Michigan oversight panel hears OIG on Bridge Card fraud, OIG urges state funding for chip cards

Lansing, Mich. — The Michigan House Oversight Committee on State and Local Public Assistance Program heard the Office of the Inspector General describe a broad program of investigations into Bridge Card (food assistance) fraud and urged legislative help to fund chip-card technology on June 12, 2025.

Inspector General Stacy Sampson told the committee the office uses data analytics, interagency data sharing and targeted investigations to identify trafficking, identity theft and cloned point-of-sale (skimmer) schemes that steal benefits intended for eligible recipients. "Our mission is to assist the department in maintaining integrity and accountability in the administration of its health and human services programs," Sampson said.

The presentation laid out why the issue matters to taxpayers and recipients. Sampson said Medicaid enrollment approaches 4,000,000 beneficiaries with a nearly $24,000,000,000 budget, while the Food Assistance Program (FAP) has almost 2,000,000 recipients and a roughly $3,200,000,000 budget. She described investigations that rely on federal PARIS data matches, front-end eligibility reviews and store-transaction analytics, and she urged the Legislature to consider funding for a transition from magnetic-stripe to chip-enabled Bridge Cards.

Sampson summarized the OIG's results and tools. Last fiscal year, OIG conducted almost 17,000 public-assistance application investigations producing about $81,000,000 in cost avoidance; nearly 8,000 of those were front-end eligibility reviews that led to more than 4,000 applications being denied, reduced, or withdrawn, saving roughly $32,000,000. PARIS-related investigations produced nearly $20,000,000 in cost avoidance last fiscal year. The OIG also reported 46 participants in a welfare pretrial diversion program and $74,000 returned to the state through that program.

On retail fraud, Sampson described skimmer and cloned-terminal schemes that allow thieves to replicate Bridge Card account numbers and PINs. She said analytic efforts and partnerships with USDA OIG have led to detection and confiscation of 44 skimmers, protection of more than 76,000 Bridge Card accounts and safeguarding over $16,000,000 in FAP funds. Sampson gave case examples: one catering business purchased more than $80,000 in benefits at a reduced rate for resale and faces criminal charges; another investigation found 625 units of bulk cooking oil (35-pound units, total about $20,000) purchased across multiple states using EBT cards.

Committee members pressed OIG on several topics: how PARIS works and the quality of data from other states; whether authorized users and out-of-state use increase fraud risk; the investigation threshold for prosecution; staffing; and how much state funding would be required to convert to chip cards. Sampson said PARIS is a federal repository populated by states but that states submit data at different times and with inconsistent fields, which requires local scrubbing and follow-up. On authorized users and out-of-state use, she said federal rules allow authorized representatives and multi-state use in certain circumstances and that those rules both help and hinder fraud prevention efforts.

On costs, Sampson said the department has a contractor estimate totaling $14–16 million to convert Bridge Cards to chip technology, and that the federal government has authorized states to adopt chip cards and would pay roughly 50% of that cost; the state's share would therefore be about $7–8 million. She told lawmakers the OIG views chip cards as a high-priority prevention tool because skimmers and cloned terminals are inexpensive and widespread. "You shouldn't have skimmers," Sampson said.

Sampson also described investigative thresholds under state statute (generally $500 for criminal charges, with lower amounts reviewed in cases of repeat offenders or employees) and said the OIG uses administrative remedies, voluntary repayment and disqualification agreements in many cases to avoid court. She said the OIG conducts roughly 2,000–4,000 full fraud investigations per year and that, within the analytic set OIG prioritizes, about half of screened referrals show fraud.

Representative Wilford, the committee chair, framed the hearing by saying the panel's oversight goal is to address "the fraud and the waste that we continue to see in Michigan's assistance programs," and asked how the Legislature could help OIG be more effective. Sampson recommended additional staff and the chip-card conversion appropriation as primary legislative supports.

The committee recorded one formal administrative action at the start of the meeting: adoption of the minutes from the June 5 meeting by unanimous consent.

Committee members indicated they will send follow-up data requests to the OIG and consider whether to include a state appropriation or other legislative steps to support chip-card rollout and analytic capacity. No new statutory changes were proposed or voted on during the hearing.