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To: steve who wrote (19864)	2/11/2001 2:06:20 PM
From: steve	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26039

Updated: Saturday, Feb. 10, 2001 at 21:47 CST Fingerprinting of food-stamp applicants may be halted; bipartisan support grows for ending program deemed costly, wasteful By Karen Brooks Star-Telegram Staff Writer AUSTIN -- A fledgling program that requires food-stamp applicants to record a fingerprint will likely be rubbed out this session, lawmakers say. "It sounds like it's outlived its usefulness," said state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, architect of the state's 1995 welfare system overhaul. "Today, it's not a priority anymore." Bipartisan support for canceling the $3 million-a-year "finger-imaging" program is mounting in the face of evidence that the program is a waste. Lawmakers attempted to kill the program in 1999, but the effort died late in the legislative session. Tightening the belt has grown even more important in the past week after revelations that Medicaid increases could strain the state's budget. Although Texas was the first state to employ the system for food-stamp assistance, several other states have followed suit for cash benefits. A recent audit of the program in New York concluded that the cost outweighs the benefits. Researchers and state officials say the program, tested in 1996 and expanded statewide in 1999, has cost the state more than $16 million -- enough to provide cash assistance and food-stamps to more than 500 three-member families each year for the past five years. "The juice ain't worth the squeeze," said state Rep. Glen Maxey, D-Austin, who has filed a bill abolishing the program. A hearing on House Bill 102 is scheduled for Monday in the House Human Services Committee. A number of other tactics to deflect fraud include the more cost-efficient data-broker services to follow up on income and family-size information and are more effective in deterring the most common kinds of fraud, said Hilderbran and Celia Hagert, senior policy analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin. In defense of the program, the Texas Department of Human Services has cited three internal studies done in 1998 and 1999 that say the program has saved the state $6 to $11 million a year. State human-services officials plan to offer a recommendation on the program's future in Monday's hearing, but declined to elaborate Friday. State Human Services Commissioner Eric Bost could not be reached to comment. Researchers have criticized the DHS studies as simplistic and inaccurate. Studies by the University of Texas, the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, and the federal Department of Agriculture -- which oversees the food-stamp programs -- say the program is either a waste or its effectiveness is questionable. The fingerprints of about 1.4 million people have been recorded, but only nine fraud charges have been filed as a result of the program, said Hagert, of the Austin public-policy center, which often provides expert witnesses in legislative hearings. DHS officials say busting people for fraud is only part of the program -- the rest is deterrence. In their studies, officials counted people who refused to provide finger images as potential defrauders but did not conduct interviews with the applicants to determine why they refused. In surveys in Houston and Fort Worth-Dallas, less than one-half of 1 percent refused finger-imaging after having qualified in all other areas of the application process, saving the state roughly $6 million in potential benefits. Nearly 1 percent refused in the Rio Grande area -- a calculated savings of $11 million. Finger-imaging is the last step in the Texas benefits application process. After interviews and asset statements, the recipient puts an index finger on an electronic imaging machine, which scans the fingerprint. The image is stored in a database and matched with other recipients to determine whether the person is trying to get double benefits under separate identities. Refusal to submit a finger-image means automatic disqualification from the program. Although some of those applicants had presumably attempted to defraud the system, there is no way to know for sure why they didn't want their fingerprints scanned, critics say. "They may just be strong civil libertarians who don't want the government to have their fingerprints," Maxey said. Karen Brooks, (512) 476-4294 star-telegram.com steve

To: steve who wrote (19864)	2/11/2001 8:51:15 PM
From: David	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26039

steve, I can just imagine how Worldnetdaily.com expects this issue to play out: October 31, 2001-- Pennsylvania Middle School admits totalitarian schemes "The Libertarian Party is right. School lunches are just the tip of the iceberg." Officials at the Welsh Vally Middle School in Narbeth, Pa., breaking an ominous ten month silence, today appeared in cowls at a press conference, bathed in shadows and using voice-altering technology, to admit that their adoption of biometrics for a school lunch program was "part of a grand scheme of mind control and Big Government." "We didn't want anyone to understand what we were up to," one veiled speaker admitted, "but Worldnetdaily has blown our cover. This lunch program is just the tip of the iceberg." "It's a plot run by the National Education Association and the Democratic Party, logically started at a middle school in an obscure part of Pennsylvania. They didn't think anyone would notice." When questioned as to how the plan worked, another veiled spokesman (or spokeswoman) replied, "It began, of course, with food. Kids will do anything for Twinkies. Once we had their fingerprints in the cafeteria, we moved onto the bathrooms. The boys had to give up their fingerprints to use the urinals; the girls had to unlock the stall with biometrics. This allowed us to track their movements, so to speak, and also allowed us to cross-check urine samples to make sure that they hadn't been trading lunches after purchasing them. We also found one student who had been shaking down the others for extra desserts, although this was not part of the original master plan." "Once we acclimated the children to giving up the secrets of their precious bodily flu -- er, fingerprints -- it was a short step to having them bring home biometric units, stored in pods, to place by their parents beds while they were sleeping. "It worked. Democratic registration was up 17% in Narberth -- and this is a Republican area." Officials at Sagem Morpho and Democratic party headquarters could not be reached for comment. In a statement released to the press late yesterday, the Libertarian Party stated, "We knew it all along."