Ken Block. WPRO Photo.
By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
“There are a ton of moving pieces, there are a ton of personalities and a ton of bureaucracy,” Ken Block told the Dan Yorke Show Thursday.
Block said seeing changes take effect in the wake of his much anticipated social services fraud and waste report will take a “lot of time and patience.”
Governor Lincoln Chafee came under fire earlier in the week for withholding the report, compiled pro bono by Block. The Governor released the report yesterday, revealing a series of different waste and fraud issues plaguing the state’s social service programs.
While the Governor stayed mum, so too did Block – he had signed a confidentiality agreement when he agreed to take on the project.
“It makes perfect sense why governments do that,” Block said Thursday, explaining that he had access to government data that may need to remain confidential.
But Block said just because the findings have been released doesn’t mean the research is complete.
“The purpose of this report was not an end all be all,” he said. “It was an executive summary.”
He said there were a lot of specific details left out because the hard numbers aren’t available yet.
“You have to make sure those numbers are real,” he said, noting that for some areas they are “not anywhere at that point.”
“When you have the ability to have the whole story told…you can put it out there,” he said. “The report had what we were able to confidently talk about.”
Some of the hard numbers in the report included $1.7 million in food stamp benefits were not reported to the Providence Housing Authority and $4.5 million the state overpays annually for dental services provided by the Community Health Centers.
When it comes to reporting hard numbers, “you have to tread carefully and lightly,” Block said.
Block said he’s willing to put a “tremendous” amount of time and effort into helping the state solve the problems unearthed in the report, and said he believes the Chafee administration is willing to keep him on board.
Although Block was not at Wednesday’s press conference where Chafee released the report, Block said he was invited but was unable to attend for work-related reasons.
