LEWISTON — A city effort to clean up the General Assistance rolls in 2013 may not have resulted in many convictions, according to Mayor Robert Macdonald, but it did bring the issue of Maine welfare fraud more into focus.
“Before we did this, we were told the issue of fraud in General Assistance was anecdotal, that it just didn’t matter,” he said. “Well, we proved this was not anecdotal.”
Macdonald and city staff announced efforts to clean up General Assistance in March 2013 by calling out 84 aid recipients who had failed to complete required paperwork or had seemingly falsified their reports. Those 84 were purged from the city General Assistance rolls.
The city eventually issued criminal summonses for six who faced prosecution for criminal misdemeanors, with the potential for a $1,000 fine.
More than a year later, police Chief Michael Bussiere said one of those six, Roy Hunter of 133 Sabattus St., has worked his way through Maine’s court system. Hunter pleaded guilty to making a false representation in August 2013 and was sentenced to 40 hours of community service, which he completed in October 2013.
The rest had charges dropped or worked out a deal with the city to avoid prosecution.
Bussiere said the Police Department has dealt with few similar cases since March.
“It’s tough to say, it certainly is possible that people now realize that it’s not just a situation where their benefits could be terminated,” Bussiere said. “It’s possible that this could lead to criminal charges, and that may have a deterrent effect. Maybe it does make people think twice about trying to fool the system.”
But former Mayor Larry Gilbert, who lost to Macdonald in November 2013’s municipal election, said the lack of convictions shows that the effort was just political rhetoric on Macdonald’s part.
“I think it sounded good at the time,” Gilbert said. “It sounds tough and everything, but it was just rhetoric.”
But Macdonald said it’s a matter of fiscal responsibility, for both the state and the cities — and Lewiston proved it.
“When Lewiston did our purge, people in Augusta could no longer ignore it,” Macdonald said. “We proved that it’s not anecdotal, that it involves real money.”
Maine law requires cities and towns to pay General Assistance to needy residents out of their general fund and property taxes. Single recipients can be eligible for up to $537 per month from the city to help pay for basic necessities: housing, utilities, medicine and food. Multi-person households can be eligible for more.
The state reimburses Maine cities and towns for a portion of what they paid out. Generally, the state repays half of what the municipality paid. The state reimbursement rate increases to 90 percent for a city once it pays out a certain amount.
Social Services Director Sue Charron said her department provided financial aid to 573 cases in the 2013-14 fiscal year. Lewiston’s budget called for $550,000 in state General Assistance reimbursement — about 1.1 percent of Lewiston’s non-property tax revenue that year.
The state’s reimbursement to Lewiston is expected to increase to $666,000 in the current 2014-15 fiscal year, according to the budget.
General Assistance recipients must fill out a form detailing where they applied for jobs. Those who don’t look for work or don’t document their search risk losing city benefits.
People can be kicked off General Assistance rolls for up to 120 days if they don’t complete that form or if the department finds they lied on it.
Initially in 2013, the city removed 84 people from Lewiston’s welfare rolls, and pursued criminal complaints against 50 of them for fraud.
A day later, the city narrowed that list and released the names of six General Assistance recipients who had been given summonses on fraud charges — making false representations to city staff in order to continue receiving payments.
“There is no crime in the statute called ‘General Assistance Fraud,'” Bussiere said. “When we charge people with different crimes, they are charges such as theft, mistaken delivered files, aggravated forgery, forgery, false statements, theft or theft by deception. Those are the actual charges, depending on the situation. If you make a false statement or give false information on a report about General Assistance, you don’t get charged with GA fraud.”
Bussiere said three of the remaining men issued summonses in March 2013 had charges dropped by agreeing to repay the city or work off their debt with the city. Bussiere said Joaquin Lorenzo-Melendez, of 99 Knox St., has completed his contract with the city.
Shawn Turner, of 94 College St., and Charles Bumey, of 129 Oak St., are still working to repay their debt to the city.
Charges were dropped for the remaining two — Idey Aden, of 77 Birch St., and Sean Young of 68 Knox St. — due to paperwork irregularities.
Bussierre said the city continues to monitor fraud and remove people who do not cooperate, but it’s usually handled internally by Lewiston’s Social Services staff.
Charron said her department regularly checks to make sure aid recipients stay within guidelines.
“That has not changed,” she said. “When we determine GA eligibility, we are always looking for red flags and for things that are not right. We always take into consideration if they give us different information than they gave DHHS. We are always following up on those things.”
What has changed is the way the city handles the job search forms. Now the city reviews those forms each week.
“We are not waiting for several months to review the job search forms,” she said. “A few people are disqualified on a weekly basis, versus having a whole bunch disqualified every few months.”
Charron said she does believe it has encouraged people to be more careful about what they say to the city.
“But I don’t know how big an effect that is,” she said. “I have not had the time to look at it and see how many people have been disqualified.”
Gilbert said that’s not much of a change.
“What was the final result? They ended up giving them community service,” Gilbert said. “That’s exactly what they would have had to do to get General Assistance anyway. The end result was no change, just rhetoric.”
For Gilbert, it’s proof that the March 2013 effort was empty political rhetoric.
“Out of this 84 people, the front page story, the press conference, the television, they end up with one,” Gilbert said. “It was all just a big bluff.”
But Macdonald said it does show that the city is being more careful with who receives aid.
He said what Maine really needs are changes to state law that allow real punishments for people gaming the General Assistance system.
State rules say individuals removed from the General Assistance rolls can be re-enrolled after 120 days if they meet the city’s requirements. In August 2013, city officials said 12 of the 84 purged were once again eligible for General Assistance and seven met the city’s requirements and were receiving aid.
That 120-day re-enrollment period must change, Macdonald said.
“What happens now, we can kick people off of welfare for 120 days,” Macdonald said. “But after that, they come right back like nothing ever happened. It becomes a revolving door.”
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