Lack of oversight at county Social Services

[Disgusted-Daily]

www.uticaod.com/news/x518449576/Report-Lack-of-oversight-at-county-Social-Services

What a joke! My father in-law reported a welfare scam that he had monitored for a few months at his apartments in Utica in which checks were being left for people who weren't living there. He went to the office in person and they told him 'Sir we don't have a welfare problem, please mind your own business.' He then went to the Mayor's office and received even less satisfaction. Disappointed he sold the houses and has nothing to do with Utica today.

We wonder why all this rif-raft from New York City is showing up. Give out free money and they will come.

[rrogers40]

As they said on Radio 950 this morning- "We have a spending problem not an income problem." So why do they want to keep throwing money at people like those?

[Swimmy]

It's just interesting that they're just figuring out now that there is less than honourable behavior going on there.

[Ralph]

I have yet to figure out how these people get away with it.

I know there is no lack of overworked and/or inept folks down there, but how can you miss this crap?!?!?!

[rrogers40]

I think that it comes down to the idea that the people there are all like: O those poor people- they are just trying to get by and we should do/give anything to help these people. Because they are so poor and have no one to fight for them. And they are just so...

Where as me, and many people on this board, would say: Get a job.

[dgriffin]

Oh boy! A good argument!

From the same article:

Among their recommendations:

* Face-to-face meetings between clients and Social Service personnel every six months, instead of once a year, to review an entire case file.
* The use of a notary public to verify employment documentation signed by the employer.
* An on-site visit of the employer’s place of business.
* Ongoing training and retraining of case workers with a focus on antifraud documentation.


If you agree with that recommendation, you just doubled the size of the Department of Social Services and significantly increased your tax bill to pay for it. You have also probably just spent more money than what is lost through fraud. And you may have caused worthy recipients, like a cold starving child waiting for benefits this coming winter, to have to wait longer in a household that may be dangerous to her well being and safety.

Do you think the director of the department is dumb? He or she has to make the best trade-offs to get the most out of his budget.
And by the way, Social Services doesn't start paying for a welfare client when they show up "from New York City" or wherever. They bill back to the city he came from.

I am not a liberal Democrat!
Read this:
www.brookings.edu/articles/2006/0315welfare_haskins.aspx
Quote from article: "Between 1994 and 2004, the (welfare) caseload declined about 60 percent, a decline that is without precedent. The percentage of U.S. children on welfare is now lower than it has been since at least 1970."

[stoney]

Be careful about making sweeping generalizations, folks. The lies & deceits of the few do not represent the facts of the many.

[Clipper]

Exactly Stoney!

[Ralph]

Touche`

[stoney]