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WKEF-TV ABC 22 News :: News - Waste Watch

WASTE WATCH: Some on Assistance Get Extra Money From Storms Even If There Was No Damage

WASTE WATCH - MONTGOMERY COUNTY -- Remember those June storms that ripped through Ohio, leaving many people without power for a week or more in the hot temperatures?  Well the government is stepping in to help those people.  The problem our Waste Watch team found is that many people who received that assistance, didn't suffer any damage or outage in storms.

Terry Slone gets food stamps after a bad hip replacement left him on disability.  But last month, Slone noticed more money had appeared in his account.

"They just gave it to us'', Slone told us, ''I mean I appreciate it, like I said; but that was a waste of money."
   
Turns out, Slone and people on food assistance in Ohio's 34 hardest hit counties got extra money in early July.

The late June storms that knocked out power to tens of thousands of people had Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services asking the Federal Government for emergency assistance.

The feds obliged and a prorated 13.3% went on the EBT card of people in the 34 counties hardest hit, to the tune of more than ten million dollars.  That means even people who didn't lose power got your tax dollars.

"If you didn't lose no food and your power didn't go out... don't pay the people for nothing.'' Slone said to us, ''It's like paying someone walking down the street with a lawnmower to cut your grass and he don't cut it... you know, it's stupid."

Ben Johnson with the department of Job and Family Services who disperses the SNAP benefits explained what happened in a statement.

"Without a mass replacement families who had no power and no food would have been forced to wait for hours at their county JFS office just to fill out an application for replacement benefits.  There is an administrative cost associated with processing paper applications... the mass replacement allowed us to maximize assistance and reduce administrative overhead."

So the bottom line is administrators say taxpayers would have spent the money anyway in bureaucratic costs.

Slone says there has to be a better way, "I appreciate getting it but I'd like to give it back to them if I could. I didn't lose anything."

Ohio was the only Midwest state that applied for emergency replacement benefits.

If you suspect local or state government is wasting your money, we'd like to investigate the problem.  Call our Waste Watch tip line at 937-262-1426.WASTE WATCH: Some on Assistance Get Extra Money From Storms Even If There Was No Damage

Friday, August 10 2012, 12:00 AM EDT

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