Director's Office

Each year, the Division of Public Assistance provides direct services and benefits to more than 200,000 Alaskans. Offices can receive up to 10,000 initial applications and renewals each month. IN addition, each month Field Offices across the state also receive innumerable reports of change, returned mail, and correspondence from clients and partner agencies correspondence. Under any circumstance this is a monumental body of work.

Historically, we have done an outstanding job managing this staggering volume of work. We also faced periods where we have been confronted large backlogs of work. One challenge many of you may remember was the heavy lifting required years ago to process thousands of DKC applications out of timeframes successfully. We encountered and conquered another enormous challenge when problems with the Heating Assistance System stalled work. Again, just a few short years ago, we were inundated with a surge of applications during the “Great Recession.” We overcame all of these trials despite the difficulties and the Division was acknowledged by both the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Systems and the Food and Nutrition Services for outstanding performance. Although there are a host of reasons contributing to our current situation, I am confident that DPA will rise to the challenge and resume our position as one of the best, if not the best, Public Assistance agency in the nation.

Our Research and Analysis team has been working to compile and tabulate information about the backlog of work that can help illustrate both the extent of the challenge and our progress in addressing the backlog. This has not been an easy task. Management information reports were, quite frankly, something of an afterthought when EIS was created. At this point ARIES management reports are still in a development stage. Consequently, a great deal of effort is needed to combine data from both systems into documents that can capture the outstanding body of work. What follows are several representations of the backlog of work.

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This is a monumental day for the Division of Public Assistance. This morning I was officially informed that, as anticipated, DPA had the best Food Stamp Program (aka SNAP) payment accuracy in the nation during federal fiscal year 2011. Alaska’s active payment error rate reported by FNS was 0.76%; in other words the sampled cases were 99.24% accurate.

For several years the Division has been advocating heavily to replace the Eligibility Information System (EIS) used to determine eligibility for thousands of people and to issue over $25 million in cash and food benefits alone each month. EIS has been a powerful tool and the backbone of our core business. Almost 30 years old, EIS’ cannot keep up with the demands created by growing workloads, changing policies and more and new federal mandates that require states to stand up systems capable of supporting real-time interfaces, online applications, client portals, and other modern functionality.

The Governor’s Denali Peak Performance Award annually recognizes and rewards individuals and teams for excellence in service to the citizens of Alaska and to the State of Alaska Executive Branch. The awards are intended as acknowledgment of service that goes well beyond the norm and demonstrates a unique or significant contribution to the agency’s mission, goals, and objectives.

Voter Registration

The National Voter Registration Act is a federal law designed to increase citizens’ access to voter registration opportunities. It requires agencies such as the Division of Public Assistance to make every effort to ensure public assistance applicants and recipients have a chance to register to vote. In the past few months DPA staff all across the state have been very successful ensuring that our customers have that opportunity. Vote Here signs are everywhere and in the last few months DPA accepted 744 registrations. A significant increase over the 400 received last year.

This week the Food and Nutrition Service is sending a letter to Governor Parnell congratulating the State of Alaska for “ … achievement in obtaining both a payment error rate and a negative error rate that are below the national average…” In fact, Alaska’s payment error rate of only 2.15% placed us 9th in the nation for payment accuracy and garnered yet another SNAP High Performance Award; this one for $232,898!

Beginning in the fall of 2009 with Field Services the Division began taking a critical look at our core business practices in order to develop more efficient and effective ways of doing our work.  By this fall every section of the division will have had the opportunity to have representatives participate in the LEAN/Kaizen process that we are using to implement significant and meaningful changes in our business practices.  To better support the changes in our work processes and to gain additional efficiency, work is also in progress to find an alternative to the Eligibility Information System (EIS).

In a few short days eight of our co-workers will be retiring from the Division of Public Assistance. Collectively, they have over 210 years of state service and more than 190 years of experience with the Division of Public Assistance! Many of them have worked in a wide range of positions within DPA and each of them has strived to be a first-rate co-worker and teammate and to provide the best possible service to our clients.

Over the years they worked with DPA ,each of them as helped countless of Alaskans in need and supported the efforts of scores upon scores of co-workers and partners in sister agencies and community organizations. They have been a part of some of the most profound changes our agency has gone through over the years and all have contributed to making DPA the best agency in state government.

Please join me in thanking Beth Maiquis, Debbie Gage, Jeanette Skinner, Barbara Hollywood, Ginny Meyer, John Ellis, Connie Boquist, and Stephanie Hoyt for their dedication and service to Alaska’s most vulnerable citizens. Let’s wish them the best of luck in whatever new adventures await them.

DPA really is a team of outstanding employees and it is a real pleasure to see some of our co-workers recognized at the State-level.

Please join me in congratulating the staff of the Heating Assistance Program for their honorable mention as an exceptional performance team. Every year the HAP faces a tremendous volume of applications that starts right at the outset of the program year. They probably receive close to 2,500 applications a month, but despite that demand they never stop thinking of the households they serve.