Minutes 12-09-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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The Board considered a proposal for serving children needing child care subsidy in Orange County with a plan that will only address the current fiscal year but will provide a framework for additional discussions during the next budget planning cycle. Nancy Coston said the Board had asked her to go back and work on a new proposal. She said her staff has reviewed all information and funding, and the proposal being brought forward is to make no changes in the people being served through June 30th, and to implement the fee change. She reviewed the following information from the abstract: At a Board budget work session on November 11, 2014, the Department of Social Services (DSS) shared the impacts of recent budget cuts and eligibility changes on families in Orange County. The Board requested additional information and recommendations from DSS staff and the Board of Social Services on options for serving these children. The DSS staff and board have developed a proposal for the remainder of this fiscal year. The eligibility changes, recommendations and financial impacts for this year can be found in the attached chart. For several years, the state has not rebased subsidy allocations using the available census data. This year begins a six-year cycle to implement this rebasing and Orange County`s base allocation has decreased by approximately $700,000. The second phase of the implementation will occur in July 2016. After the original allocation, Orange County received a reallocation of$290,000 and has been informed of the possibility of one more reallocation this year. The Orange County Partnership for Young Children has also applied for additional Smart Start subsidy funds and if received, these would be added to the DSS contract. In addition, DSS has received some funds through IV-E of the Social Security Act to serve low income children who enter foster care. All of these funds have been included in this proposal. After reviewing details about the families receiving child care, DSS projects that the State funds, Smart Start funds and $595,000 in County funds already in the agency budget should be sufficient to serve the existing caseload. After receiving the comments from the Board of County Commissioners and from the DSS Board, DSS had studied the financial impact of the items discussed at the work session for addressing the immediate needs. DSS proposes serving children over age 5 with families below to the 200% Federal Poverty Level (FPL), not imposing the new income eligibility and fee requirements on relatives who are working with DSS to assure child safety and begin serving all children currently on the wait list effective January 1, 2015. Any requests for child care after January 1 st would be subject to a new waiting list until the financial impacts of these changes can be calculated. If funds become available, working families will be served from the wait list based on the date added to the list. Families being served with County funds will be informed that these services will continue through June 30, 2015, and will then be dependent on decisions during the 2015-2016 budget deliberations. If this entire plan cannot be implemented, it is recommended that the relative care and service to current recipients up to 200% FPL be prioritized for consideration. As part of the budget process, DSS will submit a plan for ongoing child care services with annualized costs for all proposals and with recommended priorities. The DSS Board is also planning to meet with the local legislative delegation to seek changes in some of the most harmful changes.