Sullivan approves funds for fraud team

Posted 8/21/12

MONTICELLO, NY — Legislator Kathy LaBuda was asked if she knew if the Fraud Investigation Team (FIT) brings in enough revenue to pay for itself. She said “I don’t know.” She said her main …

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Sullivan approves funds for fraud team

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MONTICELLO, NY — Legislator Kathy LaBuda was asked if she knew if the Fraud Investigation Team (FIT) brings in enough revenue to pay for itself. She said “I don’t know.” She said her main concern was that legislators should not vote for a resolution that’s going to cost the county money if they don’t know where that money is coming from, and she did not know where the money for this particular resolution was coming from; therefore, she could not vote for it.

The resolution in question was discussed at the Public Safety Committee meeting on March 5, and called for the legislature to authorize the county manager to enter into a contract with the district attorney’s office and the Division of Family Services (DFS) to continue the operation of the FIT and the Family Violence Response Team for another two years.

Paperwork submitted with the resolution says the cost to the county will be $145,460.48, and the rest of the cost will be reimbursed by the state and federal governments.

The vote followed a lengthy presentation in which district attorney Jim Farrell went over the history of the FIT, which was formed in 2013. All legislators unanimously supported it at the time.

Farrell said in the years preceding 2013, welfare fraud crimes had a low priority because more serious crimes like robbery and assault took precedence. He said there were no welfare fraud arrests from 2009 to 2012.

Legislator Cindy Gieger interjected and asked, “Why?”

Farrell said, “Because it was not being monitored, and it was not important.”

Joe Todora, the acting commissioner of DFS and the commissioner of Department of Human Services, said there were times when social services fraud was more of a priority, “when the divisions had more resources to address waste, fraud and abuse.”

Farrell said that since the FIT was formed in 2013, there have been 87 criminal arrests, and so far 44 of them have been resolved. He said money wrongly taken since then amounted to about $500,000 and restitution amounted to about $200,000.

He further said repayment agreements with people who had not been arrested, but who wrongly received benefits, amounted to about $320,000.

Farrell said the issue of Medicaid fraud is significant. He said nationwide it is estimated by some to be as high as $100 billion, but the actual amount is unknown. He said part of the reason for this is because, “There’s open-ended reimbursement of state Medicaid spending, so the states don’t have the incentive to shut the spigot off; rather they have the incentive to keep the spigot flowing.”

LaBuda warned her colleagues that with this kind of continued spending, the legislature would be forced to override the Albany-mandated 2% property tax cap in the fall. She was the only one of five committee members to vote against the resolution.

DFS has come under fire on social media sites of late because critics say the battle against waste fraud and abuse went too far, and DFS has prevented people who needed services and who were entitled to them from receiving them.

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