A new accountability division within Denver’s human services department is expected to prevent an assortment of glitches that seem to plague the agency each year.
Though the problems the Performance Improvement and Accountability division are to combat haven’t cost taxpayers much more than confidence in the system, they have caused headaches.
Set to begin operations today, the three-person operation is expected to reap dividends quickly, human services director Roxane White said.
“It will easily pay for itself in fraud recoveries and saved costs,” White said. “We will better track client applications, hopefully reduce the need to request (redundant) paperwork … and more efficiently and effectively issue correct benefit amounts.”
White hired Michelle Harper to head the division. She has been a special assistant to Mayor John Hickenlooper the past three years working with city agencies on improving performance.
Among Harper’s challenges will be issues raised in annual audits that have ranged from social caseworkers’ not getting annual training to the department’s not verifying welfare recipients’ income.
And in one serious case uncovered by auditors, a DHS employee managed to go undetected for years while allegedly pocketing thousands of dollars in public aid from the accounts of clients who had either died or were no longer eligible.
The former employee, Ivan Guerrero, 41, pleaded guilty last week to a felony theft charge in Denver District Court and is scheduled to be sentenced next month, prosecutors said.
“This new division will help us more quickly and systematically investigate all cases of potential client or employee fraud and reduce waste,” White said.
If left uncorrected, problems uncovered by auditors could result in wasteful spending or lower quality of service, according to a recently released audit of federal grants from fiscal 2005.
Auditor KPMG found some social service programs funded by $91 million in federal grants weren’t operating as intended, though services weren’t shorted. It also found that 10 caseworkers hadn’t received any kind of training last year despite requirements that they get at least six hours of additional instruction a year.
Auditors said the department didn’t check that welfare applicants were actually eligible for aid. The state-run automated system used for that purpose had been shut down for repairs in 2004 and was operational in July 2005, but no one told the city.
The department handles a variety of programs including food stamps and child welfare.
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
