In The News

Letters to the Editor
Published: February 19, 2010
Scranton Times Tribune

Attack fraud, waste to save state funds

Editor: In 1994, then-Gov. Robert Casey moved the welfare fraud investigators and claims investigation agents from the Department of Welfare to the Office of Inspector General. This made their role more in line with an independent agency charged with ferreting out fraud, waste and abuse in agencies under the governor's jurisdiction.

The focus became ensuring that applicants for public assistance received everything they were entitled to receive. This was accomplished in three ways: applications for assistance were verified in the field by investigators; overpayments caused by intentional misrepresentation of material facts were prosecuted; and overpayments due to errors were sent for collection. Under the Ridge administration this program was expanded to the point that in 2002 we had avoided or recovered approximately $157 million in taxpayer money.

Under Gov. Ed Rendell the trend was reversed by changing the mindset in the Welfare Department to "when in doubt, give it out." Some regulations were revised, at times through waivers from the federal government that made it more difficult to prove criminal fraud, relaxed reporting requirements and the dampening effect of instituting supervisory review of all caseworker requests for application investigations. Some programs like LIHEAP or heating assistance were excluded from verification. The net result of these policies can be seen in last year's cost avoidance and recovery of just $57 million.

This comes as Mr. Rendell is asking for new taxes on sales and gas exploration. If he focused on fraud, waste and abuse, not only in the Welfare Department, but other agencies where one can lie to get money - unemployment, tax refunds, workers' compensation and small-business loans - we may not need new sources of revenue.

Our elected representatives must realize that when they spend our tax money they have a responsibility to be more careful than when they spend their own money. Tax money is not their private piggy bank to reward supporters and voting blocs. Let's account for the way we spend money before we look for more.

JAMES F. KANAVY
Moscow
Retired Regional Manager, OIG