Texas HHSC Inspector General Finds Faults With State's TIERS and IEES Social Services Systems

April 20, 2007 By Wayne Hanson

At the end of March, 30 Texas Senators called for a review of the state's Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System (TIERS) as well as a review of the contract for the Integrated Eligibility and Enrollment Services (IEES). The Texas Health and Human Services Commission Office of Inspector General conducted the review and on Wednesday released its report.

The report agrees with an earlier report that "The eligibility process supported by TIERS is not appropriately designed and/or operating effectively to enforce the respective eligibility decisions necessary to ensure clients are eligible and receive proper benefit amounts." The report also says that state authorities have recognized the risks, have suspended the IEES pilot and the IEES contract will be cancelled.

Among the contributing factors to the suspension of the IEES pilot were:

Data warehousing was removed from the original TIERS contract without an alternative solution.
The decision to privatize did not utilize all the data that was available.
both Deloitte and Accenture were released from contract requirements.
Lack of effective management of project and contract oversight.

The report makes six preliminary recommendations.

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