AG 2000 11 20 - Laserfiche WebLink

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ATTACHMENT I Baek~round Information All counties received notice in the summe~ of 2000 that it is time to undertake the biennial planning process to update County Work First Block Grant plans first submitted in 1998. The Board of Commissioners in each county was requested to take the following actions in this regard: 1) Appoint a planning committee, 2) Vote and notify the State by 9-29-00 whether it requests "standard" or "electing" status, and 3) Submit to the State by 12-1-00, a Work First Block Grant Plan it has approved for the county for the.coming biennium. For Cabarrus County, the Work First Block Grant consists of $.2,936,168 in federal ($1,638,760), and county ($1,297,408) funding. This funding may be used under federal regulations and state law for administration of Work First Family Assistance (WFFA), employment services for welfare recipients and former recipients, emergency assistance for families, and child welfare services. (The State funding originally included in county block grants is now used for WFFA cash assistance payments. Federal funds Were substituted for state funds in these county block grants). There are maintenance of effort (MOE) requkements in federal and state law for county and state funding of these programs. In the most general sense, the state's policy has been to reinvest welfare savings from declining caseloads into services like subsidized child care and family Medicaid, which support employment. At the county level, the Work First Block Grant planning process detemfines how to best utilize resources to prevent welfare dependency, move families on welfare into work, help families stay off`welfare, and provide child abuse/neglect services. While in each county a large portion of the county's Work First Block Grant is directed at child abuse/neglect services, the focus of the county planning process is upon the welfare reform effort. Cabarrus has of course been a leader in innovation in the welfare reform effort. The Work Over Welfare demonstration project, implemented in 1996 under special enabling legislation and federal waivers, its 1998 expansion by the General Assembly to provide the state's first pay-after-performance system, and the recent implementation of the New Focus Program for preventing welfare dependency, have been highly successful. Our caseload of families receiving welfare payments has declined from 1,013 families in June 1995 to335 in June 2000. (Most of those remaining are grandparents and other relatives caring for children). We have been increasingly able to turn our attention to preventing welfare dependency. Our recently-implemented New Focus Program has been successful in diverting 74% of families that would otherwise have become welfare payment recipients. Families in our community are achieving a sound standard of living through good jobs and the support of programs like child care subsidies and Medicaid.