After having the biggest improvement in fighting food assistance fraud, the state of Michigan was awarded $3.3 million from the federal government.
Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow who chairs the upper chamber’s Agriculture Committee that oversees the nation’s food aid program, made the announcement to reporters in a conference call Thursday morning.
“Michigan is being recognized for being most improved,” Stabenow said. “I’m calling on the state to redirect that money to redouble our efforts.”
She called for additional enforcement of those taking advantage of the system and to continue keeping better electronic records of Michigan Bridge Card users, specifically, the frequency of card usage.
“It is really an outrage when people are cheating and defrauding the system particularly when it’s something as basic as food for families.” Stabenow said. “We have people in Michigan … who have paid taxes all of their lives who never thought in their wildest dreams that they would be in a position where they needed to get some temporary help.”
Approximately 80 convictions nationwide over the past six months have resulted in orders for the defrauders to pay back millions. Errors in new food assistance cases can result in non-qualified people illegally taking benefits and possibly never being charged.
Bashar Rabban, a manager at Save-A-Lot in Ypsilanti (on Washtenaw Avenue) for more than a year, has not witnessed any customers committing fraud, unlike his experience at a Detroit store he managed.
“We’d catch people trying to sell their food stamps (for money) by the front doors and we’d have no other choice but to kick them out,” Rabban said. “We couldn’t have that going on because then our privilege to serve people who actually deserved benefits would be taken away.”
A frequent Save-A-Lot shopper and previous Bridge Card owner expressed her frustration about food assistance fraud.
“It makes me sick,” Janelle Marion from Ypsilanti said. “If you need money that bad, you earn it — not take it from someone else.”
Bridge Cards are issued to all clients of the Department of Human Services to purchase food products and access cash benefits. The federal government has mandated that all states use Electronic Benefits Transfer for food assistance benefits.
According to Brian Rooney, the Department of Human Services’ director of policy and compliance, the 30 new investigators added this year and deployed statewide, bring the total to 90. These investigators and the department’s concentrated focus on food assistance, has aided Michigan in cutting its error rate more than 20 percent in a year, the greatest error rate cut in all of the states. Rooney said he expects the $3.3 million will go toward other enforcement efforts, which he said will result in net gains for the state.
Approximately 4,400 retailers and more than 4,000 ATM’s are available for Bridge Card use within the state. The level of participation by retailers, such as Save-A-Lot, and financial institutions has been said to play a vital part in Michigan’s welfare.
“I think that more people are using them (Bridge Cards) because these days, with the housing market, everybody’s upside down,” Rabban said. “But nowhere is dependent on food stamps like Detroit.”
