William W. Plummer ) wrote:
:
: Hah. At least one state (AZ) has outsourced its welfare call-in lines
: to India!
:

The total was 42 states and D.C...

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y2FF53F29
Your Tax Dollars At Work...Offsho
How Foreign Outsourcing Firms Are Capturing State Government Contracts

The original link, wrapped to 2 lines:

http://www.washtech.org/reports/TaxDollarsAtWork/
offshoring_finaltext_pdf.pdf
Your Tax Dollars At Work...Offsho
How Foreign Outsourcing Firms Are Capturing State Government Contracts

"...Interviews with EBT officials in every state and the District of
Columbia reveal that:

o Before the offshoring controversy began, the call centers for 42 states
and the District of Columbia were operating offshore. In most cases,
this occurred because the states gave EBT contracts to Citibank
Electronic Financial Services, which in turn subcontracted the call
center work to an Indian firm called MsourcE. (In 2003 Citibank sold
the business to J.P. Morgan Chase, which continued to use MsourcE.)
A smaller number of states ended up with offshore call centers through
their EBT contracts with eFunds Corporation or Affiliated Computer
Services Inc.

o As a result of the controversy, one state (New Jersey) has brought its
call center back to the United States, and five states (Arizona, Kansas,
North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin) are planning to do the same.

o Eight states (Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Texas,
and Wyoming) avoided the use of offshore call centers because they hired
EBT contractors that used domestic facilities."

EBT: Electronic Benefit Transfer

--Jerry Leslie
Note: is invalid for email