State claim on reversal of public assistance cuts fails red face test

The Dunleavy administration has offered an unbelievable account about the sequence of events and the timing of the decision to cut benefits for the poor, blind, disabled or old, followed by the reversal of the reduction once the public began to learn about it.

The Dunleavy story is that no one in state government knew that Adult Public Assistance benefits would be cut by $100 a month or so until after letters went to 19,383 recipients Dec. 2 informing them of the cuts.

This all happened because of complex formulas not subject to state control, the state claims, and no one really knew what was going on. It was no one’s fault.

The story goes that as soon as health commissioner Adam Crum learned the facts, he alerted Gov, Mike Dunleavy who announced a reversal of the decision Dec. 9, meaning that the decision was subject to state control all along.

This version of events doesn’t pass the red face test.

(Something similar happened Friday with the astonishing statement by Crum that the state is reversing its decision on ending dental services for Medicaid patients. The press release distorts the situation. For months, Dunleavy , Crum and others in the administration refused to listen to experts who said the Medicaid veto would cost the state more money in the long run. It turns out the state was legally prevented from cutting the service. The administration is making the same claim about a complex formula as the problem. The formula is not the problem. I’ll have more on the incompetent handling of this issue later this weekend.)

I wrote about the cuts here on Dec. 4. There had been no announcement from the state and no news coverage of the reduction, which was hidden in a technical document on the public assistance website.

What I think happened is that the Dunleavy administration realized it had made a serious political mistake a few days after the public began to learn of the cuts and legislators started to ask questions.

Rather than admit that this was a clear example of incompetence in state government, the administration defended itself with a barrage of bafflegab, claiming that Dunleavy deserves credit for declaring that cuts approved by his administration were unacceptable to his administration.

No one wants to take responsibility for a bad policy call. Dunleavy could have at least said, “Mistakes were made.”

In his first round of vetoes June 28, Dunleavy declared that the federal authorities had approved a reduction in Adult Public Assistance benefits that would go into effect Jan. 1 because he was vetoing $7.5 million from the program. The size of the cut was not announced.

“Approval has been received from the cognizant federal agency, and the change can only take effect in the beginning of the calendar year,” the Office of Management and Budget declared, butchering the word cognizant.

The Legislature restored the $7.5 million in public assistance funds later in the summer, but Dunleavy vetoed the money a second time on Aug. 19. “Payments are not being eliminated but are being reduced, which will begin on January 1,” the Office of Management and Budget declared. “Reductions align with federal flexibilities to realign payments.”

Again, the size of the cut was not announced.

On Nov. 26, state members of the Division of Public Assistance received an email announcing the new calculations for cuts as of Jan. 1, adding that a training course had been created, and that updated manuals would be available on Dec. 2.

So the cuts were known and approved before the letters went out to recipients Dec. 2 informing them of the reduction.

When the state announced the reversal Dec. 9, it said the cuts had been larger than expected because the federal government required a “new payment standard” and that a formula used since 1995 was wrong. The interaction of these two changes led to bigger cuts.

The communication to recipients of Adult Public Assistance about the state reversal is indecipherable, which appears intentional. It will confuse most, if not all, of the 19,383 recipients about what really happened.

The governor’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting next July calls for an increase of $7.5 million, another reversal after two rounds of vetoing that amount.