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DCCA’s Celes aims to bolster NAP service
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Posted on Sep 19 2008
[B]ROTA[/B]—The newly confirmed Secretary of the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs, Cecilia Celes, appears poised to begin an effort to bolster the services provided by federal food stamp offices on Tinian and Rota, a task Senate lawmakers urged her to pursue in a session here Thursday night.
As senators prepared to confirm Celes as DCCA’s chief, the lawmakers noted that in a recent interview with staff at a federal Nutrition Assistance Program office, they learned that it can take far longer for applicants on Rota to receive approval for the food stamps they need than those on Saipan because they have to wait sometimes weeks for their requests to be processed. The issue raised serious concerns for some senators.
“For example, with babies, we cannot see them wait for a month because the interview [to process them] has to take place through someone coming from Saipan to screen these people,” said Sen. Felix Mendiola (C-Rota). “I believe criteria, qualification criteria, should be identified. At the same time, perhaps maybe we should empower or delegate authority here so that it can be done here. If Saipan can process people in two days or three days, it should be so on Tinian and Rota.”
In an interview after her unanimous confirmation, Celes voiced support for such an effort. One solution, she added, could be giving local food stamp office staff the training and authority they need to process applicants on their own.
“Clients can sometimes wait up to a month for food stamps,” she said. “This is a critical and direct need. We’re in hard economic times and we need to plan carefully how to provide those services. I think that by providing direct training to the personnel here, we can resolve a lot of those issues.”
Also on Celes’ agenda at DCCA, she added, are efforts to ensure stability within the department’s management.
“The department has gone through many changes in leadership,” she said.
