Two Republican members of an Assembly subcommittee have joined a largely Democratic move to stop a $41.6 million plan to fingerprint recipients of subsidized in-home care.
GOP assemblymen Bill Emmerson of Hemet and Brian Nestande of Palm Desert voted in their budget subcommittee Wednesday to stop spending $8.2 million this year on the anti-fraud plan, which would cost an estimated $41.6 million over seven years.
The assemblymen also voted to repeal the fingerprinting in general of disabled and senior recipients of In-Home Supportive Services. The motion also requires a cost-benefit analysis to estimate what fingerprinting would save by preventing fraud.
Three Democrats on the eight-member subcommittee also voted for these motions. The motion to repeal fingerprinting of recipients would have to go before the Legislature to be approved.
The $41.6 million plan would require buying numerous $5,000-a-piece mobile devices that county social workers would use to take prints and photos of in-care recipients in their homes.
The California Department of Social Services idea was to download the data into an existing state fingerprinting system to check whether recipients were fraudulently enrolling in more than one county or under different names.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger contends that fraud is a major problem wasting millions in the in-home care program, which is the state's fastest growing social service program. The state shoulders about a third of the more than $5.4 billion a year in costs for caring for about 440,000 people.
Last year, the Legislature funneled money to county district attorneys to investigate fraud and require care providers to be fingerprinted.
In a joint statement to the Bee, Emmerson and Nestande said: "Based on the testimony we heard in the Budget Committee on Health and Human Services and with an $18 billion state budget deficit, we must do all we can to cut costs, limit spending, and eliminate government waste. Due to the high costs associated with fingerprinting IHSS recipients, we don't believe that funding this program is warranted at this time."
"However," the assemblymen added, "we will continue to support fingerprinting IHSS providers and other anti-fraud reforms that the Legislature passed last year."
In the Senate, a budget subcommittee has taken a similar stand, voting May 6 to stop the $8.2 million expenditure and to repeal the fingerprinting of recipients.
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