maximus inc

<a href="http://www.prwatch.org/node/12638">http://www.prwatch.org/node/12638</a><div class="node-info" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">By <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/users/1/pr-watch-admin" title="View user profile." class="username" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;">PR Watch Admin</a> on October 24, 2014</div><div class="header node-header" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);"><h2 class="node-title" style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25;"><a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/10/12638/privatization-fail-troubled-history-maximus-inc" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;">Privatization Fail: The Troubled History of Maximus Inc.</a></h2></div>- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12638#sthash.nmk9rIP6.dpuf<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Based in Virginia but with offices all over the world, Maximus Inc. rakes in more than $1 billion a year from U.S. states and governments outsourcing social service and administrative functions. Wisconsin and the privatizing giant have a long and very troubled history, but breaking up, it seems, is hard to do.<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Between 1997 and 2001, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development awarded Maximus three contracts to administer the newly created Wisconsin Works (W-2) program for $107 million. W-2 provides employment counseling and cash assistance for families living below the poverty line. There is no entitlement to assistance; it must be earned through “work participation and personal responsibility.”<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">While the struggling Wisconsin families kept their part of the responsibility bargain, Maximus did not. In 2000, it transpired that the company had improperly billed the state hundreds of thousands of dollars for expenses that had nothing to do with W-2, including “social functions and entertainment.” In the end, Maximus was forced to pay back $500,000. As a show of “good faith,” it also wrote a check for a further $500,000.<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Whether it was the show of good faith or its impressive history of maximizing profits is impossible to say, but in 2004 Wisconsin once again contracted Maximus, this time as a “revenue-maximization consultant.” The company was charged with helping the Department of Health Services prepare and file Medicaid claims to extract more money in federal reimbursement. The $3.4 million dollar contract – footed by Wisconsin taxpayers – ran until 2009. And initially, things seemed to be going fine. Perhaps the appropriation of $500,000 some years earlier was just a bad day in the office for Maximus?<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">When the contract expired, DHS continued filing in accordance with the “best practices” developed by the company. In 2013, these practices caught the eyes of the inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who found that they did not comply with federal requirements. Out of $41 million claimed for residential care services between 2004 and 2006, $39 million was deemed “unallowable" by the federal government. That translates into $19 out of every $20 and the feds are demanding Wisconsin pay back $23 million. Chances are that this number will increase by a magnitude when the claims made after 2006 get the fine-tooth-comb treatment.<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">W-2 and Medicaid consultancy are not the only services that have been outsourced to Maximus in Wisconsin. After spending more than $114,000 on lobbying the legislature on bills related to the “W-2 budget allocation process,” Maximus was awarded a renewed six-year contract with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families worth some $21 million in 2011. Once again, Maximus was charged with deciding whether cases (this time children placed in foster care) met the criteria for federal reimbursement.<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(66, 66, 66); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.3999996185303px; background-color: rgb(238, 238, 238);">Indeed, Maximus has experience providing this type of service. In July 2007, Maximus paid <a href="http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/July/07_civ_535.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;">$30 million to the federal government </a>to settle criminal charges related to falsifying foster care claims. "Even after Maximus was paid $30 million for false claims in the DC foster care system, Wisconsin went ahead and signed a contract with the firm for the same type of service. States are failing to learn from each other's experiences or in Wisconsin's case, even their own," said Shar Habibi an expert on privatization at the nonprofit resource center <a href="http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); text-decoration: none;">In the Public Interest.</a>- See more at: http://www.prwatch.org/node/12638#sthash.nmk9rIP6.dpuf