The number of Coloradans applying for Medicaid and food stamps doubled between 2000 and 2004, but the amount of money the state gives counties to handle the cases has grown less than 1 percent during the same time.
Counties also are struggling with an increased workload caused by the state’s troubled computer benefits system.
The double whammy has pushed at least two counties to request more employees to help process the claims.
Blame for the skyrocketing caseloads has been placed on unemployment, lack of benefits, and low-wage jobs that don’t pay the bills.
“To afford a two-bedroom apartment and not spend more than 30 percent of your income, you have to earn $17 an hour,” said Mag Strittmatter, spokeswoman for the Jeffco Action Center. “How many service-industry jobs are paying that?”
Adams County, where the workload in various programs has increased 43 percent to 94 percent since the computerized Colorado Benefits Management System debuted Sept. 1, 2004, says it could use 50 to 60 more employees.
“The workloads have just been tremendous,” said Sherri Almond, human-services director in Jefferson County, where the combined Medicaid and food-stamp caseload grew 106 percent from 2001 to 2005.
On Wednesday, the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners gave Almond permission to hire eight new employees at a cost of about $280,000.
In Arapahoe County, where assistance cases have grown from 19,000 in 2001 to 39,000 today, 24 new employees will be hired and cost $750,000 in additional salaries and benefits.
“We had seen the caseload drop in the 1990s,” said Brian Field, Arapahoe County human- services director. “But, boy, when the economy turned bad in 2000, the caseload jumped up and has never stopped.”
The recent economic decline has hit Colorado particularly hard, resulting in large percentage jumps in recipients.
In fact, Colorado saw the largest percentage growth of Medicaid recipients in the United States from 2003 to 2004, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report released this month.
During those years, Medicaid growth in Colorado increased 12.6 percent, with Virginia second at 11.4 percent. The average nationwide was 4.1 percent.
The counties are relying on federal money passed through the state and money allocated by the legislature to help with implementation of the Colorado Benefits Management System.
“When that money leaves, we’ll be struggling,” said Sue Cobb, spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Social Services, which uses overtime and temporaries to handle nearly doubled caseloads. The balky $200 million state computer system “has shone a very bright light” on a chronic state underfunding problem, Cobb said.
In May, Gov. Bill Owens appointed John Witwer, an Evergreen Republican state representative and a physician, as CBMS director. Witwer has worked to get more money for the counties from the legislature, including $3.8 million in June.
The conversion from the old systems to a new one that requires more information has created lots of work, Witwer said.
“My sense is things are getting better,” he said, “but we have a way to go.”
The additional state dollars have helped, said Linda Fairbairn, social services director for Prowers and Baca counties.
“But like every other county, we’ve picked from one pocket and moved it to another pocket. There’s not enough money,” she said.
The state’s hampered ability to keep up with costs “carry consequences,” said Colorado Speaker of the House Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver. And, he noted, “Colorado devotes a smaller share of our income to welfare than just one other state.”
One receiving those benefits is Mary Sandoval, who said she was thrown out of her home during a domestic-violence incident in January. She is staying at a shelter through Jeffco Action Center and starts a job next week as a telemarketer.
Also being housed through the center are Paulette and Christopher Dugent as they try to find work and housing since a storm collapsed the roof of her rented Baltimore home a month ago.
The Dugents packed up and got on a bus to Denver, where there is less crime, less humidity and a chance for a new life. “I just need a job,” Paulette Dugent said. “My husband is doing day labor.”
Dugent added she would be on the street if it weren’t for the shelter and food stamps.
She said: “We pray a lot, and we are determined to make it.”
Staff writers Felisa Cardona and Arthur Kane contributed to this report.
Staff writer Ann Schrader can be reached at 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com.
