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News / Northwest

WA DSHS errs, pays extra to disability recipients

The Columbian
Published: September 20, 2011, 5:00pm

SEATTLE (AP) — The state Department of Social and Health Services says it mistakenly handed out extra cash to the 34,000 recipients of a disability program.

In a letter sent to state officials, the department says it failed to make a budget cut permanent and automatically reverted to amounts paid before lawmakers in Olympia cut the program’s cash.

The extra payments ranged from $27 to $69 and were sent to the 34,000 recipients of the Disability Lifeline program for a portion of July and all of August and September.

DSHS spokeswoman Kathy Spears says the department is calculating how much extra money was sent.

The department says it postponed filing the paperwork to make the cuts permanents because of potential additional reductions from Olympia. But the final paperwork was never filed.

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