We have been pretty open about our timeliness problems with public assistance applications. If you’ll remember, we wrote this letter to the community in November.
We promised we would get better and we have. I am happy to report our we processed two-thirds of our food stamp applications in a timely manner during the last week of December. That number would have been even higher if we had not held on to some cases for a lengthy period of time hoping for consumers to get in the required verifications.
We still have a ways to go. The recession and its resulting budget cuts created a condition where we were serving an exploding caseload with fewer people. But we have since hired more employees, shifted others to this critical area and made technological and process improvements that have us on the right track.
We appreciate your patience with us. We will continue to work hard on your behalf.
