THE VOICE OF THE TOWNSHIP
One of the many missions of the Wayne Township Trustee Office is the Wayne Township Workfare Dept. Comprised of many missions within itself the Workfare Dept was originally designed as a way for applicants receiving assistance to repay the taxpayers by performing community service for non-profit organizations. Last year over 700 households participated in the Workfare program saving non-profits almost $100,000 in staffing costs. It appears by the end of this year these figures will close to double. Just as these numbers would indicate the Workfare Program itself has many success stories. In our continual efforts to improve our operation we have reevaluated Workfare’s efforts and made some meaningful additions. We now offer an educational component to the program. All workfare recipients are required to participate in a money management class offered by the township. This class provides information on how to manage money and how to address debt before it becomes an emergency and avoid the predatory services that plague low-income individuals. A little education and an ounce of preparation is worth more than a pound of cure and your tax dollars.
Some of our clients have language barriers that make seeking and accepting employment, or completing our workfare program, difficult for them. We now require those clients to participate in ESL (English as a second language) classes as a condition of receiving continuing assistance. We also believe it improves their marketability and increases their employment opportunities. Planning is now in progress to expand the educational component of our program by requiring clients to participate in employment workshops. We hope this will increase their chances of finding employment. Other responsibilities of Workfare Department are the safety and maintenance of the Wayne Township Office. Another way to pass on savings, involves our capital improvements program. The Workfare department is staffed with personnel who are skilled in many professional fields. When improvements are to small to get competitive bids by local contractors, we rely on this expertise and community volunteers whose expertise allow us to save the money that would have been spent and pass it along to those in need. Examples of this would be, the remodeling and expansion of three offices which required demolition, electrical, sheetrock installation/finishing and carpeting. We also installed curbing on the Lafayette street side of the building to replace deteriorating landscape timbers. Our case filing system was relocated from the front conference area to a more centralized location so that our investigators could retrieve their case files more efficiently. Whenever possible, township vehicle maintenance and diagnostics are performed here to cut down on the transportation and time costs of sending a vehicle out for service. This can result in substantial savings very quickly, which results in less out of your pocket and/or more direct assistance to those in need. Lawn maintenance, landscaping, and janitorial duties are the responsibility of the Workfare department staff and the material to support these is offset by the cost of renting out our parking lot during the summer festival season. Few small details are overlooked as we have even gone as far as installed motion detectors in our employee cafeteria and restrooms so the lights go off when there is no one in the room. The individual departments of the Wayne Township Office are keenly aware of not only their responsibilities but how they fit into the overall mission of the Wayne Township Office: “Guardian of the taxpayer and Advocate for those in need.”
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