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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Budget Committee finds high cost-per-client for Seniors, Rec and PAS


Cost-per-client for services gives George a real headache.

Members of the Citizens Budget Advisory Committee made their presentation and recommendations to the Plainfield City Council at last night's meeting.

Leading off with an overview of the CBAC and its mission, chairperson Susan Kilduff then handed off to members Charles McRae and Jeannette Criscione who presented detailed recommendations to the Council.

The entire PowerPoint presentation is to be made available for download on the CBAC blog (see here).

A few points really caught my attention --
  • Recreation: $700,000 appropriation. By its own reckoning, the Division only serves FIVE PERCENT of its target population (the 2000 Census shows 9,397 youths between ages 5 - 18), at a cost of $1,489 per client;

  • Plainfield Action Services: $295,000 appropriation. Services 325 or FOUR PERCENT of the 2000 Census count of 7,476 individuals below the poverty line, at a cost of $907 per client; and

  • Senior Services: $575,000 appropriation. Services 140 individuals or THREE PERCENT of the 4,402 residents over 65 according to the 2000 Census (the percentage is actually lower, since one can join the Senior Center earlier than age 65), for a cost of $4,107 per client.
The report questions how Plainfield can sustain such funding levels for such low participation/service rates.

You will certainly want to read the entire report and its recommendations.


-- Dan Damon [follow]

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shut down the senior services immediately. Obviously, not getting bang for our many bucks.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry you didn't cover the part where Mr. Restano continued to plead for payment of the Incubator Grant. It made me and others feel as if there is a lot more to this fiasco then we know. Let the contractor show what work was done and I doubt it even qualifies under the Training Provider Eliligibilty list of recognized activities. That would be the Councils first act before allocating a penny. If anyone gets sued it will be for malfeance and perhaps misappropriation. They should let this turkey go away, while they can. As head of PAS, and reviewer of the grant; Mr. Restano has a conflict because I seem to recall the original submission had a cover sheet with the Incubator name listed as the agency providing the services but Plainfield Action Services submitted an old grant with filed with DCA in 2007 as back up to the budget and as lead consultant including suppling employees. Those were the only documents, one page Incubator and seven pages Plainfield Action Services. You think that's why he's still trying to fund both entities; please follow the money trail on this grant. It smells to high heaven.

Anonymous said...

Now you know why dave wynn dragged his feet about cooperating with the City Council, Recreation Committee and CBAC in producing the data on his programs. There was no way he wanted the numbers to come out about how few kids were in his tax payor supported programs. But yet he had time to duplicate the baseball league after the already successful and established Queen City Baseball League and harass them all season instead of concentrating on what programs he already has. Why in the world would so many people say there is nothing for the kids to do when he has sooo many programs that are run by paid staff. Either he doesn't know how to promote what he has or the parents have had enough of his arrogant attitude and don't want to enroll their children. I hope the Council adheres to the CBAC recommendation and eliminate him.