Innovation Improves County Efficiency in Handling W-2 Processing

January 30, 2004
David W. Carlson, Dane Co. Human Services, (608) 242-6424 Sharyn Wisniewski, Office of the County Executive (608) 267-8823
County Executive

A phone-in center that lets W-2, Food Stamp and Medical Assistance recipients call in to report changes in their living and working circumstances is now handling 5,000 calls per month and making the program more efficient, Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk announced today. The Dane County Department of Human Services created the “Change Reporting Center” in February 2003. Customers can access the center by dialing 242-7500, to report changes to their cases such as address, employment, expense or income changes and changes in who is living in the home. Before then, clients had to go through a county case worker to make changes. “This system improves customer service by giving people one number to call so they can reach a live person to report changes and not have to play phone tag with a case worker,” said Falk. ”It also makes it easier for our staff to enter those changes accurately and in a timely manner, reducing errors.” Dane County has now received an $11,023 grant from the State of Wisconsin to expand its phone-in center, Falk announced. “This grant helps us do our job more efficiently and economically in a time of difficult state and county budgets,” said Falk. “It recognizes the improvements we’ve made and provides us the opportunity to expand the program to even further reduce errors and gain efficiency,” said Falk. Dane County will use the new dollars to buy equipment and allocate more staff time to expand its capacity to take calls at the Change Reporting Center. The county also plans to use the expanded Change Reporting Center capacity to test the concept of an area-wide change reporting center with Dodge, Sauk and Marquette Counties who are partners along with Dane County in the new “Capitol Consortium” which is providing W-2 services in the four counties. ###