A new report highlighted in the Boston Herald reveals a stunning breakdown at the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, where an estimated 81% of phone calls from residents seeking assistance went unanswered in March. The findings, reported by Project Bread, underscore the systemic failures of the DTA to manage Massachusetts’s welfare system.
“An 81% non-response rate is not a staffing issue alone. It is a complete systems failure. Beacon Hill has spent years expanding programs without ensuring they are administered competently. The result is exactly what we are seeing today: eligible residents can’t get help, while fraud and waste continue unchecked,” said Paul Diego Craney, executive director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
A recent study released by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation highlights many of the problems plaguing the current system, including that Massachusetts reported one of the highest SNAP payment error rates in the country, reflecting deep structural failures in eligibility verification, accountability, and program administration…