Senators focus on troubles in HHS, Corrections

Ongoing money problems at Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services, and overcrowding problems at the Department of Correctional Services, were highlighted in the Legislature Thursday.

Over the past few years, the federal government has fined and taken millions of dollars back from Nebraska because of poor recordkeeping of payments for foster care. Thursday, Omaha Sen. Heath Mello, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, asked senators to approve transferring $7 million within the Department of Health and Human Services to keep its child welfare division from running out of money.

"The issue that we have in front of us today is not due to anything the new governor (Ricketts) or his team has done. And as we said before, unfortunately it’s been building on issue after issue after issue in this department for the last three years in the aftermath of the child welfare privatization experiment," Mello said.

Mello was referring to the attempt under former Gov. Dave Heineman’s administration to have private agencies manage child welfare cases. Five of six agencies across the state went bankrupt or dropped out of the program, and the federal government fined the state for inadequate recordkeeping. Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte asked Mello why he has confidence transferring funds within the department will help. "Excuse me, but are we supposed to trust them because they mismanaged this account? How do we know their accounting is correct?" Groene asked.

Mello replied he’s not the only one recommending the transfer. "Both, I think, the governor and the fiscal office have come to an agreement that we’ve got to do this, otherwise government will essentially stop working come April 15," he said.

Groene, who has a business background, said shifting money around is not how the problem would be handled in the private sector. "In business, travel would have been cut. Seminars in Holiday Inns would have been cut. Pay raises would have been cut. Middle management would have been cut. And $7 million would have been found," he declared, before adding "But I come from a different world."

Mello told Groene that providing essential government services is not like manufacturing "widgets."

"Unless you don’t want to pay foster care payments in North Platte or Lincoln County, or you don’t want the state visiting your foster parents in North Platte or Lincoln County, we’ve got to pay these kind of payments," he said.

Groene said he wasn’t against transferring the funds, but was simply seeking information useful for making future decisions. The Legislature then voted 37-0 in favor of the transfer, and gave the bill first round approval.

Thursday afternoon, the Appropriations Committee met with Scott Frakes, the new director of the Department of Correctional Services. Sen. John Stinner of Gering asked Frakes if he has a plan to deal with prison overcrowding. Frakes, who started his job Feb. 2nd, said he doesn’t have a plan yet.

Frakes said he recently visited the department’s Diagnostic and Evaluation Center in Lincoln, which was designed to hold 160 inmates, but held 491 as of the end of last year. He said something needs to be done short term, but there aren’t a lot of good options.

After the meeting, Lincoln Sen. Kate Bolz, a member of the committee, said she was impressed with Frakes’ willingness to work with various groups to address prison problems. "It sounded to me as though he’d been through some of our facilities and with his trained eyes can see maybe some opportunities to better use space. But he also referenced some deficiencies in terms of deferred maintenance and other capacity issues," Bolz said.

In addition to deferred maintenance, Frakes told the committee he’s getting a lot of information about "staffing stripped to the bone" in an agency "under attack" and "stretched to the limits."

The department came under heavy criticism from lawmakers last year after it was revealed that it released hundreds of prisoners too early what some senators saw as an effort to ease overcrowding.