Welfare transfer

Finance Director Pam Reynolds will ask the City Council tonight to transfer $45,000 from the contingency fund to the welfare budget to meet the rising cost of city relief. Altogether $80,000 will have been added to the welfare budget of $194,820 to defray unforeseen expenditures.

The increase continues a trend that began in 2000. In the past five fiscal years the cost of city relief — the benefits paid to fulfill the city's obligation to care for the indigent — has risen from $44,455 to nearly $275,000, a sixfold increase. Reimbursements from the state and federal governments, which amount to less than half the cost of relief, have increased proportionately.

The budget proposed for 2005-2006 appropriates $240,000 for city relief, 23-percent more than was appropriated in the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30. Reimbursements are projected to climb 60-percent, from $25,000 to $60,000. Reynolds described the estimated reimbursements as 'conservative," adding that reimbursements in the current budget are running more than $8,000 ahead of projections. However, she said that the time between when applications are made for state and federal programs and when applications are approved has grown longer and longer, prolonging the period the city provides assistance without reimbursement.

The high cost of housing, Reynolds said, drives much of the cost of city relief. Rental assistance represents the largest share of city relief, 64-percent of all expenditures. Another 14-percent of expenditures assist the homeless. The balance of city relief is applied to medical care, which accounts for 14-percent of all payments, utility bills and other necessary expenses.