1. The legislature frequently directs your agency to conduct studies and report back to the Human Services and other committees of cognizance. To date, several of these are still missing, some of which date back several years. How would you rectify the issue so the legislature can receive these reports in a more timely manner?

2. The legislature has frozen cash welfare benefits for nearly 20 years. How has this affected the state's poorest citizens? Would you advocate raising them?

3. One consequence of raising the Temporary Family Assistance (TFA) benefits would be an increase in the medically needy income limit in the Medicaid program, long-faulted as being too low and requiring the state's most vulnerable (aged, blind, and disabled) to spend-down their income. Which do you prefer as a way to raise the income limits: increasing cash benefits, which essentially would be the only way to increase the limit, or allowing more unearned income to be disregarded in the Medicaid program?

4. In FY 07, the state will pay $ 631 million to managed care organizations to serve the state's lowest-income children and their caretakers. The recent court challenge to get DSS to release information on these organizations highlights concerns about transparency of state government. Only one plan has agreed to allow you to release information to the public. Do you believe that this information should be available and if so, how are you planning to ensure that all plans do this in the future?

5. Health care reform is the hot topic in state capitols and in Washington. Although your agency has done a great deal to help the state's poorest residents (400,000 received assistance in 2006), there are still some questions as to whether families get access to the care they need. The Governor's Charter Oak Health Plan provides no additional funds for health care providers, despite the medical community's assertion that reimbursement is the number one reason why they don't participate. In light of the pending settlement in the dental lawsuit, do you think physician reimbursements are sufficient to ensure provider participation in HUSKY and if not, what should the increases should be?

6. The federal Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) includes a requirement that individuals applying for Medicaid show proof of their citizenship as a condition of receiving Medicaid. What has DSS done to ensure that people who are entitled to benefits, but may have language or other barriers that impede their ability to communicate, are getting coverage?

7. The TFA caseload has dropped considerably since the federal TANF law passed in 1996, yet those who remain have the most barriers to work. At the same time, the DRA's TANF provisions require the state to place more non-exempt adults in work activities. How would you ensure that the state meets the work participation rate, while at the same time, enable families to become and remain self sufficient?

8. Families who leave TFA because their earnings are too high face an income cliff (full benefit one month plus earnings one month, earnings only next month), placing them in a precarious financial condition. A few states have tried income supplements to soften these cliffs, and the Program Review Committee has recommended their implementation here. How do you feel about such a plan, assuming it is carried out within the federal law's constraints?

9. Your agency has undertaken two cost savings initiatives in the prescription drug assistance programs for the non-Medicare population. Have prior authorization and preferred drug lists had the desired effect of containing costs without compromising client access to necessary drugs?

10. What is your opinion of the state's progress toward allowing people who need long-term care to use home care and other community-based care rather than more expensive nursing home care?

11. Recent federal approval of the state's application for a “Money Follows the Person Demonstration Grant” will help move people who want to leave nursing homes by providing a higher federal Medicaid match for the first year they live in the community. What other new initiatives could the state undertake to give people needing long-term care more choice to live in the community rather than a nursing home or other institution?

12. Do you see any opportunities to streamline or combine our many Medicaid waivers or simplify programs, particularly those that provide long-term care to seniors and younger disabled people?

13. Currently, DSS must submit Medicaid waiver applications to the Human Services and Appropriations Committees, which can approve, deny, or modify, but the committees' decisions are not binding on the DSS commissioner. What is your position on this issue, and is there a way to resolve the impasse? The legislature has proposed a number of bills to enhance legislative oversight of the department's waiver applications, two of which the governor vetoed (PA 03-165 and PA 05-112).

14. What are you doing to prepare for the establishment of the new Department on Aging, which is slated to start July 1, 2007. Do you think that additional legislation is needed to further clarify the functions that will be transferred? How will the new department affect DSS's functions and how will you coordinate your activities with it?

15. Implementing the federal Medicare Part D program and coordinating our state's Medicaid and ConnPACE prescription programs with it have clearly been a challenge for the department and the legislature. After the program's rocky start in 2006, what were the department's greatest successes concerning it and what were the biggest problems you encountered? How, in your opinion, is the program and the state's wraparound currently functioning? Do any gaps in coverage or problems that have arisen since the program's implementation need to be addressed? And what do you need in terms of resources and funding to keep our wraparound functioning at its current level?

16. For many years, the nursing home industry and other providers have had problems with inadequate Medicaid funding. A number of nursing homes have gone into bankruptcy or been taken over by other companies for financial reasons. Has the new nursing home provider tax, which the legislature passed in 2005 to help address this problem by allowing the state to claim and distribute more federal matching funds, had the desired effect?

17. How could DSS become more efficient in its functions, particularly in reaching people who need services, processing applications in a timely fashion, and providing services? Did the department's Human Services Infrastructure Initiative, which it launched in 2005 to better connect people with services by using community action agencies and 211/Infoline, result in any measurable efficiencies?

18. As commissioner, what will be your three highest priorities? What specific changes would you like to make in how the department operates?