NJ lottery winners still receiving welfare, food stamps, audit says

Dec 6, 2014, 2:52 pm (17 comments)

New Jersey Lottery

An audit sniffing out fraud in New Jersey's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program detected 66 lottery winners who were perhaps too lucky. They were all welfare and food stamps beneficiaries who had each won more than $10,000, including one person who had been collecting $1,000 a week from the "Win for Life" scratch-off game prior to 2009.

Ten other winners netted more than $100,000 in lottery proceeds from 2011 to 2013. All of them were still collecting food stamps this year, according to the audit.

State rules require lottery winners who receive public assistance to refund the programs.

The audit also found 37 people from December 2013 to May 2014 who had collected food stamp benefits even after their death was reported to the Social Security Administration.

And of the 37 dead, 26 were listed as having used $39,000 in benefits, even though they were listed as the only beneficiary on the account — evidence of wrongdoing that should have been caught by the state and county welfare agencies, according to report released Thursday by the non-partisan Office of the State Auditor.

For a social service system serving about 830,000 people, the report by State Auditor Stephen Eells' office said the Department of Human Services internal controls "were adequate but could be improved."

But the report was especially critical of the "electronic benefit transfer" debit card system, which is how the 74,577 people on welfare and 820,642 enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP, as of May 2014 receive benefits. "There is inadequate security over EBT cards and system access," according to the report.

The auditor sharply questioned the "persistent delays and defects" of a five-year-old project to create a new automated system that would link all public welfare programs run by the state and the counties. The contractor Hewlett Packard, was to be paid $118 million to develop the Consolidated Assistance Support System, better known as CASS.

The total cost of the project is about $227 million, according to the report, which attributed some of the delays to "the poor performance of HP and management oversight."

In a written response to the audit, Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez said the contract had been terminated, and "interim plans are being put in place."

Velez's spokeswoman Nicole Brossoie told NJ Advance Media last week there would be no comment on the next steps until HP and the state work out a separation agreement. An HP spokesman also declined to comment.

County welfare agencies conduct fraud investigations but are not successful in recouping funds, the report said. From July 2012 to June 2013, counties identified 5,381 instances of fraud that should have resulted in a net gain of $12.7 million. But they only collected $1.4 million.

The auditor advised the state and county agencies to routinely match the names of SNAP and welfare beneficiaries with the list of dead people reported to the Social Security Administration and lottery winner database.

The auditor also suggested the state set asset limits on people who apply for SNAP. In a written response to the audit, Velez said the department had intentionally stopped doing evaluation of a recipient's total assets to speed up the application process.

New Jersey is one of 36 states that does not use an asset test for SNAP benefits, according to the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a national anti-poverty research nonprofit.

The audit examined the financial management of SNAP, and the welfare program, formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, from July 2010 to April 2014, when the Department of Human Service's Division of Family Development managed the payout of $5.3 billion in benefits through the county welfare agencies. Of that amount, $436 million paid for administrative expenses.

The auditor also found 46,800 clients whose Social Security numbers were either "questionable" or "unverified," but who collectively received $201.6 million in SNAP benefits and $12.7 in welfare benefits.

Velez said an internal analysis determined these were mostly data entry mistakes, such as typing in the wrong number, date of birth and name. The department, however, will retrain county welfare employees "regarding steps that could minimize the error rate," according to Velez's response.

The report is likely to fuel frustration between the state and county welfare organizations, both of whom are under federal scrutiny — and could lose federal funds — for taking too long to process SNAP applications. County union officials and social service advocates have said the welfare offices are understaffed and can't afford to hire more people.

NJ

Comments

chris-chase

OMG so shocking. (not)

dr65's avatardr65

No wonder they can't afford to hire more people.

Maybe they should make some good choices and hire a few good people to track down the cheats and liars,
throw them off the roll and in jail....oh and find out who is DEAD too...prevent those benefits from being released
then recalculate the fruits of their efforts. Millions paid to dead people? That's despicable. There's a breakdown
and lack of efficiency in communications between departments. They need to get their heads together but first must
make sure they're employing the people with the smarts to get it done.

They take the easy route by going after people long after they've been collecting illegally and make the major push
too late. By the time they catch up, they've lost millions and will not get it back from a lot of those people.

Total failure to allow people who don't deserve benefits to continue receiving them because the task is too draining
to pull off or the people employed in the agency are too tired, lazy and too 8 and skate to care about much more than
putting their time in and going home.

Drenick1's avatarDrenick1

Willing to bet that this abuse is nation wide. They need to impose a food stamp Czar to control this abuse.

Lucky Loser

Well, I suppose that some response is better than none. But, I see them as still extremely lenient, thus far, compared to what I've seen regarding the poor yet very lazy folks receiving benefits. In my opinion, this is much, much worse and should be frowned upon to the highest extent. These lottery winners have thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars at their disposal and they're still taking the system for a ride...and people basically give them a pass??? Unwilling to call them lazy, free loading, 'morons', and 'parasites' as I've seen and continue to see regarding a certain type of people? Unbelievable. For your information, THESE TYPES OF PEOPLE ARE THE REAL ENEMIES of the system. We're ALL paying for these types of people to receive benefits and THEY'VE ALL GOT MORE$$$ THAN 90% OF US. This...while there's so much anger and hatred over the poor and lazy that receive them. Granted, we should be angry with them as well but, the idea of your neighbor with $100K receiving benefits THAT YOU PAY FOR should light such a fire underneath your a$$ that it's impossible to put out.

L.L.

baseskizl

You know this is BULL<snip>. How <snip>ing hard is it to have someone call the lottery office to insure people that get public assistance haven't won more then 1K. It would take a day or less to find that out for a whole month. It does not take over $100 million to build a program. Well I am glad I don't live in NJ under Gov Chris Crisco. Not that my state is any better.

This post has been automatically changed by the Lottery Post computer system to remove inappropriate content and/or spam.

reddog's avatarreddog

Quote: Originally posted by Lucky Loser on Dec 6, 2014

Well, I suppose that some response is better than none. But, I see them as still extremely lenient, thus far, compared to what I've seen regarding the poor yet very lazy folks receiving benefits. In my opinion, this is much, much worse and should be frowned upon to the highest extent. These lottery winners have thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars at their disposal and they're still taking the system for a ride...and people basically give them a pass??? Unwilling to call them lazy, free loading, 'morons', and 'parasites' as I've seen and continue to see regarding a certain type of people? Unbelievable. For your information, THESE TYPES OF PEOPLE ARE THE REAL ENEMIES of the system. We're ALL paying for these types of people to receive benefits and THEY'VE ALL GOT MORE$$$ THAN 90% OF US. This...while there's so much anger and hatred over the poor and lazy that receive them. Granted, we should be angry with them as well but, the idea of your neighbor with $100K receiving benefits THAT YOU PAY FOR should light such a fire underneath your a$$ that it's impossible to put out.

L.L.

Finally someone gets it, supposedly. We will see. This is exactly what we have been talking about. A Demo finally sees the light, hopefully. Time will tell.

savagegoose's avatarsavagegoose

so far i spotted HP as the biggest fraud they should be dealing with

Stack47

The audit also found 37 people from December 2013 to May 2014 who had collected food stamp benefits even after their death was reported to the Social Security Administration.

I Hope they don't mean dead people are collecting food stamps, but wouldn't surprise me because dead people vote in every election. If they have the means to catch them, what's the problem?

sully16's avatarsully16

They will eventually get what's really coming to them.

shyguitar

This is just nuts. In my state of Mass I'm sure this happens. Why are there not systems in place for every state in the US that has a lottery in place?  There needs to be a way to have a computer system automatically see if you are getting Welfare, Food Stamps and Medicaid and if you win a decent amount your benefits should automatically be cut off. There has always been fraud in those programs and it is unfair for tax payers to get stuck with the bill for the people who take advatage of the system. I've worked since the age of 13 with my first babysitting job (most of my jobs unfortunately have been low paying ones) and am tired of having these broke systems. I truly believe we need a safety net for people but the fraud that contunes to occur just gets me so upset. I am not surprised by this article just sand and mad.

savagegoose's avatarsavagegoose

Im sure the dead are all completely innocent.  The living; claiming in their names, are another matter altogether.

Gleno's avatarGleno

The Asbury Park Press of NJ has published an article today about Ticket discounting, cashing  other player's winning tickets ,so that the real winners can avoid paying taxes,judgements, child support or other debts owed to the state.The Press has found that  840 prizes totaling $1.8 million collected by 20 most frequent prize winners,are either lottery retailers or members of their family. The NJ lottery commission is going to investigate.   

Smash

noise-gate

Quote: Originally posted by savagegoose on Dec 7, 2014

Im sure the dead are all completely innocent.  The living; claiming in their names, are another matter altogether.

I Agree!...totally. 

Kinda reminds me of a scene near the end of the movie " World War Z" when one of  the Doctor's says " You can't make Dead people sick" - apparently these folks are saying they can do one better by claiming that the dead are hungry..

Stack47

Quote: Originally posted by shyguitar on Dec 7, 2014

This is just nuts. In my state of Mass I'm sure this happens. Why are there not systems in place for every state in the US that has a lottery in place?  There needs to be a way to have a computer system automatically see if you are getting Welfare, Food Stamps and Medicaid and if you win a decent amount your benefits should automatically be cut off. There has always been fraud in those programs and it is unfair for tax payers to get stuck with the bill for the people who take advatage of the system. I've worked since the age of 13 with my first babysitting job (most of my jobs unfortunately have been low paying ones) and am tired of having these broke systems. I truly believe we need a safety net for people but the fraud that contunes to occur just gets me so upset. I am not surprised by this article just sand and mad.

"Why are there not systems in place for every state in the US that has a lottery in place?"

Because the state welfare agencies would expect the lottery to do the policing, they would pass it on to their retailers, and then down to the same clerks who found a way to use EBT cards to purchase tickets. The state probably figured out it costs more to police it than they lose. 

Are that many people on public assistance winning large lottery prizes?

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