Look at what it cost Jefferson County when the state’s long-problematic technology system failed again last week: It processed about a third fewer applications for food stamps and other assistance than on an average day, further delaying assistance to about 200 people.
And that’s just one county.
In Colorado’s 11 counties, about 850 households miss out on assistance for every 30 minutes that the Colorado Benefits Administration System is down. During the 73 hours that the system was down between April and December, 124,000 households missed out on assistance, according to a tally by the Colorado Association of Counties.
The delays will mean some families will not receive food assistance for more than a month.
The Aug. 22 technical glitch was especially frustrating for Jefferson County, which has been inundated with food assistance applications over the past year, forcing staff to work overtime to process them all. Last month, the county had the lowest rate in Colorado of new Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applications processed within the time frame required by federal law, at just 46%.
Colorado is under a federal corrective action plan because it is in the bottom five states in the country for food assistance processing times. Households should receive food assistance within 30 days of applying, and emergency applications can be received within seven days. Colorado ranks high behind Kansas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Guam, the Virgin Islands and Washington, D.C., according to the USDA’s 2023 report.
That’s because of a massive increase in the number of people applying for assistance since the pandemic began and a shortage of staff to handle the workload. But the Colorado Department of Human Services’ efforts to clear counties’ backlogs face an even more intractable problem: the state’s computer system, which manages government payments for everything from Medicaid to child support to burial expenses.
State officials have been groaning and groaning for two decades about the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS). The Legislature’s Joint Technology Committee, a year-round, six-member committee, heard testimony this summer about the system’s widespread problems.
Colorado has tried to fix the problem for years but avoided a complete overhaul: The state plans to spend more than $102 million on CBMS this year, including vendor contracts and IT support.
The system, which launched in 2004, involves more than 30 vendors and 700 Web sites and contains information on 1.25 million Coloradans who have Medicaid health insurance, 599,000 who receive food assistance and 17,000 who receive adult financial assistance.
If a part of the system malfunctions, the vendor responsible for that part must make the repairs.
While system problems have wreaked havoc across Colorado’s welfare programs, the two state agencies that use the system the most, the Colorado Department of Human Services and the Colorado Department of Health Policy and Financing, say they have seen issues with the system drop from 317 hours of outages in 2022 to 138 hours in 2023. But the total outages have already reached 20 hours so far this year, up from 18 hours in 2022, according to the agencies.
The Human Services Department has two years’ worth of backlogged and unscheduled fixes and updates to its system, including 35 just for SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, according to a presentation to the Legislature’s technology committee.
Colorado Counties, Inc., a nonprofit association representing all of Colorado’s counties, is asking lawmakers to order an independent review of the system to determine “whether it can be repaired or should be replaced.”
Colorado improves statewide average to 88%
Colorado is now processing 88% of new food assistance applications and 87% of renewals on time, up from last year’s statewide average of about 75%, according to Shelley Bunker, director of the Colorado Department of Human Services’ Economic Security Administration. But that’s not enough to avoid a corrective action plan under which the USDA requires states to achieve a 95% compliance rate.
And Colorado’s statewide average hides the fact that some counties are struggling.
San Juan County received a score of 0% after officials in the county seat of Silverton received just one new food assistance application in July and did not process it within the required 30 days. San Juan County officials did not respond to requests for comment on what happened.
And in Costilla County, one of the state’s poorest counties, San Luis officials were able to process just 18.8% of new applications and 52.7% of renewals on time.
Costilla County Eligibility Supervisor Pamela Taylor said the county has struggled with issues with the state technology system and staff turnover. The county of 3,600 has also seen an increase in welfare applications, with 2,209 people currently receiving SNAP. “Because land is cheap in Costilla County and marijuana is legal, many off-grid residents find their way here and apply for benefits once here, which significantly impacts our county’s enrollment numbers,” she said in an email.
Taylor said he is working with the state’s Department of Social Services to come up with a plan to clear the backlog of applications, and some staff are now working from home on days when they can focus on processing applications.
In Jefferson County, employees are currently required to work eight hours of overtime each month to deal with the backlog.
Jefferson County, which serves 54,540 households receiving food assistance, was backlogged with about 4,000 applications in March, as staff sifted through about 800 renewal applications and 100 new applications that were supposed to be processed in July but were carried over to August, said Jesse Antonucci, Jefferson County’s community outreach director.
Jefferson County is currently at 84% processing time for new applications, but ranks last in the state for renewals.
About 1,000 more people are applying for food assistance each month in the county than they were a year ago.
Typically, Jefferson County’s team of about 90 eligibility review specialists can process about 600 applications a day for government assistance programs. On days last week when the state’s technology systems were down, the team’s productivity dropped by a third.
“We are completely dependent on CBMS,” Antonucci said. “If the system isn’t running at full capacity, we can’t run at full capacity. It wasn’t just slow that day. We weren’t able to approve cases for most of last Thursday.”
She said system issues ranged from complete outages to error messages being displayed and employees being unable to log in or switch screens.
County employee pay raises, automated data entry
In Adams County, credentialing specialists received annual pay raises of $6,000 to $10,000 depending on experience to reduce staff turnover. The county also provided mental health services. Vacancies in the department have fallen from 25 percent five years ago to 22 percent today.
“We’ve been able to stabilize our staffing,” said Katie McDougall, Adams County Human Services Director. “We feel we’ve been able to create an environment where individuals feel supported and want to stay.”
El Paso County has also seen improvements in processing times as the state streamlined some processes, including automating data entry. Applications for food assistance include information about work, disability benefits and rent or mortgage costs, all of which workers must enter into the system and verify with pay stubs and rent receipts.
Adams County processed 94% of renewals on time last month, up from about 83% a year ago.
Colorado is one of about a dozen states with county-run, state-overseen food assistance programs, and programs vary widely among the state’s 64 counties. Counties decide how to allocate program funding and staffing, and the state provides guidance and technical assistance.
“We know our work isn’t done,” said Bunker, of the state Department of Human Services. “Ensuring access to nutritious food and maintaining those benefits is a top priority, no matter what county you live in.”
Jennifer Brown writes about mental health, the child welfare system, the disability community and homelessness for The Colorado Sun. She can be reached at jennifer@coloradosun.com.
