About 52,000 people who received public benefits like food stamps and temporary cash assistance in Maryland last year didn’t have valid Social Security numbers, a state audit has found.
The state’s own Office of Legislative Audits found a “number of deficiencies” in the Department of Human Resources’ Family Investment Administration, including:
» Computer programs designed to detect ineligible recipients not being used for extended periods.
» Employees being able to modify recipient benefits without approval from a supervisor.
» Contracts were not sufficiently monitored to ensure that services paid for by the department were actually received
Maryland Legislative Auditor Bruce Myers signed the report, but was not immediately available for comment Monday evening.
The audit did not detail the total amount spent on assistance to individuals without valid Social Security numbers, but said overall, between July 2006 and June 2007, FIA made assistance payments totaling $488 million, most of which came from federal funding.
The temporary cash-assistance programs accounted for $105 million in payments and the federal food stamp program consumed $334 million.
“We’re increasing taxes a billion and a half dollars all based on spending and here we are subsidizing fraud at the taxpayers expense,” Del. Pat McDonough said. “I think we need a federal investigation into why this is happening. Somebody is responsible for this.”
FIA officials were also not available for comment Monday evening, but said in a written response to the Social Security number problems that they “concur that this issue needs immediate attention” and “several system fixes are in progress.”
Program leaders said in the response they are investigating cases of benefit recipients with missing or invalid Social Security numbers and have issued new policies to prevent some programs from accepting the same Social Security number for two individuals seeking benefits, if one has been federally verified.
A separate state audit released in October found similar problems in the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, where employees mistakenly issued driver’s licenses to people who gave the Social Security numbers of deceased people.
