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Clark County families receiving aid increase

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By Bridgette Outten, Staff Writer 5:46 PM Monday, November 2, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — The number of families in Clark County receiving cash assistance and food stamps continues to climb, according to quarterly statistics released from Job and Family Services of Clark County Monday, Nov. 2.

From June to September of this year, there was a 6 percent increase in individuals receiving cash assistance; a 2.4 percent increase in individuals receiving food stamps and a 2.2 percent increase of individuals on Medicaid.

The numbers didn’t surprise JFS Director Bob Suver.

“I think these numbers are right in line with what we’ve been seeing,” he said. “We could even see them get a little worse.”

The number of individuals utilizing the county’s job assistance program has also increased by nearly 16 percent, a reflection of county’s unemployment rate.

JFS has had an ongoing issue of increasing clients with shrinking staff. A $1.5 million budget deficit led to 33 layoffs and other cutbacks to save money.

Suver said his staff was able to catch up with the mounting number of cases through recent nightly and weekend overtime.

“A lot of the layoffs were people who handled customer service and phone calls,” Suver said.

After the layoffs, clients were seeing phone calls returned as many as five or six days later, he added.

But being able to catch up with the caseload is “a positive thing,” he said. “Now we’re able to return phone calls within a day or two of receiving them.”

Not all of JFS numbers have increased, though. There was a 16 percent decrease in the number of children under JFS protection who still live in their own homes; a 9 percent decrease in children under JFS protection in the agency’s custody; a nearly 2 percent in child care subsidies and a nearly 5 percent decrease in the number of individuals paying child support orders.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0374 or boutten@coxohio.com.

By the Numbers

Category June 2009 September 2009

Families receiving cash assistance 926 985

Individuals receiving Medicaid 29,072 29,717

Individuals receiving food stamps 22,249 22,786

Individuals receiving job assistance 701 812

Kids under JFS protection living at home 946 793

Kids under JFS protection in custody 172 152

Child Care subsidies 1,485 1,458

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Well, voters wanted change, we're getting it! Lets put everyone on welfare, food stamps and a medical card. Then county and city officials can continue bringing in employers who pay low wages and little or no benefits. Retail stores and Food Service jobs just won't pay the bills. Now an added concern that JFS doesn't feel it is neccessary to have enough staff to respond to families in dire straights! And they call that customer service????

lulu51
8:40 PM, 11/3/2009

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In response to paying "overtime" this is a practice used in the public sector and is used to control costs that have gone way out of control. This practice works very well. As you may be aware, Clark County has an exceptional benefit package. This package amounts to a 75% fringe benefit payment on an individuals base hourly rate. Even though the JFS may be paying 50% more for a "few hours" (15 vs 40 hours) the overall cost saving is really in the fringe benefits that JFS is saving on.

Living on the Fringe
8:22 AM, 11/3/2009

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Our company laid off temps, and made salary take a 10% pay cut, and offered us overtime, and they also let the salary people come down on the floor for extra money also, When Honda picked up we called the ones we let go and offered them a full time job with benefits, we cut out the temp services, to me thats organized slavery!JFS will call them back because they will have to.

Lisa S
7:38 PM, 11/2/2009

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I and several of my co-workers took a voluntary furlough to save the agency money! Then they lay off all of customer service without thinking of the consequences. Now they are paying OVERTIME to fix that mess. So I have a short check and others have overtime? Can we say "grievance"?

work there!
7:36 PM, 11/2/2009

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Hi there everyone,
This is so sad! If there were any job's out there worth working here in Spfld then we would not have this problem. Most places now hiring are part time, and you can't get anywhere working on min. wage. I have worked in London for twelve years now but can't afford to live there, so I make the journey back and forth everyday and pay the gas prices. I would love to see Spfld get some new factories here in this town. People can't get off welfare until they can support themselves!

Lisa S
7:31 PM, 11/2/2009

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