I wasn't paying attention at the time that the State of Texas decided to outsource its social services like the Children's Health Program (CHIPS) and Medicaid, but I have to wonder WHY they chose, Accenture, which was the off-shore  (read MAJOR TAX BREAKS)  reincarnation of the consulting arm of Arthur Anderson. (Heh! The new name for Arthur Anderson's consulting was "Accent on the Future" -yeah, they wanted people to forget what they did with Enron!) Which Arthur Anderson is that, you ask, scratching your head? If you said the one that shredded documents for Enron once the heat was on in THAT scam, you would sure be right! Maybe tomorrow when I'm rested, I'll go back and see just who and how Accenture got that gravy train (and how much they paid in lobby fees to do it).

And it isn't like once they got the TEXAS deal, they did much better. Remember that time when it was discovered that all the applications for CHIPS, etc were being faxed to, NOT the Health and Human Services Commission, but a number in ... Seattle, Washington?

So now finally some somebodies have the bright idea that maybe giving these incompetents taxpayer money for the privatized operation wasn't so great and Accenture needs to be cut back from their greasy hands on our services.

Texas is drastically cutting a private contract for social services because of backlogs and errors in processing applications, state officials said Thursday.

The $899 million contract with Accenture to operate call centers to determine benefits eligibility will be reduced by $356 million and ended in 2008, two years early, said Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins.

Under the restructured contract, the Bermuda-based company will be largely relegated to data entry, leaving judgments about whether Texans qualify for food stamps, Medicaid and other welfare programs to state workers.

"We didn't draw the line between vendor work and state work in the right place," Hawkins said. "As we rebalance the roles between the state and the vendor, we will be drawing that line in a different place."

For example, if a client applying for benefits fails to list an asset such as a car, and a check of public data indicates a car is registered to the family, the situation will be investigated by state employees, not Accenture workers.

Additionally, a planned expansion of Accenture-run call centers from two Central Texas counties to other areas of the state will not occur, Hawkins said.

SMACK!

P.S. This entry by Bay Area Houston points to John Davis of Clear Lake as the culprit for continuing to support Accenture. He's the chair of the Health and Human Services subcommittee and supported it as late as July 2006