Employment Programs Committee Minutes - January 12, 2005

Employment Programs Committee

Minutes

01-12-05

 

Marva Scott, Co-Chair of the committee convened the meeting by welcoming members and guests. She passed around the attendance roster for signatures and she asked that all members include their email addresses for distribution of committee information – minutes and agenda items. With some new faces at the meeting, each attendee introduced themselves to the committee. Minutes from the November 3 rd meeting were approved with no revisions.

 

Marva Scott indicated that Sara Anderson Mims and her staff had another meeting and would not be able to stay for entire meeting. Chris Howell, Project Director –NCACDSS, was running late, so Marva Scott indicated that after she provided the Work First Caseload data she would turn the meeting over to Sara Anderson Mims for her report. Marva Scott provided the following Work First Caseload data:

• Overall caseload for WF is down by 386
• Regular cases down by 349
• Two-parent cases down by 37
• Zero-parent cases increased by 60

This data is from the January report and shows that the overall caseload decreased from 37,386 in December to 37,000 for January. There seems to be a lot of decreases in statewide totals, county totals may differ but our numbers are not really changing much.

 

Marva Scott asked if counties had concerns about the caseloads continuing to decrease and what would happen if our numbers got really, really low. Bobbi Bales indicated that, “our duties have changed; working with day care, 200%, Benefit Diversion, there's still plenty of work – it's just not showing up on the welfare rolls”. Other discussion included the economy and the number of people who are still out of work in various counties and the high percentage of “F” & “I” recipients in some counties. Sara Anderson Mims indicated that she had a copy of the Able-Bodied report from June 1995 until January 01, 2005. There was an overall reduction (able-bodied cases) of 67.40% statewide. The child-only cases are listed separately from the adult cases.

 

Sara Anderson Mims shared information that on December 27, Secretary Odom received a letter from our Southeast Regional Administrator stating that North Carolina had met the overall and two-parent participation rates for the fiscal year 2003. After applying the caseload reduction credit of 52.6% to the required 50% overall rate, North Carolina's adjusted target rate for FY 2003 became 0% and our state achieved 25.3%. After applying the caseload reduction credit of 52.6% to the required two-parent rate of 90%, North Carolina's adjusted target rate for FY 2003 became 37.4% and our state achieved 49.2%. The letter went on to congratulate North Carolina for our success.

 

Additionally, Sara Anderson Mims provided the following information regarding TANF Reauthorization and State/County TANF Plans:

• TANF Reauthorization: A reauthorization bill was introduced in the House last week. It is pretty much the same thing as the bill introduced in the last session for the reauthorization of TANF. She indicated that state staff had participated in conference calls with various federal organizations that indicate the emphasis in Congress is being placed on Medicaid/Medicare, Social Security, and possibly Work Force Investment - taking some of the focus off TANF reauthorization. She indicated that they (state staff) would be doing some indepth analysis of the bill and would keep the committee up to date on TANF reauthorization.
• Work Force Investment: A WIF bill was introduced about the same time as the TANF Reauthorization bill last week. They (state staff) have copies of the bill and will be conducting an analysis of the WIA and see what impact that holds for North Carolina's programs. (She indicated that neither of the bills had been “numbered” yet).
• TANF – State Plan: The State Plan is being drafted and will be out for review by the counties when it's completed and then out for public review
• County TANF Plans: State staff have completed the in-house review of Electing County plans and have submitted those plans to the AG's office for further review and the state expects a response from the AG's office fairly soon. Additionally, Sara's staff has pulled together a summary of some of the initiatives that were coming out of the electing county plans. Sara shared a few of those initiatives but indicated that she would provide the committee of a copy of the report to be distributed with the minutes of this meeting. Standard County Plans were being handed out today to Work First Representatives and in-house review staff. They hope to have the reviews completed by the end of the month and be ready to comment on the plans.
• MOA between DSS/VR: State MOA has been developed and a Dear County Director letter was issued requiring each county to develop a MOA with the local VR. These county MOA's are required to be completed by 01-31-05. The local DSS does not have to submit a copy of their MOA to state DSS, but VR agencies will have to submit a copy of the local MOA to Terrye Fish.

 

Marva Scott asked if there were questions for Sara Anderson Mims. Marva Scott thanked Sara for the information and excused her and her staff from the meeting. Marva Scott indicated that there would be no report on Career Start. David Prince had a scheduling conflict but sent word that there was no new information to report about Career Start and will give a report at our next meeting.

 

Marva Scott asked members to discuss how they were gearing up for tax season. There were 5 counties represented at the meeting that have tax preparation sites at their agencies. Each county gave a brief report on the success of their efforts. Each of the counties present indicated a successful effort. Columbus County indicated that 2004 was their first year and that they were amazed at the amount of money that could be returned to the county when tax returns are completed and the EITC is utilized. Some of the counties indicated that they had volunteers to do the tax preparation and some are offering the services to their employees as well as to clients. Forsyth County tracks the amount of money that comes back into the county from EITC. It was over a million dollars last year. Some counties use the Tax-Wise software. Some counties stayed open until 6 or 7 one or two nights a week to do tax preparation. There was some discussion regarding the attraction of Rapid Refund and that Rapid Refund is not always in the client's best interest, such as the cost of filing, fee for the Rapid Refund service, and receiving a refund check in 2 days versus using a county tax preparation site using on-line services for no fee and receiving the refund check within 5 days.

 

Marva Scott introduced Chris Howell, FamilyNet Project Director – NCACDSS. Chris Howell indicated that Wayne Black had invited her to the meeting to present information about Family Net and possible impact with regard to child-only cases. Chris asked the attendees to be more specific about the type of information the committee wanted. Bobbi Bales indicated that Dean Duncan had done a presentation at the November 2004 meeting and she wondered how many of our child-only cases were placed by Social Services to become a child-only case. Sara Anderson Mims indicated that the committee had expressed concern about the type of child-only case – SSI parent case, illegal immigrant parent, relative caretaker case, or legal guardian cases. Sara indicated that she had asked Hank Bowers if there was anyway to get this information from state systems and there wasn't. She also indicated that Dean Duncan was working on a way to do an analysis of the child-only cases and would report back to the state.

 

Chris Howell gave a presentation about FamilyNet. The project began with 3 pilot counties and there are now 16 FamilyNet counties. The whole focus of FamilyNet is collaboration across agency programs and initiatives and impacts the delivery of services in that county. Ms. Howell provided a brief history of the FamilyNet project and used “child-only” cases as a perfect example of why it is important for agencies to collaborate across agency programs and how that collaboration can really benefit the clients. FamilyNet is applying the principle of collaboration across agency programs and a philosophical shift in how agencies think about how we deliver services and the impact that change in service delivery has on the families we serve. Ms. Howell provided a power-point handout, a map that identifies the FamilyNet counties in NC, and a FamilyNet booklet. She also provided information about how a county could become a FamilyNet county.

 

At the conclusion of Chris Howell's presentation, Marva Scott asked if there was any additional business to discuss and asked for a volunteer to take the minutes for the next meeting scheduled for February 9 th at 1:30. As there was no additional business and no volunteers, the meeting was adjourned.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Pat Spears