But problems originated when the state bought out 13 percent of the agency's employees last spring in an effort to save taxpayers' money. This buy-out program is good for decreasing government expenditures, but careful attention must be given to the bureaucratic agencies that lose a substantial portion of their labor force. In a case like this one, the government scaled down an agency's workforce when a greater number of state residents needed its beneficial services. When government officials reduced the number of people working in the agency, they failed to realize the serious consequences of their actions. Replacements have been and are being trained to fill those vacant positions, but the entire transition period has put the FIA in a state of tremendous chaos.
The people who are suffering the most from this breakdown are people on welfare trying to get jobs. They depend on the FIA to subsidize a majority of the costs of childcare, especially when they are job hunting or once they are employed. Through the government's actions, the situation has seriously deteriorated - many childcare providers will no longer offer day care to children subsidized by the FIA because it owes money to the businesses. Of the 52,858 families receiving day care assistance in February, 10,123 families were on welfare; this is too large a percentage to ignore. New welfare laws, forcing people to get a job after a certain number of years, cannot work the way they were designed to if welfare recipients cannot leave their homes to search for employment. Currently, those welfare recipients receiving aid from the FIA cannot leave their homes without leaving their young children alone - childcare providers must accept children and parents on welfare. The burden of this bureaucratic inefficiency has fallen squarely upon the shoulders of individuals who need day care subsidizes and the children whose lives will not improve unless their parents can take time to search for a job.
In response to these concerns, the state initiated a program called Quick Start that speeds up the approval process of new day care applications by 35 days. This is making a significant difference in payments being made on time to newly approved applicants. But a greater problem exists in the re-approval process of current beneficiaries. Their paper work seems to fall to the bottom of bureaucratic paper stacks, forcing current day care providers to refuse children supported by the FIA. Greater efforts need to be made to put the FIA back on track, as it once was before workers were bought out by state government. Children and parents who need help should not have to suffer because state politicians failed to realize the consequences of their cost reducing actions. Government officials need to fully assess the different consequences of their actions before they decide to enact legislation, not after people are suffering from their choices.