Massachusetts welfare officials promised the federal government that they will take steps to correct problems with the state's food stamp program, including hiring more staff. However, the food stamp program just lost around 11 percent of its staff to an early retirement incentive.
"You have truly a brain drain with a system that's extremely new and extremely flawed," said Patricia Baker, senior policy analyst at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.
Michelle Hillman, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, said, "We continue to assess the positions vacated due to early retirement and will prioritize based upon need and compliance with our corrective action plan."
The state has the authority to use up to 20 percent of the savings from the retirement incentive to hire new employees to fill critical jobs. It has not yet determined which positions will be filled.
The problems date back to a modernization of the food stamp program, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, instituted in 2014, in response to reports of welfare fraud. The Department of Transitional Assistance created a new electronic management system that checked multiple sources of data to determine a recipient's eligibility, then began to automatically cut off benefits based on the results of online checks. The department instituted a new phone system. It centralized case processing, replacing a regional system.
As The Republican / MassLive.com previously reported, the modernization resulted in a huge drop in food stamp caseloads. Advocates for the poor said people were being needlessly kicked off the program and were having trouble reaching caseworkers to reinstate their benefits.
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