January 27, 2003

Programs

Facilities

Report Abuse Hotlines

Jim Buick convened the meeting at 2:10 P.M
Members and guests introduced themselves; Jim welcomed Gordon Scott from the State Department of Social Services who replaced Rapone Anderson.

II. Approval of the Minutes

Phil Arnold, DHS Manager of Finance and Policy, reported that the budget is “still in flux”.
He said that a 6.2% reduction in the basic grant, with no cola, has been recommended.
A state realignment proposal projects new revenues contingent upon approval of new taxes; i.e. state income tax, sales tax, and cigarette tax.

Michele Rutherford reported that stage 3 childcare will be eliminated by April 1,2003 inspite of the fact that 59% of the children in stage 3 childcare are school age (12% are infants and 29% are preschoolers).
This problem is further complicated by the fact that family incomes are too low to absorb childcare costs (57% of Stage 3 families earn less than 50% of the SMI).
An additional 993 children will time out of stage 2 childcare in 2003-04 and 1220 children will time out of stage 2 in 2004-05.
Michele is meeting regularly concerning this issue and will continue to provide updates on developments.

Barbara Allen passed out brochures and reported that DHS will provide tax preparation services at 4 locations beginning on Saturday, February 1, 2003.
She said the goal of the program is to encourage CalWORKs participants to file their income taxes.
Over 100 DHS staff have volunteered as greeters, tax preparers and tax transmitters. DHS staff will assist participants by completing the short form for the current year. Those requiring long forms and/or filing for past years will be referred.
DHS completed two mailings to 40,000 people concerning the program. SF Chronicle will help distribute information, Beverly Upton offered to take information back to the DV community, and Steve Bingham asked for white copies of the brochure for his office can duplicate and help distribute.
The program has partnered with EARN to encourage people to open an IDA account and thereby leverage their income tax return. Committee members asked that an update on the IDA program be provided at the next meeting.

Leo O’Farrell, Manager for the Foodstamps Program, reported on the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program scheduled to go live in San Francisco on March 1, 2003.
Leo explained that EBT is a benefit issuance system, using a debit-type card, managed by Citicorp Electronic Financial Services under a contract with the State of California. With EBT, food stamp benefits can be issued at grocery stores in San Francisco with no fees to the consumer.
Cards and pin numbers have been mailed to 5000 CalWORKs households and 13,000 Foodstamp households.
560 stores have been approached. Participating stores will display the QUEST logo.

CalWORKs Program Manager, Dolores Heaven, distributed and reviewed highlights of the statistical report:
- 532 families timed out in December 2002.
- 53 families were discontinued
- 273 families moved to safety net/child only cases. 70% of these are Asian families.