The Maine Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule this week limiting the number of times a person can automatically receive replacement Electronic Benefits Transfer cards.
It’s the end of endless replacement benefits.
Excellent.
This is what the current administration calls a common-sense reform to monitoring state-issued welfare cards — cards that spit out cash.
It’s a laudable move, but why did it take so long?
That’s a serious question.
In announcing the rule change, DHHS credited a Sun Journal investigation tracking how EBT cards loaded with state and federal benefits were being recovered in drug busts, with the cards’ cash tapped for drugs.
Most of the recovered cards didn’t belong to the person who was holding them, but had been reported lost or stolen and were automatically reissued, each with fresh funds.
Here’s how the racket works: A DHHS client is issued a debit card based on a sworn need for food and other welfare assistance. That card is automatically loaded with benefits each month, and cash can be extracted using a PIN #. The client sells the card to a drug dealer, or trades for drugs, and then dials DHHS and reports the card stolen or lost. DHHS then re-loads and re-issues the card, and the cycle repeats.
No kidding.
It’s theft of public money that drug dealers and other crooks have been exploiting for years.
The Sun Journal’s investigation into this racket was published in August 2015, prompted largely by the testimony of Maine Drug Enforcement Agent Matthew Cashman before the Joint Standing Committee on Health and Human Services.
Cashman told an astonished group of legislators that between May 2014 and April 2015 “a total of 40 state of Maine EBT cards in another’s name were seized during 25 separate drug enforcement operations by the MDEA.”
These seizures started showing up in 2012, primarily in the Lewiston-Auburn area. One of the most egregious was uncovered in 2014 in the Bartlett Street apartment of Paul Robinson, according to Cashman.
There, following Robinson’s arrest on a charge of selling cocaine, police seized six state-issued EBT cards that — collectively — had been reported lost or stolen by their owners 114 times and automatically re-issued by the state each time. No questions asked.
When asked about this shocking turnover of cards, Sam Adolphsen, chief operating officer for Maine DHHS, said it was “certainly a red flag.”
A red flag?
If so, why didn’t DHHS wave an all-stop black flag on the spot?
State officials had convincing evidence that people were gaming the agency, picking taxpayers’ pockets, but it took another nine months — 277 days to be precise — for DHHS to announce its new rule policing this fraud. Every one of those days was an opportunity for the thieving report-card-stolen-and-cash-in racket to grow.
Under the new rule, a client can still get a card automatically re-issued four times. It is the fifth report of a lost or stolen card in a 12-month span that triggers the first question from DHHS that something may be amiss.
The administration deserves credit for flagging potential EBT fraud, actively tracking clients who moved out of state but are still using their cards, watching for potential drug trafficking activity with the cards and investigating collusion with vendors to commit fraud. It’s an effort previous administrations failed to make.
But, with the obvious drug trade in Maine and the ease in which cards can be traded and re-issued, there’s much more work to be done.
In announcing the rule change Wednesday, DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said, “With law enforcement continuing to confiscate EBT cards in drug busts and with millions in Maine EBT card transactions occurring in known drug-dealing places such as Brooklyn, (the) Bronx, Lowell and Hartford, it is critical that we adopt common-sense reforms to address any weakness in our regulations that opens the door to fraud, including the trafficking in EBT cards for drugs and cash.”
Critical? Yes.
Tens of millions of public dollars are uploaded to more than 130,400 cards every month, and every dime should be used to help those in need.
Critical enough to warrant speedy response?
Apparently not.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
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