Acting Health and Family Services Commissioner Joseph Todora, left,
listens as Ball praises the progress
MONTICELLO – One key indicator of how bad things got last winter with Sullivan County’s handling of temporary assistance and supplemental nutrition assistance (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, is that in January of this year, the number of applications pending for over 30 days was over 800. The number of applications processed during that month was just 500.
Things turned around by March when the trend reversed, with only about 250 applications still pending after 30 days, but over 900 processed.
There was an even bigger mess with the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) with a huge backlog of unprocessed applications.
Tim Ball, with the Bonadio CPA and consulting group, gave a quarterly update of their observations to county lawmakers on Thursday. He said that they now have figures that will help the county move forward.
“Now that we actually have concrete data, we know what the team can do with the people that are in it,” Ball said. “We can actually analyze the efficiency and say ‘how many people do we truly need to maintain this type of workload’.”
The rush for HEAP applications is still a month or two away, but Ball says this year, the Division of Health and Family Services appears ready.
Helping that is having several sites, not just the Family Services building near Liberty, available for applications.
“I think right now, Sullivan kind of, with six alternates sites now through the community and with the idea that we actually have a HEAP plan in place and a lot of people ready to go, ready to be active once HEAP starts, I think you’re putting yourself in the best position possible,” Ball said
Legislature Chairman Scott Samuelson called at an “astonishing turnaround” in a short time.
