Advocates Say Ind. Welfare Revamp Needs Overhaul

CHARLES WILSON

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Social services advocates say Indiana's $1.34 billion effort to privatize welfare is a failure and should be replaced by a new system based on more personal contact between welfare recipients and caseworkers.

Members of advocacy groups held a news conference Tuesday where they outlined a proposal they hope to have introduced during the 2010 state legislative session.

Advocates said the state needs a new welfare system, not just a return to the government-run system that was in place before Gov. Mitch Daniels signed a 10-year contract with Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc. and their partners in 2006.

The new technology-driven system uses call centers and document imaging and gives both state caseworkers and their private partners access to the files of every welfare recipient.

"It's not just a matter of picking up the pieces," said Jim Wallihan, president of United Senior Action, one of the groups represented at the news conference. "It's a matter of replacing some of the old pieces."

But a spokesman for the state's human services agency said the proposal sounded like a return to the old welfare system, which Daniels has repeatedly called one of the nation's worst.