Agenda - 10-18-2007-5 - Laserfiche WebLink

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by the families). This compares to a total number of 1025 children served the previous year. The additional state and county fiends received last year allowed the agency to serve all children on the agency's waiting list in January of 2007. It then became necessary to begin the waiting list again as ail the additional resources had been committed. Currently, 408 children are waiting for DSS subsidy although Child Care Services Association is serving 115 of these children. There are children of working parents who have been waiting for subsidy since February of this year. The confirmation of the new state allocation was recently received by the agency and staff members will now start serving some of the children on the waiting list. The Department of Social Services has continued to offer the Day Care Sponsorship Program, but has had difficulty securing sponsors, other than child care providers, to use the matching funds allocated by the county. However, the funds were used to sponsor More at Four families last year, and the funds were used to match reallocated funds made available by the state during last fiscal year. Although neither the towns nor the university are contributing fluids directly to DSS, the towns have maintained their commitment to Child Care Service Association (CCSA) and the university continues to contribute to CCSA. The Department of Social Services had been working with the Economic Development Commission (EDC) on the recommendations regarding education of employers and development of financial incentives for employers. After a new EDC director is hired, the agencies will again try to work on these issues. DSS has also been reviewing issues related to access to subsidy programs and is continuing to explore ways to improve access including having both public subsidy programs being administered by one agency. Benchmarks for Measurement The Social Services Board has established the following benchmarks for the subsidy program. This data will be used to determine progress and identify the need for additional funding beginning in Fiscal Year 2007-08. 1. The average length of time for working families to wait for subsidy is three months with the maximum time that they wait being four months. When the wait times exceed these amounts, the DSS Board will inform the Board of Commissioners of the need for additional resources. 2. The amount of state and federal subsidy received by DSS in Fiscal Year 2006- 2007 was $4,153,607 and the total subsidy expenditures were $4,303,412. These amounts are the baseline for DSS to determine progress in securing additional funds for subsidy.