Around the Rotunda: What Would Ernie Do? T-shirts now available

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The legislative pages have a unique view of the Legislature, sitting in the front facing the senators, responding to their call lights, fetching coffee and doing whatever chores are within the parameters of their job description.

All are full-time college students. One or more of them have a blog on the Internet called Paging Power. They are most likely former pages, but who knows? They choose to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, because on the site you can find that unique view of the Legislature you might not find elsewhere.

The irreverent bloggers especially like to write about the session-according-to-Ernie, called Absolut Ernie. But other senators (and the governor) get their face time, too, observed on everything from fashion to hair to speeches (or ramblings). If you missed a particularly interesting speech on the floor, chances are you might find it here — the Legislature’s own youtube.

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Now, the Paging Power blog is offering a WWED, What Would Ernie Do? T-shirt in a wide variety of styles and colors. Even a maternity T.

Be the first in your Legislature, state office, classroom, Lamaze group or Ernie fan club to get one at pagingpower.blogspot.com.

Capitol nursery

Get your naming caps on. Four peregrine falcon chicks hatched last week in a nest near the top of the Capitol. Another naming contest will be held this year. You can see the little ones and their parents at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission Web site at www.ngpc.state.ne.us.

Writing off debt to HHS

The Legislature will write off more than $1 million in uncollectable debt owed to the regional center, veteran’s homes and various poverty programs managed by Health and Human Services.

The number startled senators on the Legislature’s Business and Labor Committee, who wanted to know how it got so high and what were the state’s collection procedures.

Until 2004, HHS had no coordinated system to collect debts, according to Chris Peterson, who now heads the HHS system.

The agency has been taking steps for the past three years to do a better job collecting money owed the state. It will soon be picking a collection agency to go after the people who haven’t paid when letters and warnings from the state don’t work. Administrators will also work with senators to determine when the state should use the courts to help collect debt.

All the debt being wiped off the record is at least five years old. Not quite one-third of the $1 million is uncollected debt from patients at regional centers or veterans homes.

ADC beneficiaries, very low-income parents who are getting some money to help feed and cloth their children, owe much of the rest — $666,770.

A single parent with three children cannot earn more than $11,178 a year and still qualify for ADC benefits. So these are folks who struggle to meet basic necessities.

The average of the 2,008 ADC write offs is $628.

The debt is primarily overpayments on monthly checks, either because the recipient didn’t report information (pay raise, a child moved out) quickly enough or the system didn’t get the information recorded in time.

Peterson says she will be talking with senators about whether there should be guidelines about when, if ever, HHS should decline to aggressively pursue a debt. There could be times when collection is so unlikely that pursuing it doesn’t make sense — a getting-blood-out-of-a-turnip equation.

Becky Gould with the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest thinks this is a responsible question. How much sense does it make to collect from people who are living on incomes at 46 percent of the poverty level or below, families whose monthly ADC check is less than $364 (for a family of three)?

“If our goal is to move people out of poverty, collecting small sums of money from them doesn’t make a lot of sense. When you take away from families living on income that low, it means something else won’t get paid, the utilities won’t get paid, the rent won’t get paid,” she said.

Intrusive application for getting work

The application for the Employment First program (for people receiving ADC or traditional welfare) is 17 pages long.

The questions cover the family’s housing and childcare arrangements to budgeting ability and parenting styles. In addition to questions about employment goals and skills, there are sections related to mental health issues and legal problems.

One Lincoln woman who recently filled out the application said it was far more intrusive than other HHS forms and wondered how her child-raising techniques related to getting a job.

Questions like these:

Do you have household rules for your children?

How are the rules enforced?

How do you discipline your children?

When you and your children have time together, what kinds of things do you do?

This application has gotten national recognition for identifying needs, wants and barriers to self sufficiency, said Kathie Osterman, Health and Human Services System spokeswoman.

HHSS had been required to have a comprehensive assessment for parents receiving ADC who must participate in Employment First.

But the federal government has changed its philosophy and rules, focusing on getting a job. And the application will shrink, she said.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com. Reach JoAnne Young at 473-7228 or jyoung@journalstar.com.