Kelly invests in Kansas schools, gives state employees pay boost in Omnibus Budget
27 July 2023
TOPEKA (KSNT) – The Kansas Department of Children and Families (DCF) responded to allegations of staffing shortage and processing backlogs.
Senior Director of Public and Governmental Affairs Mike Deines said in a statement that the DCF is experiencing a high number of applications and workforce challenges similar to those seen in the public and private sectors.
Deines said they are mitigating the issue by implementing a plan to allow regional DCF teams to work as one unit.
“The plan allows employees, wherever they are in the state, to work cases from outside of their region,” Deines said in the statement. “As an example, employees in our western regions are helping to process applications from the Kansas City region. This applies to all six DCF regions.”
As part of Senate Bill 25, the state of Kansas appropriated an additional $7.6 million, including $5.6 million from the State General Fund (SGF) for human services caseloads in FY 2023.
For FY 2024, $3.1 million including $867,444 from the SGF will be added to resources handling human service caseloads. An additional $2.4 million and $511,288 from the SGF will be used to implement provisions from HB 2094 regarding SNAP benefits and childcare assistance.
“In addition, we have implemented several workforce recruitment efforts to address our shortages,” Deines said in the statement. “Recent salary increases enacted by Governor Kelly are also having a positive impact on hiring. We are already seeing an increase in applicants for positions that have direct contact with clients and application processing.”
Deines said if clients experience delays in benefits they will receive any missed funds once their case is restarted.