Senate Subcommittee Blocks $41.6M Plan To Reduce IHSS Fraud
Last Thursday, the state Senate Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services blocked a projected expenditure of $41.6 million over seven years to photograph and fingerprint beneficiaries of California's In-Home Supportive Services program, the Sacramento Bee's "Capitol Alert" reports.
Background
The funding would have helped the state integrate photograph and fingerprint data into the Statewide Fingerprint Imaging System.
The plan called for the purchase of portable devices called MorphoTraks, which cost $5,000 each and allow county social workers to photograph and fingerprint IHSS beneficiaries and upload the data to a statewide system. The proposal aimed to prevent IHSS beneficiaries from fraudulently enrolling multiple times in different counties or under different names.
Denied Funds
Last Thursday, two senators on the three-member Senate budget panel voted against using $8.2 million this fiscal year to launch the fingerprinting effort because they said state officials failed to provide a sufficient cost-benefit analysis of the plan. The senators also said the Legislature did not approve the proposal to photograph IHSS beneficiaries.
The subcommittee voted 2-1 to repeal all fingerprinting requirements for the IHSS program. The Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) will need to approve the repeal during the next round of budget negotiations.
Also on Thursday, the Legislative Analyst's Office recommended that the state postpone the fingerprinting plan while it awaits results from pilot projects using the MorphoTraks devices in Sacramento and San Diego counties (Ferriss, "Capitol Alert," Sacramento Bee, 5/10).
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