Six Department of Children and Families employees who applied for disaster food stamps after Hurricane Wilma may have lied to get the payments, according to a state report released this week.

Of 449 aid workers who applied, a total of 20 were paid the wrong amounts, reviewers found. A wider survey of applications from the public found fewer mistakes – 15 out of 1,203 payments in a random sample.

The review, however, cannot catch people who lied about hurricane damage or expenses. And it cannot catch those who lied about the income they earned, except in the case of its own employees, whose paychecks are on record with the agency.

Florida distributed $269.7 million in emergency aid to more than 2.1 million people after Hurricane Wilma. The one-time payments, ranging from $152 for a single person to $1,938 for one household of 17, were meant for families who could not afford to buy groceries after the storm.

A Palm Beach Post investigation earlier this year found few safeguards to prevent people from lying about their income, number of household members or even identity in order to qualify. Federal rules allow applicants to qualify without a Social Security number, and the state allowed those without photo identification to have a friend vouch for them.

Several workers told the Post that it was easy for people to fudge their income and expenses, and believed that some were padding their applications with fictitious relatives and roommates in order to qualify for larger payments.

The state caught $428,945 worth of fraud before the payments went out in November 2005, less than one-fifth of 1 percent of benefits paid. An additional 168 people who got the payments, but may have lied on their applications, were referred to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for investigation, according to the report.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the disaster food stamp program, requires the report to ensure states weed out those trying to cheat the system. The review catches preventable errors like payments to people who lied about living in the disaster area, who applied for benefits more than once or failed to report income from verifiable sources like Social Security retirement or child support. It also catches mathematical errors.

The review showed an accuracy rate of 98 percent for those types of mistakes.

“Overall, we’re pleased with how we operated the Disaster Food Stamp Program last year,” DCF spokesman Tim Bottcher said in a statement.

Three of the six DCF employees who may have lied on their application were turned in by an anonymous tip last fall. Two employees of the South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center in Miami underreported household incomes to get the benefits, the inspector general found, and an administrative assistant for DCF in Miami-Dade County failed to report her husband’s wages and military pension.

Three more cases of suspected fraud were found when DCF reviewed employee applications for the federal review.

DCF turned over all six to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for criminal investigation.

So far, DCF has found 449 disaster food stamp applications from its employees – 282 from temporary workers and 167 from full-time employees. But the agency has not been able to double-check every application submitted by an employee because it still isn’t sure who some of those employees were. The state relied on workforce agencies and temp companies, which did not keep records like date of birth or address for 2,500 disaster food stamp workers hired in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

The Post’s investigation on those who could be identified found that dozens of workers with access to applicants’ personal information had records of financial crimes, including organized fraud, public-assistance fraud and identity theft. DCF officials say they plan to require background screens on employees before the next disaster aid program.

A separate report by the DCF inspector general also suggested better training for the temporary workers hired to take and screen applications.

After Hurricane Wilma, many of the workers gathered in large groups for training. Some of the instructors didn’t have microphones, and not all workers could hear instructions, the report said.

Other problems included 36,700 payment cards that arrived several weeks late because of a mistake at JPMorgan EFS, which programmed the cards for the state.

Huge numbers of applicants crowding the sites also put pressure on employees to approve the money quickly, and DCF did not have a way to prove the identity of each person who submitted each paper application.

Next time, DCF plans to have people register for disaster aid in advance online or by phone. DCF can then verify the information is complete and accurate and flag suspicious cases before people arrive to apply in person.

The state also hopes to install card readers that can scan driver licenses to confirm applicants’ identities.

Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
August 5, 2006 Saturday
FINAL EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 896 words

Florida’s rate of food stamp payment mistakes in recent months was the worst in the country, according to a federal official.

The state approved the wrong payment amount in 9.37 percent of cases sampled from October 2005 to January 2006.

Some of the mistakes were fraud or people who were accidentally paid too much. Others were underpayments or rejections of families who should have gotten help with groceries.

If that error rate persists, the state could be on the hook for millions in fines, according to a recent letter from Donald E. Arnette, regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service. States have to pay a penalty if their error rates are significantly worse than national averages for two years running.

“Historically, Florida’s yearly payment error rate has been above the national average which required a reinvestment of state dollars in the program to satisfy the sanctions and penalties,” Arnette wrote.

Nationwide, the percentage of food stamp mistakes has gone down almost every year, hitting a new low of less than 6 percent for the 2005 fiscal year.

Florida ranked 40th among states with an error rate of 7.19 percent in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Florida ranked 29th with a rate of 6.16 percent in 2004.

Those annual reports are much more reliable than the monthly updates because they include a larger sample of cases, USDA spokeswoman Jean Daniel said. This year’s preliminary findings are an “early alert” that gives states time to improve, she said.

This year and last, the state did well enough to avoid paying penalties. But Florida had to pay through nearly every year of the 1990s, hitting bottom with a $98.8 million fine in 1992.

The error rates measured by the USDA do not include payments from Florida’s emergency food stamp program, which provided one-time payments to storm victims after Hurricane Wilma in the fall of 2005.

But the huge demands of that program, which required the Department of Children and Families to process nearly 700,000 applications over several weeks, took time and workers away from the regular food stamp program. The state also processed applications for new residents who evacuated to Florida after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The hurricanes caused an extraordinary workload, DCF spokesman Tim Bottcher said, but the state is checking to make sure there were not other reasons for an increased error rate.

“Our goal is not only to meet federal standards, but to exceed them,” Bottcher said.

The state of Florida distributed $1.38 billion in food stamp benefits last year. In October 2005, about 27,800 households in Palm Beach County, 8,400 in St. Lucie County and 2,000 in Martin County qualified for the regular monthly payments.

Once paper stamps, the benefits are now programmed into plastic cards swiped like ATM cards at grocery store checkouts.

Florida has recently changed the way it handles applications for programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. Until 2005, the vast majority of applications were submitted on paper, usually with a lengthy face-to-face interview with a state worker at a local office.

Eighty-five percent of applications are now submitted online. Interviews with applicants have been shortened and branch offices closed. Nearly 1,200 jobs of state benefits workers have been eliminated since 2002, and many questions are now referred to call center operators.

The state also is working with local charities to help people apply for benefits. DCF officials estimate that the changes have saved $83 million a year.

Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
June 24, 2006 Saturday
MARTIN-ST. LUCIE EDITION
SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. 6A
LENGTH: 598 words

DAY 1 STORY AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
Main story: Real need? Or unchecked greed?
Sidebar: State hired workers with criminal backgrounds
Chart: Exploding expense of disaster food-stamp program
Map in PDF: Local disaster food stamp rates (1.1 MB, 1 page)
Map in PDF: Regional disaster food stamp rates (592 KB, 1 page)
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (2.5 MB, 3 pages)

DAY 2 STORY AND DOWNLOAD LINKS
Main story: Disaster food-stamp plan revamped to block fraud
Print pages in PDF: Right-click and save-as to download (1.7 MB, 2 pages)

Three state employees knowingly provided false information in order to qualify for disaster food stamps after Hurricane Wilma and another misused her position by accepting applications at her church, according to reports released Monday.

The disaster program managed by the Florida Department of Children and Families was meant to help those struggling to afford groceries after the storm. Those with modest incomes and little savings could qualify for one-time payments of $152 for a single person or $506 for a family of four.

The inspector general found that two employees of the South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center in Miami underreported household incomes to get the benefits. A rehabilitation specialist failed to report her husband’s Social Security benefits and $400 a month she receives in rent. A second employee, a rehabilitation therapist, misstated his wife’s income.

The report also faulted an administrative assistant who works for DCF in Miami-Dade County for failing to list her husband’s wages and military pension.

Unclear rules and pressure to complete applications quickly contributed to the problems, according to the inspector general.

The DCF administrative assistant told investigators that she didn’t intend to apply for food stamps, but changed her mind when co-workers urged her to do it at the last minute. She said she felt rushed to get the form in so that all the applications could be submitted at the same time.

“This practice encouraged employees to submit incomplete forms, or forms without proper documentation,” the report said.

The applications could be confusing in some cases, the report said, and “instructions on how to complete the application rarely made it to the employees.”

Some weren’t sure whether to list income for the week or month and were given conflicting instructions, the report said.

DCF will review the report and take “appropriate action,” spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez said.

A second inspector general report released Monday said that a veteran Department of Children and Families employee in Palm Beach County allowed people to apply for food stamps at her church.

Rosa Coleman-Grant took 50 applications at Peaceful Zion Baptist Church in West Palm Beach two days before the program officially started, according to the report. That allowed them to skip lines that were often more than an hour long at the official sites.

One food stamp applicant told investigators that Coleman-Grant asked people to donate to the church after applying there.

State records show that Coleman-Grant has worked for DCF since 1993. She could not be reached for comment Monday evening, but told investigators that she did not profit personally and was simply trying to help elderly people who might otherwise have missed out on benefits.

A ledger shows that Coleman-Grant gave $97 in donations to the church after taking the applications.

Her pastor, the Rev. William Burrs, told investigators she made an announcement in church a week before the program started. She had intended to help seniors but agreed to help others in the community when they heard she was taking applications, Burrs said.

Coleman-Grant also told investigators that she got prior approval from a supervisor to take applications to the church. The supervisor countered that story, saying that Coleman-Grant approached her only after collecting applications.

Coleman-Grant may have inadvertently hurt applicants’ chances of getting the benefit, the report said.

She used photocopied forms, which supervisors did not accept at official DCF application sites. Supervisors in Palm Beach County said they accepted only the original forms, which came with carbon copies so every applicant would have a receipt.

It is unclear whether those people who applied at the church received food stamps, the report said.

Palm Beach County DCF spokeswoman Marilyn Munoz said supervisors plan to meet today to discuss possible discipline.

Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
February 28, 2006 Tuesday
SOUTH EDITION
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 658 words