The state Department of Human Services will close its county offices in DeWitt, Clarendon, Booneville and Osceola by the end of next year and expand or improve other offices in more populated counties, the department announced Monday.
The department will also open an application processing center in Osceola by June 2021 that will employ about 50 people using positions that will be relocated from other areas of the state, the department said in a news release.
The planned changes come after several months of study into how the locations of the department's 85 county offices align with where current and potential beneficiaries of programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and subsidized child care live, the department said.
The county offices accept and process applications for the programs.
"DHS remains committed to having at least one county office in every county, but it has been years since we looked at our footprint in the state to determine whether we have the right amount of staff in the right places to best serve our clients," Human Services Secretary Cindy Gillespie said in the news release.
"We've taken a deep dive into the data and found locations where we should move staff and areas where we should make some re-investments."
The closure of the four offices, including annexes housing Adult Protective Services workers in Sebastian and Baxter counties, are expected to save $246,500 a year in rent and utilities, the department said.
Some of that money will be used to open the center in Osceola, which will process applications submitted through a department website, access.arkansas.gov.
The money will also go toward expanding, improving or moving offices in Washington, Jefferson, Pulaski, Lonoke and Faulkner counties, the department said.
Upgrades to those offices, which will be made between March 2021 and June 2023, are needed "due to the conditions of existing buildings or the high client counts in the current locations," the department said.
The employees who work in the offices or annexes that are closing will be moved to other offices in the same county, the department said.
Staff will be moved from the DeWitt office to the Stuttgart office in Arkansas County, from the Clarendon office to the Brinkley office in Monroe County, from the Booneville office to the Paris office or Booneville Human Development Center in Logan County, and from the Osceola office to the Blytheville office in Mississippi County, the department said.
The workers in the annexes in Sebastian and Baxter counties will be moved to the main county offices in those counties.
Metro on 11/05/2019