We the members of SEIU Local 668/PSSU and employees of the County Assistance Offices strongly urge you to increase staffing in our offices. During the past several years there have been considerable cuts in staff while at the same time the welfare rolls have increased. Additionally, we have worked very hard to decrease the Food Stamp Quality Control error rate and to meet the Work Participation Rate. The Office of Income Maintenance has attempted to deal with the staffing shortages by simplifying regulations and decreasing contact with our customers. They have also paid considerable amounts of the taxpayers’ money to consulting firms to devise projects such as the Model Office, which has been an utter failure.
Our members know that there are better ways to save money and cutting staff is not one of them. We strongly believe that increasing staff will lead to more of our customers leaving the welfare rolls by helping them to become self sufficient. Also, it will lead to eliminating fraud. The combination of less staff, simplifying regulations, including less verification of income, expenses and residence, and less client contact, can only result in an increase in fraudulent cases. Additionally, our union has proposed ways to help clients and to improve verification of income that have been mostly ignored.
You will be sending your new budget to the legislature in the coming months. We hope that you reverse this trend in cutting staff and instead increase the complement of the County Assistance Offices. We believe that doing so will be a benefit to both our customers and the taxpayers. Given the increase in the costs of Medical Assistance and Long Term Care it is essential that only those who are eligible receive benefits.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
1 comment:
Great message.
Great post.
The change centers that are in place are a complete and utter mess, also.
The clients are the ones being hurt in this whole ordeal under the disuise of "better cusotmer service."
What a sham!
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