Judge rules state is failing to process timely cash assistance for hundreds of elderly and disabled Alaskans

An Anchorage judge has ruled that the state is violating its own regulations by failing to provide timely assistance to low-income elderly and disabled Alaskans.

Anchorage Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman ruled in December that the Department of Health violated state law by not processing the majority of applications to Alaska’s adult public assistance program within the required 30 days.

The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2023 by Alaska civil rights firm Northern Justice Project on behalf of Alaskans whose applications had not been processed in a timely fashion.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs said data provided by the state shows that the requirement for assistance applications to be processed within 30 days has been violated for years. Recent data from the state shows that more than a year after the lawsuit was filed, the state is still behind on processing applications.

“The State’s systemic and unlawful delays in processing APA applications have deprived and continue to deprive thousands of Alaska’s most vulnerable citizens of vital cash assistance while their applications languish in a bureaucratic black hole,” Nick Feronti, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.

Zeman scheduled a trial to begin Monday, during which state officials are expected to lay out their explanation for the factors that contributed to the ongoing backlog, including the COVID-19 pandemic and high staff turnover that made it difficult to keep up with the application volume.

“The State is prepared to go to trial next week and provide a broad, overview defense of the Division of Public Assistance’s operations and administration of the Adult Public Assistance program,” said Department of Law spokesperson Patty Sullivan.

James Davis, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said they would ask the judge to establish improvement benchmarks for the state to meet, to ensure the state is making incremental improvements in processing applications. The plaintiffs are also planning to ask the judge to appoint a special master — someone who specializes in working with public assistance programs — to advise the state, “like normal people would do if this was a normal business,” Davis said.

The finding against the state comes in the wake of the state’s repeated failures to process food assistance applications in a timely manner. The Northern Justice Project has filed a separate class-action lawsuit against the state for that backlog. Both programs are handled by the state’s Division of Public Assistance.

Data from the division indicates that on average, 13,817 Alaskans rely on the adult public assistance program every month. Each of them receives on average $317 per month. The funding is available only to Alaskans with limited assets and income.

The backlog has improved since April 2023, when the lawsuit was first filed and when the state had yet to process 1,760 applications. But as of December, 20 months after the case was originally filed, there were still 369 applications that had not been processed within 30 days “due to agency backlog,” according to information submitted Friday by the Alaska Department of Law.

The Division of Public Assistance has taken several steps to address the application processing backlog, according to Department of Health spokesperson Shirley Sakaye.

Sakaye attributed the backlog to a “period of significant leadership and staff turnover” in 2023 that required the department to focus on “rebuilding institutional knowledge and operational capacity,” including by asking state workers to work overtime and on weekends.

The backlog was caused in part by pandemic-era emergency rules that waived certain eligibility determination requirements, Sakaye said in an email. By the time the requirements were reinstated in 2023, much of the state staff had been replaced and new workers were not familiar with the determination process.

The division also closed many of its in-person offices during the pandemic. The Anchorage office didn’t fully reopen until November, Sakaye said.

Though the backlog remains, Sakaye said, applicants who visit offices in-person “often receive same-day or next-day service.”

Davis, with the Northern Justice Project, said the state has repeatedly told the judge that “things are getting better” and that solving the backlog in the adult public assistance program could require diverting staff from other programs, thus exacerbating backlogs with food assistance and other benefits.

“The data is actually not getting better,” said Davis.

Following the trial, which is set to take place in Anchorage, Zeman is expected to determine whether the state will be required to take additional steps to resolve the backlog.