Legislators in Harrisburg are considering a bill that would require anyone seeking government benefits, like food stamps or subsidized student loans, to prove legal residency. Supporters say that the legislation will keep illegal immigrants from accessing these services. The Daily News has an editorial about the cost of this proposal:
Scarnati's office says that the cost of enforcing the law will be less than $1 million per year. But Rendell's office estimates that the true cost of the bill would be closer to $19 million. Political leaders are free to squabble about the exact number, but taxpayers don't need to look hard for comparisons. For example, local governments in Colorado spent more than $2.8 million to verify the legal status just for people applying for Medicaid benefits.
The study from Colorado, which is linked below, explains how checking for citizenship wound up costing a bunch of money. The simple answer is that the legislation gave more responsibility to people who were already overworked. Social workers were required to process a new batch of paperwork and that added an average of 23 minutes to every application for Medicaid benefits. This significantly decreased the total number of people who could be severed by each caseworker.
Link: One Reform We Don't Need [Daily News]
Also: Citizen Documentation Are Administratively and Fiscally Burdensome [Colorado Center on Law and Policy]