Rhode Island’s hodgepodge of social service programs broadly form a “social safety net” critical to thousands of poor, unemployed and disabled residents. But a report released last week by United Way of Rhode Island and the R.I. Public Expenditure Council found the Ocean State’s net is disjointed and expensive.
The 58-page report unveiled Aug. 20 intentionally shies away from making pointed recommendations and instead highlights a number of sobering figures. The number of unemployed continues to rise, the number of those without health insurance grew at a clip faster than the national average from 2002 to 2007 and the state added 35,000 residents to the Medicaid roll between 2000 and 2008. Medicaid cost the state $1.8 billion last year. And spending for social service benefits and grants comprises 46 percent of this year’s state budget.
“This [report] could stimulate a really good discussion about what a system could be like that would be better for people and probably cheaper for government,” said United Way President and CEO Anthony Maione.
The report comes after a contentious budget year that saw hundreds gather on Smith Hill to protest proposed changes to social service programs. The report makes no specific proposals regarding legislation, but offers broad-stroke recommendations to lawmakers and department heads.
“We really see this as a jumping-in point,” Maione said. “There’s so much emotion around human services in every state around the country we really wanted to shed some light without adding to the heat.”
The report is most pointed in its criticism of the state’s multilayered delivery system. The advisory group formed by the two organizations says the state provides services though a convoluted network of departments that often require redundant and complex forms, sometimes even within the same agency.
“The current social safety net has evolved incrementally over time and there does not appear to be a cohesive vision for what society is trying to accomplish with these social safety net programs,” the report says. “Therefore, the advisory group felt it would be important to improve accountability for how government funds are spent for these purposes.”
The report suggests establishing a permanent commission of lawmakers, department heads and community representatives to oversee the state’s social safety net. It also calls for a “holistic” approach to serving clients where one state agency conducts an initial assessment and then shares the information with other agencies.
The report also recommends changing federal and state regulations to gradually wean people off services, rather than cutting them lose when they reach an arbitrary income level.
Maione said the food stamp program is a good example. A worker qualifying for food stamps could lose them if he or she receives a modest wage increase. Still struggling, the worker now falls further into disrepair whereas had the government reduced, rather than eliminated, the benefits, the worker would have had an opportunity to stabilize his or her income.
The idea of gently pulling back services forms the basis of the report’s structure. The advisory group composed of clergy, business leaders and nonprofit executives divided the “social safety net” into three categories. Some programs, like supplemental security income, serve “dire needs.” Others provide “basic stabilization,” while the last tier provides work force development for long-term stability.
The authors acknowledge their definition of the safety net is arbitrary, but say any comprehensive program always has the same goal.
“The desired outcome of the safety net is for people, as much as they can, to be able to help themselves,” the report says. “As policy, people should have their basic needs met and should be encouraged to meet those needs through gainful employment, with decreasing reliance on government supports. It must be recognized, however, that there is a continuum of needed supports that fluctuates over a lifetime and that it is highly likely that many Rhode Islanders will need some kind of help at some point in time.”
Maione said the group recognized the difficulty of changing entrenched government bureaucracy. But he said today’s poor economy makes it critical that the government get it right. And the report speculates that by 2015, demographic data points toward a Rhode Island that will be older and have fewer workers in their prime productive years, and the state’s social safety net will become even more important.
Maione has already distributed the report to key lawmakers and members of the advisory group met with staff at state agencies.
“It’s not something we want to put on the shelf for a year and half and then come back to,” he said.
