Rhode Island still unsure how much it will get from $50-million Deloitte settlement

PROVIDENCE — Two months after Governor Raimondo announced a once “inconceivable″ contract extension for Deloitte Consulting, it remains unclear how much Rhode Island will get to keep of the $50-million settlement the company agreed to pay as compensation for the ongoing “UHIP″ computer woes — and how much legislative budget-writers will be able to include in their spending decisions.

UHIP — short for the Unified Health Infrastructure Project — was supposed to streamline eligibility verification for the food stamp program (now known as SNAP), Medicaid, subsidized child care and cash assistance. It experienced major failures after launching in September 2016, and the effort to fix it has taken years.

As to why the Raimondo administration decided to extend the contract instead of suing or replacing Deloitte, Department of Human Services Director Courtney Hawkins told reporters in mid-March: “From my perspective, ending this in a lawsuit would put the operations of DHS at risk,″ jeopardize benefit payments to close to a third of the state’s population, and potentially “result in a protracted legal case which would cost the state a lot of money.”

The state agreed to extend the contract — which expired at the end of March — until June 2021, and pledged not to sue Deloitte for past problems with UHIP.

Read more: https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190521/ri-still-unsure-how-much-it-will-get-from-50-million-deloitte-settlement