Orange County Budget Slated For Approval Today

ocbos

SANTA ANA – Today being the last day of the County fiscal year it is also the last day for the Board of Supervisors to approve their final budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year. As we saw in the budget hearings last week, there will be significant cuts to programs and services due to the downturn in the economy and the state fiscal crisis.

Also as it is the last meeting of the year, the Board has a rather large number of contracts up for approval. Among those is the renewal of the Tobacco Settlement Revenue funded contract with The Coalition of  Orange CountyCommunity Clinics for local clinic services.

Approve agreement with Coalition of Orange County Community Clinics for community clinic services, 7/1/09 – 6/30/10 ($5,513,561). This cantract was the subject of Board scrutiny because Suprevisor’s Moorlach and Campbell falsly clained that the funding was being used to promote abortion services. The Board solved that issue by throwing out all fack based health needs information to eliminate all funding of health education porograms with this portion of Tobacco Settlement Revenues.

The other contract of note is the funding to MAXIMUS Human Services to provide CalWORKS services for the Social Services Agency.

Approve agreement WAA0309 with MAXIMUS Human Services, Inc. for CalWORKs Welfare-To-Work Case Management services, 7/1/09 – 6/30/10 ($4,850,547); and authorize Director or designee to extend term up to twelve additional months under certain conditions

MAXIMUS claims to be able to provide these services at a lower cost, but with the limited oversight performed by the Agency, there is no verifyable evidence presented thusfar that the services are actually being performed. The County doesn’t seem to want any independent audit, so it is unlikely we we ever know what is actuially happening.

You can watch the Board Meeting live online HERE. It starts at 9:30 am.