Minutes 12-09-2014 - Laserfiche WebLink

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FINANCIAL IMPACT: Based on the attached financial statement and caseload projections, the costs for continuing mandated services can be covered with the County funds already budgeted for DSS. The estimated additional County costs to fund the proposal from DSS for 2014-2015 is $566,000. With the appropriation of the $350,000 from the Social Justice as noted below, the balance available in the Social Justice Fund will be $100,000. Nancy Coston said that clearing the waiting list does not mean that all of those children will be served, because many have moved, or their situations have changed. She said this is why financial predictions can be difficult. She reviewed a chart showing the financial impact. She said she is requesting flexibility to move money around as needed. Commissioner Price asked what happens to the waiting list for next fiscal year. Nancy Coston said a new waiting list will be started the day the current waiting list is cleared. She said it is impossible to predict the numbers. She said when the waiting list is cleared, people become very interested in childcare. Commissioner Rich asked how people find out they are no longer on the list. Nancy Coston said staff will call and send letters. She said there are often group interviews to complete the eligibility paperwork, and as soon as this is done, vouchers are given out, and recipients take these to a preferred child care center. Commissioner Rich asked if there have been people that fall through the cracks. Nancy Coston said the best way to avoid this is to keep the waiting list from getting old. She said it can be more challenging to find people once the waiting list is six months old or more. Commissioner porosin commended Nancy Coston for preparing this proposal. He asked if it is fair to say that the $400,000 on the chart is the amount that it would take to get 321 children off the waiting list. He said if only half of these were actually served, it would open up those spots for the next people that walk in. Nancy Coston said yes, that would be correct for the rest of this year. Commissioner porosin said this proposal is not just maintain the status quo, but it is expanding the residents being served in Orange County. Nancy Coston said this stops the bleeding from the cuts and the changes in eligibility, and it reaches out to the working families on the waiting list. Commissioner Pelissier said in the future, it would be good to track the numbers on the waiting lists so the Board of County Commissioners can see the rise and fall of child care demand. Nancy Coston said she would be glad to this. She said a drop usually happens as a result of some infusion of money, and perhaps this can be shown in the report too. Commissioner Jacobs thanked Nancy Coston and reiterated that the County is trying to keep the program afloat. He said another long waiting list is the section 8 housing list, and when staff looks at housing issues in relation to the petition, he would like to see how much Orange County can do. He said this is a list that rarely gets down to zero, as the federal government has been cutting at this for a long time. Commissioner Price said she would like to know if staff can give an idea of how many children would need to be served in order to not have a waiting list. Nancy Coston said it might be possible to look at how many get added to the waiting list every month early in the life of the list. She said this is probably a pretty good estimate of the monthly amount. She said this would probably be a fairly contained amount, but it would be a much larger amount if you extrapolated it into next year. Commissioner Price asked, if the Board could appropriate more money, if Nancy Coston is able to come up with this number.