The Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee will hear public testimony Thursday on two bills that, if passed into law, would help reduce fraud, waste and abuse in the state Department of Social and Health Services. Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, sponsored Senate Bills 5327 and 5329 and will testify in their favor at the 10 a.m. hearing in the John A. Cherberg Building in Olympia.
SB 5327 would make it a gross misdemeanor to use state-issued electronic benefit transfer cards at certain adult-oriented locations – such as firearm dealers, liquor stores, tattoo parlors, tobacco outlets, strip clubs, and medical marijuana vendors. The measure would also require that the cards only be used in the state of Washington.
“Last summer, a KING-TV news investigation uncovered shocking proof that these cards – loaded with taxpayer money – were being used at ATMs in state casinos and card rooms,” Carrell said. “I was able to put a stop to that, and now we’re going after other types of misuse of these cards.”
SB 5329 would create a special investigations department within the Office of the State Auditor to handle all cases of fraudulent activity at DSHS.
“A culture of indifference exists at some of the highest levels of DSHS management – the people who design the rules by which benefits are acquired,” Carrell said. “These managers can be at best described as inept, and at worst as enabling fraud and abuse, because now they have the electronic tools to find out – almost in real time – who is defrauding the system, how it’s being done and when. And yet DSHS is doing very little about it.”
Carrell’s bills are part of a larger effort to reset the way state government runs programs and delivers services. Last fall, more than 7,500 state employees and members of the public responded to Senate Republicans’ statewide call for ideas and suggestions on how to save taxpayer money and cut back on fraud and waste.
Johnmcmd says
This is what predictably happens when social services expands handouts as a way of expanding their own power: government has to enact laws and create agencies to police the social services that are supposed to be policing the handout recipients. More government to police more government and laws to address laws unenforced. Ever wonder how government get so big?
Seems to me that the real solution is to eliminate the problem at the source: end handouts, reduce the size of DSHS, and fire its (mis) management. Perhaps the Auditors Office should also be on the block too! Maybe we should hire KING-TV to ride shotgun on government programs: another case of private industry doing a better job than government.
If these handout recipients are able to survive just fine spending taxpayer money for guns, booze, tattoos, cigarettes, lap dances, joints (and gambling dens….) then they can survive just fine without spending taxpayer money.
KC says
I want to know when Susan Dreyfus is going to held accountable for mismanagment of the EBT and daycare programs that have both been shown to be riddled with fraud, waste and abuse.
The law to make the abusers accountable is one thing, and definitely needed, but you must go after the source. DSHS is responsible for allowing the process to happen, and for not putting measures into place far earlier than this proposed law to mitigate the problems and file fraud charges against their clients.
You can not tell me that a DSHS agent who recieves literally hundreds of “lost or stolen” EBT claims by the SAME people are NOT abusing the system and committing fraud. The State is at fault for their own budget problem. If they could recoup these fraudulent DSHS payments, I’ll bet the State’s budget would balance!!!!!!!!!!
I cannot believe this gross mismanagement of State funds. Governor Gregoire needs to call for an immediate audit of ALL of DSHS programs and hold their staff accountable.