parents trying to help, By Dianna M. Náñez, August 4, 2009, Arizona Republic: “Photos of the 20 children who Alicia and Doug Mumford have cared for since they became foster parents four years ago hang on the living room wall of the family’s home. Shown in one photo is 12-year-old Miley, who had trouble trusting anyone, couldn’t make friends and suffered from eating disorders. Within two years, she had good friends at school and had shown promise in her art class. In another photo is a 9-year-old son who was prone to violent outbursts. But now, at 11, he is a straight-A student and star football player for his church league..”

Florida shifts child-welfare system’s focus to saving families, By Erik Eckholm, July 24, 2009, New York Times: “After her daughter and a daughter-in-law were each jailed on drug charges last fall, Sylvia Kimble, 46, poor and with a deeply troubled history of her own, struggled to care for six grandchildren.  Only a few years ago, officials here say, the safest path would have been to split up the children in foster care. Yet here they are, rambunctious children wrestling in her living room, Ms. Kimble encouraging her daughter’s out-patient drug rehabilitation while also arranging for summer camp and a family trip to a water park…”

• D.C. weighs welfare cut as budget gap looms, By Henri E. Cauvin, July 26, 2009, Washington Post: “The Fenty administration wants to save several million dollars by cutting back on welfare benefits for people who are not working or using the city’s help to find a job.  The monthly benefit, which for a family of three is $428, would be cut in half for any recipient deemed employable who does not meet the work requirement for six months. If the recipient were to go another six months without complying, the District would be prepared to cut off benefits altogether, the city’s human services director told advocates for the poor last week…”
• State budget cuts leave safety net strained, By Ray Long, July 26, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “Illinois might have a working budget in place, but there is a broader story behind the numbers: Real people are hurting.  If they have not lost care, they worry the thin reed of stability provided by non-profit, community-based organizations will disappear without state support. Cuts at social service agencies are tearing holes into safety nets for the state’s most vulnerable residents…”
• Parenting programs take big hit from budget cuts, By Dean Olsen, July 18, 2009, State Journal Register: “Hoping to become a cosmetologist someday, Theresa Mercado says she has drawn inspiration from fellow single mothers in a support group that met weekly at the Family Service Center of Sangamon County…”

Feeling the heat, By Damian Mann, July 24, 2009, Mail Tribune: “Tara Harper would rather find a good job to support her family, but for the time being food stamps are the lifeline sustaining her two children.  ‘It’s great they have food stamps, but it’s not something I want to rely on forever,’ said the 31-year-old Ashland resident. ‘I do want to go back to work.’ Harper said she’s not surprised that 58,000 people in Jackson and Josephine counties received foods stamps in June, equating to roughly one out of five residents…”

• Joy, skepticism greet IBM’s plan, By Angela Mapes Turner, July 24, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “State lawmakers and social service providers welcome Indiana’s extensive plan to correct its failing welfare system.  But they aren’t convinced it provides the right guidance for private welfare vendor IBM Corp. to resolve widespread problems…”
• IBM to add humanity to welfare, By Ken Kusmer (AP), July 24, 2009, Evansville Courier and Press: “IBM Corp.’s 362-page plan to fix problems with Indiana’s privately run welfare system calls for providing more face-to-face help and no longer “forcing clients to self-service channels” such as telephone call centers and online applications.  The plan, obtained by The Associated Press, also describes myriad mechanical and human errors such as an automatic call distributor that “inappropriately fails” about twice a month, losing all telephone calls in progress and infighting within IBM’s coalition of partners…”

Stimulus saves, but doesn’t raise, foster care payments, By Janell Ross, July 20, 2009, The Tennessean: “In a typical week, one of the four foster children in Loraine and Ron Copeland’s care might need a new pair of shoes, medicine for an unexpected cough or cold and, of course, diapers. Over the last nine years, the Copelands have provided that and more to 50 children, including a 3-week-old in need of multiple open-heart surgeries. Without families like the Copelands, those children might have had to live in orphanages…”

Privatizing welfare means more fall through cracks, critics say, By Will Higgins, July 20, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Omega Young lay in her hospital bed, her body wracked with disease. The cancer that started in her ovaries had spread to her kidneys, breast and liver. She’d lost her appetite to the chemotherapy; she weighed 98 pounds. Then came more bad news: After a botched round of telephone tag with welfare officials, the state of Indiana pulled the plug on her Medicaid benefits and food stamps…”

Schwarzenegger proposes private, centralized system for public assistance eligibility, By Michael Rothfield, July 16, 2009, Los Angeles Times: A proposal that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been pushing in closed-door budget talks would tie the state, with little oversight or review, into a multibillion-dollar computer system likely to be run by the private sector to enroll low-income Californians in welfare, food stamp and healthcare programs.  A draft of the plan obtained by The Times shows that Schwarzenegger would replace existing county-run processes, which use four different computer systems across the state, with a single one. Administration officials say the new Internet-based system would allow them to save money on overhead and spend more on recipients…”

• State cuts could impact child-care subsidies, By Tiffany Aumann, July 11, 2009, Newark Advocate: “On Friday, parents and employees at Montessori Community School donned badges that read “I’m at work today because I have child care” and posed for photographs as part of a last-minute campaign to tell Ohio legislators they fear for the future of child-care access and quality under 2009-10 state budget proposals. Child-care advocates think budget cuts being considered could deeply hurt low-income families that receive subsidies, as well as the caregivers who watch the children each day…”
• Enrollment freeze for state’s low-income child care program, Healthy Families, By Lora Hines, July 16, 2009, Press-Enterprise: “Beginning today, California’s health care program for low-income children will freeze enrollment for the first time in its 10-year history because of the state’s ongoing budget crisis.  Healthy Families needs $90 million from the state to cover an estimated 1 million children whose parents earn too much to qualify for Medi-Cal and too little to afford insurance, according to California’s Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, which operates the program. That gap adds up to $270 million because the federal government kicks in $2 for every $1 the state spends on the program…”
• California’s needy may bear brunt of budget crisis, By Steve Gorman, July 15, 2009, US Daily: An ill-timed pregnancy and domestic abuse left Amanda Garcia facing a dire future last year at the prime of life, until California’s welfare-to-work program enabled her return to college after her baby was born.  Now the state’s budget crisis is clouding her second chance for a college degree and a professional career. Garcia, 19, who aspires to become a police officer and a lawyer, just learned this month that her childcare assistance may be stopped…”

• Medicaid problems swell in new system, By Angela Mapes Turner, July 12, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Indiana’s nearly 2-year-old experiment with a privatized welfare system appears to be failing. The backlog of pending Medicaid applications has ballooned in counties where welfare is handled by private contractors. From May 2008 - after the most recent wave of counties joined the new system - to December 2008, pending cases increased 86 percent. In counties working under the old system, the backlog increased only 16 percent, according to a Journal Gazette analysis of state data…”
• No Plan B for welfare contractors, By Ken Kusmer (AP), July 12, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Indiana welfare officials considering canceling the state’s privately run welfare system have no backup plan in place, and critics say it will be hard to undo the privatization of 1,500 state case workers more than two years ago…”
• State prods contractor into action, By Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier and Press: “Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration is using a carrot-and-stick strategy to try to pressure contractors hired to modernize the state’s welfare agency into producing better results…”
• The welfare privatization debacle, Editorial, July 12, 2009, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “Gov. Mitch Daniels likes to say that he inherited ‘the worst welfare system in the nation.’ But two extensive reviews of data by The Journal Gazette suggest it has grown worse under his watch. The latest shows staggering increases in Medicaid application backlogs in the counties where the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration turned eligibility processing over to IBM Corp…”

• State is sued over voter registration, By Amanda Hamon, July 10, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Voters’ rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday charging that Indiana fails to provide public assistance applicants the chance to register to vote, violating federal law.  The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, names as defendants eight state officials, including Anne Murphy, secretary of the state Family and Social Services Administration, and Thomas Wheeler, chairman of the Indiana Election Commission…”
• Groups say states violating voter registration law, By Nedra Pickler (AP), July 9, 2009, Chicago Tribune: “States across the country are violating part of the federal “motor voter” law requiring voter registration help for low-income residents, according to a coalition of advocacy groups trying to force change through the courts. The groups filed lawsuits in Indiana and New Mexico on Thursday on the heels of a successful settlement in Missouri. They say the problem is not isolated in those few states but widespread across the nation, and they are trying to help other states follow the law without litigation…”

• Free lunch?, By Simone Sebastian, July 5, 2009, Columbus Dispatch: “More poor children are eating free at school, but that’s actually a good thing for many districts’ finances. The reason? Federal subsidies increase.  A week rarely went by last school year without a plea for help from another newly poor family in South-Western schools. Parents were losing their jobs and wanted to know how the district could help…”
• N.J. offering free meals to kids from low-income families throughout summer, By Kristen Alloway, July 8, 2009, Star-Ledger: “Eleven-year-old camper Bryan polished off his baked chicken, vegetables and corn bread and eagerly headed back for seconds.  For Bryan, and more than 40 other children from predominantly low-income families at the Salvation Army in New Brunswick, it was their second free meal of the day — breakfast was pancakes — courtesy of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey and the federal government…”
• More Wichita kids go hungry, By Roy Wenzl, July 5, 2009, Wichita Eagle: “The recession has hurt Wichita’s poor people and their children much harder and faster than social service agencies predicted when it started last year, food charities say.  Agencies that track poverty are compiling rapidly rising statistics about Wichita children going hungry, prompting the Wichita Community Foundation to call a July 13 summit of local leaders to figure out how to feed them…”

• Schwarzenegger’s welfare cuts angers Dems, By Judy Lin, July 8, 2009, San Francisco Chronicle: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s insistence on cost-cutting measures to weed out what he has described as “waste, fraud and abuse” in California’s social service programs has struck a nerve with Democrats, welfare advocates and the frail…”
• Welfare-to-work program a target for state budget cuts, By Timm Herdt, July 9, 2009, Ventura County Star: “Renewing his insistence that policy changes must be part of any agreement to balance California’s budget and stop the flow of IOUs, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday put the spotlight on the state’s welfare-to-work program, which he called ‘the most generous of all the states’…”
• Critics say Schwarzenegger scapegoating the poor for budget problems, By Steven Harmon, July 9, 2009, Fremont Argus: “On the stump, as he tries to sell his deficit-cutting plan to voters, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has tried to show a softer side toward those who will get hit hardest, often returning to a variation of a line he rolled out in an address to the Legislature in May: ‘I see the pain in their eyes and hear the fear in their voice’…”

• $1B privatization deal at risk, By Will Higgins, July 8, 2009, Indianapolis Star: “Nearly two years into the privatization of Indiana’s welfare system, state officials are considering scrapping it amid widespread concerns that include the mishandling of nearly one in five food-stamp cases.  State welfare officials acknowledge that in about three-quarters of those cases, eligible Hoosiers are being denied aid they should be receiving…”
• AP Exclusive: IBM on notice over Ind. welfare deal, By Ken Kusmer (AP), July 7, 2009, Idaho Statesman: “Indiana’s privately run welfare project has so many problems that the state could start taking steps to cancel its $1.16 billion contract with IBM as early as this fall, a state official said Tuesday.  Secretary Anne Murphy of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration said she asked lead vendor IBM Corp. to submit a ‘corrective action plan’ as part of a process that could result in canceling the 10-year deal if promised improvements don’t occur by the end of September…”

• Summer brings a wave of homeless families, By Julie Bosman, July 6, 2009, New York Times: “As the school year sailed to a close last month, Arielle Figueras crossed the stage in her cap and gown and proudly accepted her fifth-grade diploma.  The next day, she was homeless.  Arielle, a petite 11-year-old, and her parents, brother and sister packed their belongings and arrived at the intake center for homeless families in the South Bronx. Though they had been fighting with their landlord for months and their gas and electricity had long been shut off, they refused to leave their apartment while school was in session…”
• Homeless, and on a college path to independence, By Amanda M. Fairbanks, July 5, 2009, New York Times: “For many college students, survival means keeping up on assigned reading, maintaining an acceptable grade-point average and squeezing in extracurricular activities.  But for those at Advantage Academy, a program offered by the city’s Department of Homeless Services and St. John’s University to provide homeless and formerly homeless people with the chance to earn an associate’s degree, survival looks like something altogether different…”