Ny Gives $200 For Welfare Kids To Go Back School

[Tyger]

Newschannel 9 WSYR article link

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - Welfare and food stamp recipients Wednesday started getting letters in the mail letting them know extra money they received in their benefit payments this month, is supposed to be used to buy school supplies for their kids.

The problem is, the money was available on their cards Tuesday, and local retailers tell us they were swamped with people cashing in.

The owners of the Sunoco on the corner of Wolf and Grant Street in Syracuse were swamped Tuesday; food stamp recipients, they say, who found an extra $200 per child on their benefit cards, were coming in to cash in.

“One person said she was going to buy a cell phone, I said ‘Wow, I thought the money was supposed to be for the kids -- other people were just buying cigarettes and beer,” says Sunoco gas station owner Diane Goly.

It's very possible most of those people didn't even know this cash that mysteriously appeared on their cards was supposed to be used to buy school supplies for their children -- the letters from the state telling them that were still in the mail.

Governor Paterson announced at a press conference Tuesday that he was using $140 million in stimulus money to fund this program -- but prior to that, it seems he kept this allocation close to the vest.

“We hadn't done a lot of planning for it because we didn't know about it,” says Ann Rooney of Onondaga County Human Services.

Social Services had no say in the program or how the cash was distributed; they just learned about it last week and were told not to say anything about it to the public until Tuesday, when the governor announced the program at a press conference.

“We would have liked to have been involved in the process and have some input,” says Rooney.

Congressman Dan Maffei says, “The Governor gave me no heads up that they were going to do this, so this is a program that the state is implementing without the input of at least our congressional office.”

State Republicans claim the governor developed this plan in secret with no legislative input and it's ripe for fraud and abuse.

We tried speaking with the governor's office Wednesday about this, and they deferred us to the Office of Temporary Assistance.

They admit the letters should have gone out well in advance of the money, but there was a lot of overhead and they wanted to make sure the cash was out before school started.

With the governor's plan, there's no accountability. His office is just hoping folks do the right thing and spend the extra cash on their kids.

Rooney thinks there may have been a better way to ensure that.

“Perhaps we could have done something with Mary Nelson, who's having her barbecue this weekend and put some of the money in her hands to supplement what she's doing with the backpack giveaway,” she says.

Nelson says she found out about the money and says she’s heard of people using it on other items rather than on their children.

It shocks her, but she says it’s not the children’s fault and that she’ll still help them.

“Maybe those parents should come by and bring some of those supplies, and feel bad for what they did,” Nelson says.

She wishes she could have received at least some of that money; with just days left before the Youth Day Barbecue, she still needs enough supplies to fill up 1,000 backpacks.

She also says she needs about 2,000 backpacks for folks who may not have signed up.

August 11, 2009:

Extra money for welfare recipients: The Real Deal

Slideshow Albany (WSYR-TV) – If you have children and are currently receiving food stamps or public assistance, you likely noticed some extra money in your account Tuesday. The state has issued an additional one-time payment of $200 per child to help parents pay for school supplies.

It’s your stimulus dollars at work -- well, $140 million of it at least. The other $35 million it took to fund this program came from a private foundation. So, how is the state going to make sure the extra $200 per child will be used to buy back-to-school supplies?

They're not.

The Governor's office admits there's no way to ensure this cash will be used for its intended purpose. But, they say, they're making retailers aware of this program and are hoping parents will spend the money in the right way.

Many people who received the money Tuesday had no idea what it was for. The state admits the letters explaining the additional payment were just sent out. They claim they wanted to get the money out as soon as they got it because parents would be back to school shopping. The letters should be arriving any day.

Some folks already started spending the money. In fact, Brothers Hip Hop on South Salina Street, noticed a lot of business Tuesday. The manager tells us many families came in looking for sneakers; it was a rush common to what they see during the weekends.

Matt Daniels noticed the extra money in his account, only after getting a call from a relative. He is excited because he says it's money well-needed; he's just surprised he didn’t get a letter telling him about it.

Daniels has already started buying supplies for his children to use this fall.

Breakdown by county

Onondaga County:

9,954 homes got this extra money.

It amounts to $4.2 million.

Oswego County:

2,707 homes; $1.2 million

Oneida County:

5,137 homes; $2.3 million

Madison County:

1,225 homes; $517,800

Cayuga County:

1,417 homes; $618,000

Cortland County:

871 homes; $389,800

Tompkins County:

1,163 homes; $471,000

A total of about 21,000 central New Yorkers got this money Tuesday; about $9 million in funds were sent to those accounts.

[ladylove]

This is another example of how flawed our system truly is.

[pappyld04]

They would have been better off buying the supplies and delivering them to the schools!

[ladylove]

They would have been better off buying the supplies and delivering them to the schools!

so simple yet so elusive!

[pappyld04]

so simple yet so elusive!

That simplicity eludes the so-called educated bunch as well!