Lawmaker says Health and Human Services commissioner should accept responsibility for call center problems.

Rep. Herrero: The buck stops with Hawkins

By Corrie MacLaggan
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, April 20, 2007

In a public hearing Thursday, Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, called on Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins to take responsibility for Texas' troubled system to enroll low-income people in social services.

"The buck must stop somewhere, and that, I think, stops with the commissioner," said Herrero, who led a House subcommittee investigating privately run call centers and the computer system, known as TIERS, that powers them.

Later, Herrero described experiencing immense pressure to avoid publicly criticizing Hawkins, who has been appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to serve another term but has not been confirmed by the Senate. Herrero said that a report his three-person subcommittee presented Thursday to the Human Services Committee had been scrubbed of Hawkins' name and references to problems or errors.

That report was a narrative version of a subcommittee-adopted list of sweeping recommendations presented to the committee on how the state could prevent a repeat of problems with TIERS and with call centers to sign up Texans for programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

After problems with training and technology, the state halted planned expansions of the call center and TIERS projects, which have cost taxpayers more than half a billion dollars.

Hawkins was not at the hearing, and a spokeswoman said he was not asked to be there.

"Commissioner Hawkins doesn't have any comment on today's hearing," Stephanie Goodman wrote in an e-mail.

An edited copy of the original subcommittee report provided by Herrero has an "X" crossing out a paragraph that says: "Through testimony and research, the members of the Subcommittee have verified that HHSC was notified in advance and fully aware of the inefficiencies with the TIERS system's inability to properly integrate with (the call centers) to provide services to eligible recipients in an efficient and reliable manner. . . . Unfortunately, Executive Commissioner Albert Hawkins chose to proceed with TIERS and (the call centers) before they were ready. As a result, the eligible recipients of those programs were wrongfully denied services."

Herrero provided three versions of the report, which he said was hastily changed before Thursday's committee meeting. He would not say who edited it, who asked for the changes or who had exerted political pressure.

The report, unlike the list of recommendations, was not formally adopted by the subcommittee, but it was presented to the committee during Thursday's hearing.

Herrero said he recommended to the subcommittee that Hawkins not continue in his job but was told that was not part of the scope of the committee's work. Herrero said he thinks Hawkins would have been fired if he were a contracted employee rather than a gubernatorial appointee.

"The message got around that there's political pressure, that we should not inject ourselves with respect to Commissioner Hawkins' performance or lack of," Herrero said.

During the hearing, subcommittee member Rep. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, said that Hawkins is leading the commission in a "very, very positive manner."

"I don't see it as a smoking gun; I think all parties were well-intended," Parker said of the call centers. "Mistakes were made. I think we can learn from those mistakes."

The other subcommittee member, Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, said Hawkins was caught in the middle of issues with a project that was uncharted territory for the state.

The state had hoped to save $646 million over five years by closing some state offices where Texans apply for benefits and hiring a group of companies led by Accenture LLP to run the call centers, manage the Children's Health Insurance Program and maintain TIERS. Hawkins announced last month that the state and Accenture are parting ways, ending a contract originally worth $899 million.

A Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General report released Wednesday found that it was not clear that TIERS, which replaced a system known as SAVERR, was superior to SAVERR. State officials say that although TIERS has problems, it works well.

cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548