Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made fraud in California's In-Home Supportive Services program a budget issue as the state tries to deal with its financial crisis.
The in-home program provides critical care to 430,000 low-income Californians in their homes so they are not forced to move into institutions or onto the streets. It is often cited -- including by Schwarzenegger -- as a key to keeping Californians out of nursing homes that would cost the state much more.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, July 17, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 29 Editorial pages Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
In-home care: A July 14 Op-Ed article about California's budget crisis stated that a grand jury had found that about 60 fraud cases involving In-Home Supportive Services in San Bernardino County were referred by investigators for prosecution. The referrals were to the district attorney's office and did not involve the grand jury.
Everyone is against fraud, but what exactly is Schwarzenegger talking about? How much of the program's money is wasted on fraud?
The governor can't seem to make up his mind. A couple of years ago, he estimated it at 10%, so the state spent thousands and thousands of dollars retraining county social workers, who assess the program's consumers. After home visits, the social workers discovered that the vast majority of Californians receiving aid were eligible and in need of the services.
On July 2, the governor told a news conference that "our In-Home Supportive Services program is riddled with fraud." A day later, in an Op-Ed article in this newspaper, he wrote: "Although this kind of abuse of taxpayer dollars is not rampant, we know it exists." And then last week, basing his numbers on what "some people say," Schwarzenegger estimated that 25% of the IHSS program is fraud.
In his Op-Ed and in answer to follow-up questions about in-home-care fraud, the governor refers to recent grand jury reports from six counties that found there were no safeguards against fraud in their programs. He cites care providers who collect checks under aliases or who over-report their hours, and he says greater vigilance would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars this year alone.
But where are the details?
A Contra Costa Times reporter took a closer look. In San Bernardino County, according to a July 8 story, of 19,798 IHSS recipients, the grand jury found that there were about 60 fraud cases a year referred by investigators. The reporter, James Koren, pointed out that even if all 60 cases were ultimately proved to be fraud, that would yield a rate of 0.3% -- not quite "massive amounts of fraud."
Sacramento County, meanwhile, reported that, in fiscal year 2006-2007, there were 397 reports of suspected fraud out of 17,735 cases, a rate of 2.2%. Of these, 31 were accepted for prosecution, a rate of 0.2% of prosecutable fraud.
