The Governor's Office announced yesterday, September 3, 2003 that all Human Resources (HR) functions (personnel, payroll, classification, labor relations, WorkPlace Alaska etc.) within State Government will be integrated within the Department of Administration.

This essentially means that all current Human Resources staff within the Department of Health and Social Services will be transferred to the Department of Administration and integrated with staff from all other departments. Transfers of staff and functions will occur within the next 1 to 9 months.

Governor Frank H. Murkowski has approved an effort, which began today, to consolidate human resources management and other personnel functions into one cohesive unit within the Division of Personnel in the Department of Administration. Currently, human resources managers are scattered throughout the fourteen departments of the executive branch.

HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced today that both the number of individuals and the number of families receiving assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program declined between March 2002 and March 2003.

Totals for these quarters show that the number of recipients (defined as individuals) in March 2003 was 4,963,771, a decline of 4.3 percent since March 2002 and 59.5 percent since August 1996, when the TANF law was signed into law. The number of families (defined as family units with children) receiving TANF declined about 2 percent during the same period, to 2,039,917 in March 2003. Since August 1996, the number of families receiving TANF has fallen by 53.7 percent.

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The State of Alaska Service Center has advised us of continuing, intermittent service interruptions impacting State WAN services. These intermittent interruptions are affecting various State Agencies. State of Alaska and ACS Technicians are currently working on the problem. The State of Alaska Service Center will update this outage notification when additional information regarding the cause or duration is received.