Committee reports out DHS-backed bill allowing commercial employment-verification vendor to reduce benefit error rate

The committee chair presented House Bill 1640, which was requested by the Department of Human Services to address an estimated error rate in the administration of SNAP, TANF and other benefits. The chair said the state currently has an error rate of about 10.6 percent, which creates federal reimbursement liability, and that the department wants authority to contract with a commercial employment-verification service to reduce that error rate closer to a target of roughly 6 percent.

The chair noted the bill would be effective on passage so DHS could quickly procure and deploy a third-party verification contractor. Committee members asked how the vendor would be selected; the chair said selection would follow a competitive procurement process and be subject to the state's public bid law. The chair also noted there are only a handful of vendors nationally capable of providing the service.

Why it matters: A successful verification process could reduce improper payments and federal liability in benefit programs, but the use of commercial employment verification raises questions about accuracy, data-sharing, and privacy that the transcript did not address. The committee reported the bill out to the next legislative stage.