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PUBLIC TESTIMONY

Testimony by Carmen De Leon, President of Local 768 DC 37

4:17:14

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125 sec

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Carmen De Leon, President of Local 768 DC 37, addresses concerns about recent federal funding cuts and their impact on various health programs. She highlights issues of recruitment, retention, and overworked caseloads among her union members who provide these services.

De Leon emphasizes the need for proper funding to ensure adequate staffing and manageable caseloads for workers in programs like mobile ACT, BeHeard, and newborn home visiting.
She expresses concern about the potential impact of federal funding cuts on both service providers and recipients, noting that many union members are also low-income and rely on these services.
De Leon calls for relief for workers through increased hiring to help manage growing caseloads, which have increased significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carmen De Leon

4:17:14

Good afternoon.

4:17:15

Thank you for this time to speak.

4:17:16

My name is Carmen De Leon.

4:17:18

I am the president of Local seven sixty eight DC thirty seven, and I'm a vice president to the executive board.

4:17:24

I am here today because of the recent cuts to federal funding and many of the programs mentioned throughout this hearing including mobile act, be heard, newborn home visiting program, mobile vending, food vending are all serviced by my members.

4:17:40

So, one of the things that we talked about was funding, and part of the problem for us, and I'm gonna put it into three succinct things, recruitment, retention, and overworked caseloads.

4:17:52

While DOMH has said that they have funding for all of these programs, my members are, have very high caseloads and they're expanding some of their programs with not increasing the staffing adequately.

4:18:04

So, when we talk about funding, I would ask that the council ensure that the dollars that are being used are there to also ensure that proper funding is made for recruitment retention because that impacts the services that are needed.

4:18:19

My members are also citizens who access many of these services that are going to be cut by federal funding and because we don't know what those cuts are going to come through DOHMH and many of the other agencies, it is of concern.

4:18:33

I have members who make only $35,000 a year and they have two, three kids, so they are immediately in the poverty line.

4:18:42

And while DC thirty seven has worked with the council and the various agencies to try and increase that their paychecks, it it's not equivalent to what's happening right now and it's not enough, but I would say that my members really want relief and they want more people hired to help them do the casework.

4:19:04

Their caseloads are increasing since COVID.

4:19:08

If they were to do a meta analysis of how many caseloads they had before COVID and what they have now even over the past two years, they would see the increase.

4:19:17

Thank you for the time.

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