VOICE OF THE TOWNSHIP

I hope you are having a great summer. I can hardly believe that we already are halfway through summer and that the Three Rivers Festival, which is always a great time, will be over this weekend. The Waynedale Picnic, one of the events that signals the end of summer for me, is well into the planning stages. The picnic is scheduled for August 27, and our office is looking forward to participating again this year by having an information table and providing volunteers to help on the day of the event.

One project my administrative staff and I spend considerable time on each year is updating our Wayne Township Assistance Eligibility Standards. Indiana law requires that every township establish its own standards for the administration of township assistance and that these standards be updated annually. Our Eligibility Standards are in essence the “law” of the Township as far as qualifications for receiving Township Assistance and the amount of assistance clients may receive.

In some instances, Indiana law tells township trustees exactly what they must do. Other parts of the statute allow trustees flexibility in determining their own standards. The law takes into account that townships are different and what might work well in a populous urban township like Wayne might not be the best approach for a smaller rural township.

When my staff and I update our standards, we review our 25-page manual line by line. We discuss each section and whether it meets the needs of our clients. We discuss the wording of each section and try to make sure our standards are clear and easy to understand. We talk about what should stay the same and what parts of the standards would benefit from some re-wording. We also go over the attached schedules, consisting of forms we commonly use.

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After we complete our updating, the law requires us to present our finished standards to our Board for approval. Our Wayne Township Board members, including Chair Bruce Stier, Secretary Pat Turner and Finance Chair Tony Henry, approved our updated, 2011 Wayne Township Eligibility Standards at last month’s Board meeting. After approval, my staff filed the updated standards with the Allen County Commissioners, which is another requirement of Indiana law. The 2011 Standards took effect on July 1.

We made some changes this year, but most sections of our standards stayed the same. One change we made involves telephone service for a client with serious heath problems. We are only able to help clients with phone service if a doctor certifies to our office that a phone is medically necessary. In the past, our standards allowed us to help these clients with basic landline service. We recognized that providing a cell phone in some cases might be less expensive than a landline phone, as well as more beneficial for our clients. So, we changed the 2011 standards to allow us flexibility in the type of phone service a client with medical problems might receive.

During my first term in office, we had to make major changes to our Eligibility Standards due to our decreasing budget. We have continued these changes for the 2011 standards. Again this year, we set our income limits based on the federal poverty guidelines, which increased by only a few dollars. Our 2011 standards continue to emphasize that our clients must comply with both our employment training program and our workfare program or they will be denied future assistance.

We try to ensure that our Eligibility Standards strike the best possible balance between providing financial assistance for those in need and helping move our clients toward independence. The 2011 Eligibility Standards are available at our office and will be on our website at www.waynetownship.org.

Richard A. Stevenson, Sr.
Wayne Township Trustee
www.waynetownship.org