Benefits Continue to Flow to The Dead

The state Department of Social Services continued to pay cash benefits to clients after they died and failed to adequately review client eligibility for another cash assistance program, according to a report by state auditors released Thursday.
The audit covered the 2008 and 2009 fiscal years and included 21 recommendations, 12 of which were made in the previous audit of the department, released in 2009.
As they did in the 2009 report, the auditors raised concerns about the department's ability to monitor its operations. DSS has only one auditor in its internal audit unit, down from 10 in the late 1990s. The unit does not monitor the department's checking account, through which $4.9 billion in expenditures were processed in the 2009 fiscal year, and does not audit the department's administrative functions, the state auditors' report said.
"Without an adequately designed internal audit function, it is unlikely that DSS has the ability to identify improper, inefficient, illegal, fraudulent or abusive acts that have already transpired as well as the conditions that will allow these acts to continue without detection," the state auditors wrote.
In a response included in the report, the department said it would consider requesting additional staffing.
In the case of payments made to dead people, the auditors reviewed a sample of cases involving dead clients who had received cash assistance from the State Supplemental benefits program for seniors and people with disabilities. Of 20 clients whose cases were reviewed, eight were issued benefits after they died, a total of $1,457.
In addition, in all 20 cases, the state paid vendors on behalf of the clients for administering nonemergency medical transportation after the clients died. The vendors receive monthly payments regardless of whether the client receive rides in a given month, and in the 20 cases the auditors reviewed, were paid $680. DSS did not attempt to recoup the money, the auditors wrote.
Audits released in 2007 and 2009 also found that clients who died were issued benefits--which were cashed--and that transportation vendors received payments for the dead people.
In the case of benefits being issued to dead people, procedures were not followed, the auditors wrote, while in the case of the transportation payments, DSS had not yet developed a procedure to recoup money paid after a client dies. The auditors recommended that the department improve its procedures for cases closed when a client dies to make sure benefits and transportation payments are discontinued, or recovered if they're issued.
In its response, DSS said it generally agreed with the findings. The department noted that in four of the 20 cases, the benefits were either fully or partially removed from the clients' electronic accounts, and in one case, the checks issued after the client's death were not cashed.
In the four cases where benefits were removed from the accounts, the auditors wrote, it occurred a year after the funds were deposited. They noted that the department's computer system is programmed to expunge funds that remain in the accounts one year after being provided.

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