[I]n the final days of the legislative session, lawmakers came to agreement on one the toughest questions state budget writers faced this session: how to make staffing reductions in Reach Up, a financial assistance program for low-income families.
Gov. Phil Scott, the House and the Senate each pitched cuts to Reach Up in their proposed budgets, after the program saw reduced demand in recent years.
But there was some disagreement over where the cuts should be made.
Since 2013, Reach Up, which offers benefits and employment counseling for low-income parents, has seen its caseload drop by 37%.
The Senate had proposed cutting 12 Reach Up caseworkers at the Department for Children and Families, who are state employees, and five at the parent-child centers, a network of nonprofits that provide services, including financial assistance and child care, to families with young children.
The House and the Scott administration proposed eliminating all of the Reach Up caseworker positions based at the parent-child centers.
For years, the parent-child centers have employed about 20 Reach Up caseworkers, funded by the state.
In final negotiations, House and Senate budget writers agreed to keep the state caseworkers, and cut the parent-child centers’ Reach Up contract, eliminating the positions.
The House pushed against eliminating the DCF positions.
With many economists predicting possible economic downturn in the coming years, Rep. Kitty Toll, D-Danville, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said she didn’t want to cut state caseworkers, when Reach Up may soon see a hike in demand.
“In the event of a recession, that’s the first place a family goes … if they’re in need of assistance,” Toll said.
Steve Howard, the executive director of the VSEA, the union that represents state employees, who had been pushing against the proposed DCF jobs cuts, applauded the work of budget writers.
Howard had argued that Reach Up caseworkers at DCF have an average of nine years’ experience on the job, six more than those at the parent-child centers.
He added that the program’s caseload has seen a more significant decrease at the parent-child centers than at DCF.
And he noted that the Reach Up cases that remain are often more challenging ones — parents struggling with addiction and homelessness — that are better handled by state workers.
“When families are finding themselves in crisis they need experienced hands, and they need a stable situation,” Howard said. “I think there’s no substitute for the expertise and experience of state workers.”
But the centers pushed against the cuts during the legislative session.
The centers argued that because they address a variety of needs for low-income families they were able to offer Reach Up participants a variety of other services including child care, and subsidies for gas or food.
“For us, even though that contract lost money every year, it was mission critical,” Floyd Nease, the executive director of the Lamoille Family Center, who pushed to keep the caseworkers.
“These are the people we serve who are primarily young families with children who need some help getting back into the workforce and on their feet,” he said.
Nease added that he’s concerned that transferring the 400 Reach Up cases now managed by the centers to the state could burden DCF.
“I hope that the state is putting into place a plan for those participants so that their services will continue to be of high quality,” he said.
The Legislature did, however, boost the centers’ funding for other services next year by $1.3 million.
The House and the Senate both agreed to increase the monthly benefits parents in the Reach Up program receive from an average of $640 to $700 — which will cost the state about $2 million.
While the program’s caseload has decreased over time, the financial benefits for families have remained the same since 2004.
