By Steve Klamkin WPRO News
Governor Gina Raimondo Friday paid an unannounced visit to the Department of Human Services Providence field office to get a first-hand look at the problems that state staffers and SNAP and other benefit recipients are encountering as the administration struggles with the rollout of the $364 million consolidated computer system.
“She has an understanding, first hand, of some of the struggles that our families are facing,” said DHS Director Melba Depena Affigne at a briefing Friday, one month after the rollout of the Unified Health Infrastructure Project, known as UHIP, intended to modernize computer systems used by numerous state agencies, some dating back 30 years or more.
The program has encountered numerous problems, including thousands of recipients left without benefit payments. Depena Affigne said there is a special line at the DHS field office in Providence for people who’ve encountered problems receiving benefits.
Hours after state officials offered an update on the attempts to wrangle the troubled system into line, the Department of Administration announced the overpayment of $36,000 to four individuals’ EBT, or electronic benefit cards. A spokesman said the state’s computer contractor, Deloitte was working to identify the cause of the issue, fix it immediately and would reimburse the state for any outstanding overpayments.
The administration has come under criticism after it was learned that federal officials warned that the old and new systems should be run simultaneously for a time, to detect and iron out problems.
“We would have had to run parallel systems,” said Rhode Island Director of Administration Michael DiBiase. “We were advised both by our internal technology partners and our external technology partners that we would have run a significant risk with that test, that there would have been a delay, because it would have run up against the Health Exchange enrollment period.”
DiBiase said the numerous state programs would have to run through complete benefit payment cycles to detect and correct many problems, a process that Secretary of Health and Human Services Elizabeth Roberts has said could take several months.
Depena Affigne said 15 workers would be laid off over the weekend, following a round of ‘bumping’ that began with layoff notices sent to 70 employees, mostly social workers. Most found work in other state agencies. Meanwhile, she said there was enough money in her budget to pay overtime to computer workers who are working to solve the computer system problems.
Asked for a letter grade and despite the problems, Depena Affigne rated the rollout a “B plus”, while DiBiase and Secretary Roberts each graded the rollout with a “B”.
“And, when I was a kid, I was not happy with a B and I’m not happy now,” Roberts said, adding, “I’m hoping we’ll be back to a better letter grade than that.”
