Dozens lose jobs at Texas Access Alliance in San Antonio

Group of private companies has state contract for controversial new system to help Texans sign up for public assistance

By Corrie MacLaggan

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Several dozen San Antonio employees of a private contractor hired by the state to help Texans apply for public assistance lost their jobs Friday, according to an internal memo obtained by the Austin American-Statesman.

It was the latest development in the saga of a problem-plagued new system for determining people's eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid. The system launched its pilot phase in Travis and Hays counties in January.

Those who lost their jobs did not meet performance standards, said Jill Angelo, a spokeswoman for the Texas Access Alliance, the group of companies that won the state contract.
"We continue to work on performance, making changes to the pilot program at the state's direction," she said. "That's the point of a pilot — to fix whatever issues the program has."

Angelo confirmed that 15 full-time Maximus Inc. employees and some temporary employees lost their jobs. She would not say how many temporary employees were affected; the internal memo says 59. The workers were responsible for compiling documents for cases.

The temporary employees were in a 90-day probation period; had they met performance standards, they would have been hired, Angelo said.

The move comes three months after state officials announced that they were delaying statewide rollout of the new eligibility system, citing problems with employee training and technical concerns. The system is costing the state $899 million over five years.

In May, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins announced that no new cases will be processed in the San Antonio Texas Access Alliance office until the contractor improves the work there. He also canceled plans to lay off 1,000 state workers, though other jobs had already been eliminated.

Mike Gross, vice president of the 12,000-member Texas State Employees Union and a critic of the privatization plan, said that perhaps the alliance has learned that relatively low-paid, low-skilled workers can't replace experienced state employees.

"The whole project is obviously in trouble," Gross said. "This golden opportunity to make a lot of profit for not much work is not panning out."

In a Friday afternoon e-mail to Texas Access Alliance managers, Maximus Human Resources Director Shar Griffin wrote that managers had reviewed employee performance "in order to ensure the highest quality work for the citizens" of Texas. (I kinda wonder if they're actually doing this to reduce their costs, because it's already come out that they have not made as much profit as they had anticipated!)

"Based upon this review, we made the decision to not extend the employment of some of the staff in San Antonio who failed to meet this performance criteria," she wrote. "This means that going forward, San Antonio site will be a smaller organization than yesterday."

There are 478 employees at the San Antonio office, Angelo said.

Lateesha Guyden was one of those who got a pink slip. Guyden, a single mother of four, had worked full time for Maximus as a supervisor in San Antonio since December. Before that, she depended on public assistance.

"I was so grateful to receive that job," said Guyden, 32.

Now, she says, she'll probably request public assistance again. ( I heard that the client who got a job as a supervivor, possibly this one, was actually very good at her job! Isn't that the point of welfare reform? To move our clients from welfare to work?)

The new eligibility system involves closing some offices where people apply for public assistance and replacing them with call centers managed by the alliance, which includes Accenture LLP and Maximus.

State officials last year projected that Texas would save $646 million over five years but now aren't sure what it will save.

Maximus announced Tuesday that it signed an amendment to its five-year contract with the Texas Access Alliance and expects to earn $320 million, about 14 percent less than planned.

After call centers started taking applications in the pilot area in January, applicants encountered long wait times and spoke to representatives who couldn't answer their questions.

Since April, worker training has improved and hold times have been reduced, said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission. (What about the number of dropped calls? The number of complaints? What about timeliness in the rest of the state? We know accuracy has gone completely out the window!)

State officials are concerned about technical problems. It may be months before the system is rolled out statewide.

cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548