Health and Social Services Commissioner Karleen Jackson recently announced the appointment of Ellie Fitzjarrald as Public Assistance director.

Ellie Fitzjarrald has served as acting Public Assistance director since June 2006.

“Public Assistance touches many lives on a very personal level, and it requires a unique kind of leadership,” Jackson said. “I am pleased to have Ellie continue in this leadership role ─ she has a great understanding of the importance of public assistance in helping people achieve the highest possible degree of self sufficiency while in the most vulnerable of circumstances.”

We are happy to announce that the four new and improved online program manuals are now available on the internal DPA website (DPAweb):

• Alaska Temporary Assistance
• Family Medicaid
• Adult Public Assistance
• Aged, Disabled, and Long Term Care Medicaid

These new online manuals are interactive and user-friendly. We hope you find the new features and improvements helpful. Enhancements made to the manuals include index and glossary sections, a search function, cross-referencing and hyperlinks to help you find what you are looking for. Special features allow you to print manual sections, and add them to favorites. There is an email function but it is not working properly at this time. It should be available soon.

For the past year, we have been revising our Application for Services (Gen50B) form using the expertise of the Kleimann Communications Group.

Although still in draft form, Kleimann entered it into the MarCom Creative Awards competition in October… and WE WON! Our draft Application for Services won the MarCom Platinum Award in the Writing/Technical category. Only 15% of entries received this most prestigious Platinum Award this year.

October 1st begins a new year for Food Stamp Program accuracy measurement. Our hard work and increased payment accuracy focus has led to much improved work quality in the past several years, yet we've remain short of our goal to do better than the national average. We set our goal last year for a 94 percent accuracy rate. We are still striving for that goal, in the current year and our national payment accuracy ranking among the states is 36th. We aim in the FFY 2007 quality control sample to achieve 95 percent accuracy. Give Me Five! is our new campaign theme. A 5 percent food stamp payment error rate (Give Me Five - get it?) would earn us a respectable place in the top 20 in the national rankings.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today announced the release of $79.9 million in energy assistance for 14 states. These contingency funds, from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) program, will provide states with heating assistance for the fall and winter months ahead.

"This assistance will help states prepare for heating costs this fall and winter," Secretary Leavitt said. "With this funding, the Bush Administration is helping those in need by ensuring their homes are kept warm during the winter months."