HARRISBURG— Rooting out people who get services illegally and finding ways to help others get off public aid and into jobs will be the initial focus of the Corbett administration’s efforts to rein in the rising cost of Pennsylvania’s social safety net, state senators were told Wednesday.

Gary Alexander, Gov. Tom Corbett’s nominee to head the Department of Public Welfare, also contended that the administration of the Republican governor’s predecessor, Democrat Ed Rendell, practiced gross mismanagement.

Former top Rendell aides said such statements prove that Corbett administration officials are either lying to conceal their true aims to slash health care or don’t know what they’re talking about.

Alexander, who will manage many of Pennsylvania’s services for the poor, elderly and disabled, told senators in a packed Appropriations Committee hearing that the mantra for case workers under Rendell was “when in doubt, give it out” or “close your eyes and authorize” — statements he repeated to a House committee later Wednesday.

“That is stopping,” Alexander told senators. “I told the workers, ‘That should happen no more.’”

The former Rendell aides pointed out that a federal audit found low error rates in Pennsylvania’s benefits programs under Rendell. They also said the Rendell administration trained welfare-eligibility workers to properly check things like death certificates, birth certificates, immigration status and the Social Security database, reducing the need for the fraud investigations that Corbett and Alexander say were lacking under Rendell.

“Tom Corbett knows this,” former Rendell policy adviser Donna Cooper said. “There’s no way they’re that stupid, or we’re all in trouble.”