Voices: We work with Utah’s neediest populations. Here’s how the state’s GRIT initiative could make a real change.

On May 9, Gov. Spencer Cox launched the Government Reform, Innovation & Transparency initiative (GRIT), a reform effort “to improve efficiency and deliver better results” through our state agencies. Cox hopes to build “a culture where every employee is empowered to solve problems, and every taxpayer sees the results.”

We applaud Gov. Cox for issuing this challenge to make Utah’s government work better for all Utahns.

As members of the Faith and Advocacy Coalition to End (FACE) Hunger and Homelessness, working with Crossroads Urban Center, we urge the governor and Sophia DiCaro, head of the Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning, to consider the idea that all agencies are not created equal. While all agencies should look for efficiencies, some agencies may need more funding and staff to improve outcomes, while other agencies may be able to improve efficiencies and cost less without harming services.

One agency that we are particularly concerned about is the Department of Workforce Services (DWS). Many of the low-income people that Crossroads Urban Center serves interact with DWS for a plethora of needs — job search, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), cash assistance through TANF, financial help with childcare, vocational rehabilitation and services for people with disabilities. Many clients DWS helps have challenges in applying for and retaining eligibility for the services they need.

In public hearings held this month regarding adding a work requirement for some Medicaid recipients, many of those speaking described inordinate amounts of time and multiple attempts required to navigate the DWS website and apply for services. Many audience members described their lack of technology — computers or smart phones — needed to use the site. Several users said that, despite having advanced education degrees and necessary technology, they still found it difficult to get to the right forms and submit essential applications at the website.

When DWS initiated Medicaid reviews at the end of the pandemic, over half of recipients were terminated, and the majority of them were terminated for “administrative” reasons — meaning there was no finding they were ineligible, just that they had failed to complete the review process in the required time frame. A survey found that most people didn’t try to renew their coverage due to the difficulty of doing so.

Another issue is that different benefits appear to be “siloed” rather than seamlessly integrated with one another. For example, in a July 2023 meeting we had with DWS staff, they shared that there were 50,000 more families whose children were covered by Medicaid than were receiving SNAP food assistance, despite the fact that their income levels showed they were eligible for both. Before the pandemic, only 74% of eligible individuals actually received SNAP benefits.

We trust that GRIT will kickstart a serious study of how to improve DWS services and the DWS website, using proven process improvement methods. Honest feedback should be solicited from both DWS clients and staff. Some key outcomes of such a study would include what percentage of eligible individuals are receiving a needed service, whether a service was obtained when they applied, how long it took to obtain it and what website features improved or hindered success.

DWS would ideally provide a metric to track the percentage of Utahns unable to access the site due to technology or other barriers. Honoring the “T” in GRIT — transparency — outcomes collected both before and after improvement efforts are implemented should be displayed not only in the annual Citizen Feedback Report but also clearly on the DWS website itself, alongside a QR code to solicit additional comments from users.

GRIT could be our state’s real opportunity to show the federal government and its would-be DOGE reformers the best ways to streamline buggy processes and address the pain the public often feels when attempting to access benefits and services to which they are entitled. GRIT might open new channels for substantive feedback from the public to reach the listening ears of our state government. But the initiative must be undertaken in full partnership with the staff who implement it and the Utahns it is meant to serve.

Elizabeth McKnight, M.A., M.S., was the director of external reporting at Intermountain Health prior to her retirement.

Linda F. Smith is a professor emerita at the University of Utah’s’s SJ Quinney College of Law and is president of the First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City’s board of trustees.

June Taylor, Ph.D., is a professor emerita at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine and is an elder at the Wasatch Presbyterian Church.

Bill Tibbitts is the deputy executive director of Crossroads Urban Center.

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