A court order will help hold Indiana’s ‘food stamp feet’ to the fire.

“Families deserve nothing less,” said Attorney Shaw Friedman, who is a party to an injunction order issued in U.S. District Court in South Bend.

The order comes as the state is left to pick up the pieces of its experiment with the privatization of welfare services.

Earlier this month, Governor Mitch Daniels cancelled a contract with I.B.M. to run the administration of food stamp and other welfare programs.

By mid-December, the state plans to put a new system in place—and that new system will have to meet performance guidelines that are spelled out in the court order.

“80 percent of all food stamp applications are to be processed within the 30 days required by federal mandate. That 80 percent is to be achieved within 12 months,” said Friedman.

Last month, the state was successful of processing just 64 percent of food stamp applications by the 30-day deadline.

Welfare modernization never made it into LaPorte County. Nor did the privatization of services make it into much of northern Indiana’s back yard, where Friedman served notice that it wasn’t wanted: “This case grew out of an initial case that we brought in state court seeking to block privatization to northern Indiana.”

Welfare privatization did make it into 53 of Indiana’s 92 counties, including Kosciusko, Steuben, Whitley and Allen.

“In the privatized areas, what you had replace it was a series of call centers,” said Friedman, who explained that welfare applicants were forced to apply for aid using the telephone or internet.

Under the old system, like the one still used in LaPorte, applicants meet face to face with caseworkers.

“That caseworker often times is the only person they have, if it’s someone who is lower functioning may have mild or mentally disabled in some way, that person was who they needed, that was their contact or conduit. Can you imagine telling that person, good luck, you’re getting on the internet,” said Friedman.

The State of Indiana did voluntarily agree to the court order. The state is confident that whatever its new welfare administration system looks like, that system will meet the standards spelled out in the court order.

The State of Indiana hopes to announce details on the new system by mid-December.