In Transition: Yacovone responds to “higher calling”

David Yacovone, courtesy photo

David Yacovone is taking on one of the biggest jobs in state government.

Starting Jan. 6, Yacovone will manage 950 employees and a $335 million budget in the Department of Children and Families. Name a program in state government that touches the lives of Vermont families and you’ll find it in that Department.

The Department handles child support cases, foster care, child abuse and neglect, food stamps, aid to needy families, childcare programs, fuel assistance and an array of other programs.

Yacovone, who comes to the job with an extensive background in human service programs and an impressive resume in state government, is the first to acknowledge the scale of the Department. “It’s huge,” he said in an interview. “It’s big enough to be an agency by itself.”

It’s also big enough that it will likely be one of the first agencies to see another budget squeeze as state leaders resolve the $112 million budget gap this year.

Yacovone, it would appear, is well-armed for the job. He learned to manage to a budget as the chief operating officer of the Agency of Human Services for 12 years (under four secretaries), and he is something of a Medicaid wonk.

Perhaps most importantly, Yacovone brings an irrepressible enthusiasm to the daunting tasks at hand.

“There’s so many dimensions to this … I can’t think of a higher calling than this kind of work,” Yacovone said. “I was talking with the transition team yesterday. We all said almost at the same time — it’s been a long time since someone spoke passionately about poverty. We use the word poverty as a placeholder for all of these challenges, but it’s bigger than that. It’s time to put a face on this issue so Vermonters can really get a sense of not all Vermonters are well. This problem won’t be solved unless we engage this on a community level. If we centralize it from Waterbury or Montpelier it won’t work.

“That’s why I have the passion and the enthusiasm to try to describe this problem in such a way so that we can mobilize people when (they) feel beleaguered by the budgets,” Yacovone said.

One of the initial hurdles he faces is rectifying a months-long backlog in applications for benefits. The Department has recently come under scrutiny for its handling of a “modernization” effort that has led to delays for Vermonters’ access to food stamps, health care programs and general assistance.

Yacovone said his first priority will be making sure “the trains run on time.”

Recently, the Department became the clearinghouse for applications for benefits from the programs it oversees, such as Temporary Aid to Needy Families (ReachUp) and 3SquaresVT, plus a suite of subsidized health care programs — Dr. Dynasaur (an insurance plan for children), VHAP and Catamount Health.

Last March, the Department created a centralized “intake” system in Waterbury. The benefits center includes a call center and a document processing and scanning area. All applications for the aforementioned programs must go through the benefits center – previously they were handled by the Department’s regional offices.

This “modernization” effort has led to delays in application processing and benefit delivery, particularly in the food stamps program. More than 1,000 Vermonters who applied for 3SquaresVT benefits in August (141) and September (872) were still waiting for their applications to go through as of Nov. 3. The process is supposed to take no more than 30 days. The Department has hired temporary workers to help work through the backlog, but delays have continued.

Yacovone plans to face these problems head on.

“People can’t wait this long for their applications for many reasons, aside from legal and moral reasons,” Yacovone said. “If it means reassigning people or bringing in more temporary people that to me it’s like, whatever it takes we have to do it, but we have to do we have to fix it. We can’t have an all hands on deck mentality month after month after month.”

Yacovone is taking a tour of the benefits call center in Waterbury, next week. He said he needs to figure out what resources will be necessary to make the system work.

“What is not clear to me is we may be at a juncture though where we can’t turn back,” Yacovone said. “I’m under the impression we have to make this work … we’re too deep into to go back to the old paper system.”

Under pressure to find permanent savings, the Douglas administration held up the “modernization” effort as an example of state efficiency last spring. It may well yet yield the kinds of savings – and results — state leaders seek.

In the meantime, the budget pressures for the Department have intensified. In the coming year, state leaders must find a way to resolve the $112 million budget gap.

“All the low-hanging fruit was picked a while ago,” Yacovone said. “My job is to stand up and be clear and if I don’t feel the health and safety of the people in our custody will be provided – if I don’t say it ,who will? I would lose my integrity. That doesn’t mean I won’t manage to a budget I’ve done that before and I will again and I’ll figure that out but I’ll also be a powerful advocate for children. I know the governor-elect will be, too. We have to figure this out.”

Yacovone said he wants to stay focused on the welfare of children in Vermont.

“I didn’t take this job to be part of eviscerating family services and state government services for the most vulnerable Vermonters,” Yacovone said. “I’m pragmatic; I’m a realist. I understand there isn’t enough money to go around, and you have to try to prioritize try to rethink how you do what you do.”

Within those constraints, Yacovone said he wants to concentrate on bettering the lives of children.

Yacovone ticked off a list of statistical indicators that trouble him. On any given night, he said, 4,000 Vermont children “go to bed at night with their mom or dad in prison.”

“Just imagine what that’s like,” Yacovone said. “Imagine that pressure.”

About 1,000 children sought refuge at battered women’s shelters last year. More than 12,000 children relied on local food shelves, he said. About 1,000 children became wards of the state because they were abused and neglected.

“I want to be able to say in several years that … we’ve made significant progress and we know kids are better off,” Yacovone said. “When you asked the question what are the biggest challenges and everything, you can probably tick off a list of things from eligibility to a myriad of different funding pressures. To me it gets back to, are kids OK?

“Two years from now I want you to be able to look me in the eyes and say, David, how are the children? Are they better off than when you came on board in Jan. 2011?” Yacovone said. “If I can’t answer question that in a proper way go find somebody else.”

Yacovone comes to the job with 35 years of experience in a wide range of human service programs and a background in state government.

After he graduated from Johnson State College in the mid-1970s, Yacovone took a job with Champlain Valley Work and Training helping to find jobs for low-income Vermonters.

“I really got my hands and eyes opened to poverty firsthand right out of college,” Yacovone said.

He then became a nursing home administrator for 16 years, ending up at the Greensboro Nursing Home for the last seven years in the industry.

“It was humbling work dealing with lots of little old ladies who would be crying that they wanted to go home and just feeling devastated,” Yacovone said. “I did that for a lot of years, and I’m still haunted by the cries of people who were at a vulnerable time of their life.

Yacovone was elected to the Legislature in the 1990s, and he focused on creating more home and community supports for disabled and elderly Vermonters.

Gov. Howard Dean appointed Yacovone commissioner of the Department of Aging and Independent Living in 1996, and in 1999, he “transitioned” into the role of chief operating officer at the Agency of Human Services where he served for 12 years under Con Hogan, Jane Kitchel, Charlie Smith and Cindy Laware, through the end of the Dean administration and well into the Douglas administration.

“It was a great preparation for this moment in time,” Yacovone said.

Since then, he has worked in as a field director for the Agency of Human Services in the Morrisville district and he has served as the chair of the public oversight commission which oversees hospital budgets. His most recent position was director of legislative affairs for the Vermont Association of Hospital and Health Systems.

In the fall, Yacovone ran for the Lamoille Senate District seat. He was defeated by Republican Richard Westman, the former tax commissioner under the Douglas administration and a former longtime House member.