Controversies
November 1997- The Hartford Courant reported that Maximus "gets minimal results" when it was hired by the State of Connecticut to manage a child care program for recipients of welfare.[113] According to the Record-Journal, Maximus "hired too few people, installed an inadequate phone system and fell weeks or months behind in making payments to day care providers."[114] The Connecticut Department of Social Services (DSS) asked Maximus to meet improvement goals and by December, DSS Commissioner Joyce A. Thomas noted improvements on several fronts commenting, "The good news for Connecticut's child care providers and the families we all serve is that the situation is rapidly improving. Maximus has come a long way, and we are confident that current efforts are paving the way to long-term improvements."[115]
December 1998- The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported that the State of Florida had paid Maximus $4.5 Million for a Child Support Recovery contract. Maximus was only able to collect $162,000. "On average taxpayers paid Maximus $25 for every 3 cents collected."[116]
1999 - Then-mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani held his first meetings in May 1999 introducing the city's welfare reform programs which would require adult welfare recipients to either work or train for work. Mid-June was set as the deadline for the competition for the contracts. However, the Giuliani administration began to consult with Maximus executives on how the company could "reshape, consolidate and run" the programs, as early as January 1999. Starting in January, Maximus was awarded contracts worth $500 million, which represented the "largest share" to assess and train as many as 200,000 welfare recipients and to provide job placement. New York city's comptroller said that this gave Maximus an "unfair advantage".[117]
October 2000- Six state lawmakers in Wisconsin called for the termination of Maximus' W-2 contract, saying the firm has "broken faith with the state and poor people the agency serves in Milwaukee County."[118]
June 2001- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that two Maximus employees filed discrimination complaints against the company. The employees stated that Maximus is so lacking in diversity that the companies minority employees referred to it as "White Castle".[119]
2004 In 2004, British Columbia became the first province in Canada to outsource a large quantity of its health administration serviceswhich included Medical Services Plan and PharmaCareto the private sector, when BC Health signed the ten-year $324-million contract with Maximus.[120] A campaign was launched in the province to protect private and personal health information. Concerns included the risk of disclosure of confidential date accessed under the Homeland Security Act.[121]
July 2007- Maximus settled a lawsuit brought against it by the United States government for involvement in falsifying Medicaid claims for $30.5 million.[122] Maximus did not admit or deny the government's allegations in the legal case.[122]
October 2010- The Los Angeles Times reported that 146 medical workers, including doctors, nurses and pharmacists were allowed to keep working despite failing drug tests. Maximus was awarded a $2.5 Million a year contract to run California's confidential "diversion programs". Maximus contracted the work out to a subcontractor who in turn subcontracted the work to another company. The drug testing company was using the wrong standard of drug test from December 2009 to August 2010, resulting in medical workers who tested positive for drugs to continue working.[123]
June 2011- A Maximus manager on the MassHealth project and had access to the personal information of enrollees in the MassHealth program, who had passed the Massachusetts-required CORI background check, was revealed to have pleaded no contest to a Florida felony by Boston-based Fox25. A subsequent review by Maximus found “no reason to believe that anyone’s personal information was used inappropriately” and terminated the employee.[124]
September 2011- Maximus Inc. was sued by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for disability discrimination for failure to promote a female employee because it regarded her as disabled.[125] Maximus settled the lawsuit in August 2012.[126]
June 2012- Through an internal privacy audit, Maximus discovered that a worker in Canada illegally viewed personal health records of 43 Canadians. The worker involved was immediately suspended and later fired.[127]
January 2013- A Maximus employee based in Boston MA was indicted for allegedly stealing more than $490,000 from the Massachusetts Medicaid program. The theft had occurred over a period of nine years.[128] She was convicted in December 2013.[129]
February 2013 In his February 2013 report, the British Columbia auditor general said that Maximus 10-year contract with BC Health lacked adequate monitoring and had not brought the "expected benefits" it had promised.[120] Major deadlines were not met and no penalties were laid. Desktop and laptops were not replaced as often as agreed upon. Even after almost a decade, privacy issues had not been dealt with adequately. BC Health relies solely on the company to self-report breaches. Subcontractors were not given security audits. As well, auditing does not “provide assurance that data access and storage are limited to Canada and that the data can be segregated from the service provider’s parent companies.”[130][121]
April 2021 An investigation by NPR and The Marshall Project found that many U.S. states were involved in the following practice, using Maximus as enabler and facilitator: "'Social Security pays benefits to children who have significant disabilities, when their parents are disabled, or if a parent has died. When the check goes to a minor, someone is designated as the representative payee, trusted to use that money in the best interest of the child. States routinely take that money to cover the cost of foster care, even though there are already state and federal sources to pay for it and even though other impoverished children and youth who don't get Social Security checks aren't responsible for paying for their foster care.'[131]" Maximus was found to be among the consulting companies that were hired by states—including Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, Maryland, and South Carolina—to locate foster children eligible to receive disability and other checks from Social Security and register them, for the sole purpose of generating revenue for the states.[132] Even after these foster children aged out of the foster care program, they were not able to get the Social Security funds to which they were entitled. Law professor Daniel L. Hatcher criticized the practice in his book The Poverty Industry.[133]
March 2022 A report by the Student Borrower Protection Center and the Communications Workers of America noted consumer complaints filed against Aidvantage in relation to federal student loans, and accused Maximus, its parent company, of mismanagement.[134]
In 2022 and 2023 Maximus workers were involved in actions to demonstrate against labor conditions and for improved pay,[135] following employee layoffs.[136]
