Texas Style Governing

This is what passed for a public/private partnership. So I guess the question is who is accountable?

NEEDY TEXANS' APPLICATIONS FAXED INTO A 'BLACK HOLE'

June 2, 2006
By POLLY ROSS HUGHES
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

AUSTIN - Three months ago, dozens of documents from Texas containing highly confidential financial and health information began arriving over a fax machine at a Seattle warehouse.

Shaun Peck, a clerk at the warehouse, searched through the mysterious documents — revealing Social Security numbers, medical evaluations, income tax forms and pay stubs — and wondered why they kept coming and where they should be going instead.

Back in Texas, frustrated elderly, disabled and poor people have long wondered why they sent applications for benefits to the state only to be told they never arrived.

Peck didn't know it, but he had discovered the much-rumored "black hole" eating up Texas applications for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

The snafu is just the latest example of confusion during the state's transition this year from public to private screening of health and welfare applicants under an $899 million contract with outsourcing giant Accenture LLP.

At least 144 of the faxes, and possibly many more destroyed in a shredder or manually disconnected, were intended for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission or its private contractor in Midland but landed instead at the Seattle warehouse.

But, despite a call and two e-mails from Seattle to the state agency more than three weeks ago, misdirected faxes still arrived at the Seattle warehouse this week from applicants apparently clueless that a problem existed.

"I have not heard anything back from them. Nothing at all," said Cindy Sandford of Seattle, who alerted Texas officials May 9 about the wayward faxes at the request of the warehouse manager.

It wasn't until Wednesday — the day the Houston Chronicle raised questions — that the agency and its private contractor actively began checking into and fixing the mistake.

No one is accountable and it's OUR information out there.