Access Oklahoma Day Care Pilot First in Nation

OKLAHOMA CAPITOL -- Logan and Murray counties are gearing up to be pilot counties beginning Oct. 1 to test a new childcare payment system using Access Oklahoma, according to an Oklahoma Department of Human Services official.
OKDHS Access Oklahoma Project Director Larry Burton said, "We are working closely with childcare providers, OKDHS field staff and our contract vendor, Lockheed Martin, IMS, to ease the transition to Access Oklahoma Day Care. This is critically important because when the rollout is completed in Spring 2001, Oklahoma will have the first completely automated system up and running in the nation.

"As more parents are entering the work force, more children are being placed in out-of-home care and many of them are eligible for some level of childcare subsidy. We have had a great deal of success in moving families from cash public assistance into the workplace and along with that more children are in childcare facilities each day."

Access Oklahoma became the state’s benefit issuance system in 1997. It uses an electronically-coded debit card to replace public assistance checks and food stamps in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Food Stamp programs, respectively. The same system, with software modifications and new electronic point-of-sale devices, will now be used to replace the tens of thousands of pieces of paperwork and payment claim forms once used each month by nearly 4,500 childcare providers to file for payments to OKDHS for services rendered to families who qualified for childcare subsidy assistance.

Access Oklahoma Day Care will have long-term advantages for the Oklahoma taxpayer and the clients receiving childcare subsidies, according to Burton. "Oklahoma will save on the administrative cost of postage, mailing materials and the multiple handling of childcare forms, payment claims and payment warrants.

"We are hopeful Access Oklahoma Day Care will reduce opportunities for inadvertent underpayments or overpayments too. With the new daycare system, parents will check their children in and out of the childcare facilities with their Access Oklahoma Day Care cards. Records of children coming and going from the facilities will be posted immediately. There will be a much cleaner child attendance monitoring process and it should shorten the processing time necessary to issue monthly provider payments."

Following the pilot, a statewide rollout will continue through the fall and winter months starting with OKDHS Area II, which includes: Caddo, Carter, Cleveland, Comanche, Cotton, Garvin, Grady, Greer, Harmon, Jackson, Jefferson, Kiowa, Love, McClain, Murray, Stephens and Tillman counties. Access Oklahoma Day Care is scheduled to be on-line statewide by Spring 2001.

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