Specifically, Lawyers like Vermont Legal Aid’s Christopher Curtis:
The Vermont Department of Children and Families has promised to hire 20 news staff members… to eliminate a backlog of benefit applications in just over a month.
The department and Vermont Legal Aid released the details of the plan that will include the hires and the elimination of the backlog by Feb. 1.
Legal Aid, which called the agreement a “corrective action plan,” had threatened to sue DCF for failing to process in a timely fashion applications for public benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid benefits within 30 days. In the plan, DCF has agreed to comply with a 30-day processing standard for new applications by July 1.
Of course, when Vermont Legal Aid first threatened to sue over this, Dale claimed that “legal action against the state could complicate efforts to solve the problem. Vulnerable Vermonters, he says, are better served if the state is focused on fixing the problem, not fighting litigation.”
So, clearly, without the lawsuit, we would have seen serious progress in the last five weeks, because without groups like Vermont Legal Aid in the mix, everyone’s just climbing all over one another in the effort to find better and more helpful ways to provide aid and services to the poor. It’s really quite a shame they had to go in and you know, force the state to hire enough people to follow the damned law.
… It’s simple, really. If your department faces legal action, your lawyers take care of it, while the rest of your staff “is focused on fixing the problem.”
Or not, as the case may be. But don’t blame it on the legal action.
The State’s new online benefits application forces you to answer asset (“resource”) questions even if you are applying only for programs for which there is no resource test (eg VHAP). How is that ok? Also the link to the pdf forms from which one could print a paper 010B application has been completely removed from the Green Mountain Care website. I find these developments disturbing.