The Journal Gazette’s Niki Kelly’s ongoing series on state government. Today, an article entitled Math geek grabs FSSA challenge with gusto which discusses Family and Social Services Administration director, Mitch Roob.
If ever there was an Indiana agency that needed reform, it’s FSSA. However, the root problem, I’m afraid, is that providing social services is difficult and expensive. It’s labor intensive, it’s depressing, and results are slow and subtle. The article doesn’t get into this much, but Roob has said in a couple of places that he intends to turn FSSA into a “healthcare financing agency.” The response in that case was a fear that this “change in philosophy” could really just be a way to sugar coat a reduction in services to those in need of social services. “Reductions in service to the mentally ill are historically a false economy. They shift the costs to other places, such as law enforcement or social welfare.”
My prediction is that a shift toward privatized social services will result in a somewhat reduced cost to the State, decent to big profits for politically connected businesses, reduced services for the needy, and increased costs to local government which ultimately has to deal with these folks in one way or another.
[…] that was entitled “Math geek grabs FSSA challenge with gusto” that prompted me to make this prediction: My prediction is that a shift toward privatized social services will result in a somewhat reduced […]