Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the Appropriations, Energy and Technology and Human Services Committees. My name is Jim Gatling and I am the President/CEO of New Opportunities, Inc and Chair of the Connecticut Association for Community Action (CAFCA), the state association representing Connecticut’s twelve community action agencies. I also serve as a member of the Low Income Energy Assistance Advisory Board, which has been meeting for the past three years for the purpose of examining the energy needs of CT’s low income elderly, children and their families with our focus being to make the program better for those in need.

I would like to begin today by thanking the Connecticut Congressional delegation for the tremendous job they did last year in getting additional funding for the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program.  Led by Congressman John Larson and Senator Chris Dodd, our state’s delegation was instrumental in getting the largest energy assistance increase ever and for that they have the thanks of all of us in Community Action and the low-income customers we serve.

Secondly, I am here to endorse the Department of Social Services’ plan on the Connecticut Energy Assistance Program.  As you may know, the CAA network took approximately 130,000 energy applications this past season and provided energy assistance to almost 100,000 households.  This represents an incredible amount of work for our energy intake workers over a short time period of only several months.

I am attaching a chart so that you can see the statewide increase for the past heating season’s CEAP customer caseload.

One way that we could simplify the program and streamline it for our intake workers would be to allow customers who receive state assistance to have automatic eligibility.  We know if they are on assistance they are income eligible, so it would help the program tremendously if the state provided its customers with a simple form that shows their income for presentation to the energy worker.  Having energy workers trying to access the state’s computer system for income verification is way too time consuming and is an unnecessary burden on the already over-burdened intake worker.

Finally we would like for you to consider allocating state funds to the energy assistance program for the purpose of year round operation of this important program - or at the very least, allocate state funds to provide for early intake into the energy assistance program.  This year we had carry forward funds that allowed for early intake but we are never assured that this will be the case and the program is too important to too many residents to leave this to chance.  We know the program works better when we have more time to work with our clients and don’t have to herd them all through our doors over a 16 week time period.  We currently operate on a shoe string budget and use other CAA funding sources to support this program.  Our agencies are stretched way too thin and our workers are on the front lines of service delivery in a difficult economy with customers who present with many problems.

We need to be very watchful during the coming year to make sure that poor people in this great and wealthy state don’t get left out in the cold.  On behalf of Connecticut’s Community Action Agencies we look forward to working with you to protect our most vulnerable population.  Thank you.