Agenda - 01-22-2015 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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16 1 Nancy Coston said the best way to avoid this is to keep the waiting list from getting old. 2 She said it can be more challenging to find people once the waiting list is six months old or 3 more. 4 Commissioner Dorosin commended Nancy Coston for preparing this proposal. He 5 asked if it is fair to say that the $400,000 on the chart is the amount that it would take to get 321 6 children off the waiting list. He said if only half of these were actually served, it would open up 7 those spots for the next people that walk in. 8 Nancy Coston said yes, that would be correct for the rest of this year. 9 Commissioner Dorosin said this proposal is not just maintain the status quo, but it is 10 expanding the residents being served in Orange County. 11 Nancy Coston said this stops the bleeding from the cuts and the changes in eligibility, 12 and it reaches out to the working families on the waiting list. 13 Commissioner Pelissier said in the future, it would be good to track the numbers on the 14 waiting lists so the Board of County Commissioners can see the rise and fall of child care 15 demand. 16 Nancy Coston said she would be glad to this. She said a drop usually happens as a 17 result of some infusion of money, and perhaps this can be shown in the report too. 18 Commissioner Jacobs thanked Nancy Coston and reiterated that the County is trying to 19 keep the program afloat. He said another long waiting list is the section 8 housing list, and 20 when staff looks at housing issues in relation to the petition, he would like to see how much 21 Orange County can do. He said this is a list that rarely gets down to zero, as the federal 22 government has been cutting at this for a long time. 23 Commissioner Price said she would like to know if staff can give an idea of how many 24 children would need to be served in order to not have a waiting list. 25 Nancy Coston said it might be possible to look at how many get added to the waiting list 26 every month early in the life of the list. She said this is probably a pretty good estimate of the 27 monthly amount. She said this would probably be a fairly contained amount, but it would be a 28 much larger amount if you extrapolated it into next year. 29 Commissioner Price asked, if the Board could appropriate more money, if Nancy Coston 30 is able to come up with this number. 31 Bonnie Hammersley said she will work with Nancy Coston, but there is a lag and a delay 32 with the list. She said, as a better number is formulated, it will be brought forward. She said 33 Nancy Coston included a caveat in the motion, stating that she would keep the manager 34 informed if there was a larger need. 35 Commissioner Rich asked how much will be left in the social justice fund for 2014 -15. 36 Clarence Grier said $100,000 would be left. 37 Commissioner Pelissier said the Board had indicated an interest in having the $100,000 38 in the social justice fund for the Family Success Alliance project. She said the Board had 39 indicated intent to use this amount. 40 Clarence Grier said the Department of Social Services (DSS) has some salary savings 41 that may be available for use to offset some of the overage. 42 Commissioner Rich said she just wants to make sure funds are there to do all of the 43 things the Board promised to do. 44 Commissioner Price said more money will be coming in as a cushion. 45 Clarence Grier said he and Bonnie Hammersley will review that, next month. 46 47 A motion was made by Commissioner Pelissier, seconded by Commissioner Burroughs 48 to approve the DSS proposal, transfer $350,000 from the Social Justice Fund to DSS for child 49 care, and allow DSS to utilize any funds available within its budget to pay these costs. If