Families wait five hours at Wichita welfare office, and may wait longer

Zach Claassen waited more than five hours with two young children in the lobby of the Wichita office of the Department of Children and Families to find out why their food stamps had stopped coming.

Waits that long and longer have become typical for poor families who depend on the state for public assistance with food, rent and cash, as the state agency struggles to implement a new computer system.

A DCF e-mail released by the employees’ union Monday cites waiting times as long as 6 1/2 hours.

And waits could get even longer later this month when the computer system “goes dark” Aug. 21 as part of the switchover, union officials said.

Claassen said he, his children and his fiancee had been “just sitting” from about 10 a.m. to about 3 p.m. and were still waiting for help when he had to leave to go pick up his third child from a relative who had to go to work.

“I didn’t get my food stamps today,” he said. “I came here today to find out why I didn’t.”

Claassen is a stay-at-home dad. His fiancee works at a fast-food restaurant, he said.

“I’ve got three kids and everybody’s hungry,” he said. “If the state doesn’t give us food, we don’t have any.”

Henry Pondexter, 58, said he had a similar experience at DCF on Monday.

“They had a mixup on my (food stamp) payments and cut me off, so I had to come up here,” he said.

The problem did get resolved, but “we were in there over five hours” he said.

DCF is promising that current client benefits will not be affected by the switchover to its new system, known as KEES, for Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System.

KEES “will be undergoing an upgrade period that has been in development for several years,” according to a written statement issued by department spokeswoman Theresa Freed. “DCF will continue accepting new benefit applications during the upgrade period, though processing times may be impacted.”

Robert Choromanski, executive director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, said the rollout of KEES has been chaotic and will be even worse with the backlog to come when it goes dark, possibly for as long as a week.

He worked two stints for DCF before taking the job with the union, and said the system was supposed to be operational about four years ago.

But the rollout has been plagued by software glitches, cost overruns and inadequate training for employees, he said.

Starting Aug. 21, the state contractor, Accenture, will try to roll the client data over from DCF’s 30-year-old legacy system, the Kansas Automated Eligibility Child Support Enforcement System, Choromanski said

He said the employees have told him that DCF is committed to pushing forward with that, whether it works right or not.

“I fear for the safety and well-being of our Kansas residents who rely on their benefits arriving on time,” he said.

Freed said new clients seeking assistance can apply online, by mail, drop-off or in person.

“Our goal is to provide one-contact resolution,” of new benefit claims, she said. “This may mean clients wait longer in lobbies, but they receive a same-day eligibility determination.”

She said federal mandates require eligibility decisions within 45 days and DCF once averaged 30 to 45 days.

“With a business process redesign that launched in 2013, we now average eight to 10 days,” she said. “Approximately 75 percent of clients who enter our lobbies with applications receive an eligibility determination the same day.”

This story was originally published August 7, 2017 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Families wait five hours at Wichita welfare office, and may wait longer."