Florida Computer a ‘Hurricane’ of Errors : Welfare: Since the supercomputer began handling cases in the state two years ago, it has racked up $260 million in mistakes and a $46-million lawsuit.

If it hadn’t cost Florida taxpayers so much money, the state welfare department’s shiny new supercomputer and its ever-expanding list of foul-ups might be funny.

But nobody’s laughing at the $260 million in errors that have piled up since the computer began handling welfare cases two years ago for the nation’s largest state social services agency. Or the criminal investigation. Or the $46-million lawsuit against the state.

“I’ve characterized it as possibly the Hurricane Andrew of government mismanagement and fraud,” said state Sen. Charles Crist. “This goes to the heart of the public’s distrust of government.”

Like a burly baseball slugger, the $104-million FLORIDA system boasts impressive statistics: It can process 5 million transactions a day, handle 2.3 million welfare cases and run 12,000 individual terminals.

“This is one of the largest non-military computer applications in the world,” said Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay, the acting head of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, or HRS. The system’s initials stand for Florida On-Line Recipient Data Access.

MacKay took over the agency when Bob Williams resigned March 22, shortly after revelations that the system had failed to remove 235,000 ineligible people, some of them dead, from Medicaid rolls.

Total taxpayer cost: $28 million.

The eventual explanation was that a programming glitch had kept some individuals on Medicaid even though their households--the government’s way of counting them--had been removed by the computer.

Computer programming mistakes and human error are to blame for the $232 million in mistakes in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children and food stamp programs over the last two years. That cost is being borne by taxpayers.

MacKay said the errors are actually only about $70 million over what might have been expected without the computer, and ill-trained workers might be partly at fault. The recession also swamped Florida’s welfare offices as record numbers of people sought help, making mistakes more likely.

A state-hired consultant from the Price Waterhouse accounting firm, which is independently studying the system, said the computer will eventually save money by cutting staff, paperwork and time.

“FLORIDA has brought HRS from the dark ages to the present,” said James Pauli, the consultant. “Before FLORIDA, they were like the monks hand-writing books, and today they’ve got an automated way to do that.”

Still, the federal government could fine HRS as much as $144 million because of errors in the programs, which are partly funded by the U.S. Treasury. State officials think they can negotiate that figure down.

A state grand jury in Tallahassee is considering evidence that HRS improperly favored International Business Machines Corp. when it upgraded the system at a cost of $5.1 million. Two people involved have already lost their jobs.

And EDS Federal Corp.--a subsidiary of the electronics giant founded by Ross Perot--is pursuing a $46-million lawsuit against HRS for what it alleges are unpaid bills.

EDS was the original contractor for the system, but HRS cut the firm off last May out of dissatisfaction. HRS contends it doesn’t owe EDS any money and must spend months correcting flaws built into the computer.

EDS spokesman Jack Pridgen said the company is not to blame for the computer woes.

“We weren’t having this problem when we were running it,” he said. “We were kind of taken aback that someone was pointing the finger at EDS, when we’ve been out of the picture.”