Governor Carney, Lt. Governor Hall-Long Announce Partnership with Food Bank of Delaware to Aid in SNAP Transition

WILMINGTON, Del. – Governor Carney and Lt. Governor Hall-Long on Wednesday announced a partnership with the Food Bank of Delaware to fill community food pantries statewide and hold food drives in each county for three months to help ease the transition from the ending of the federal Emergency benefits for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) households. The Food Bank will help bridge the gap as SNAP families transition away from pandemic-related benefit increases.

In partnership with the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, the Food Bank of Delaware will be awarded $3.24 million of American Rescue Plan funding to provide these services.

 

“This funding will help stock shelves at local food pantries statewide, and it’ll support large drive-thru mobile pantries in each county to help Delaware families transition after the recent federal change to food benefits,” said Governor Carney. “Unwinding COVID-19 programs is a good sign, and this should help ease the transition. We’re grateful to the Food Bank of Delaware for their partnership to help bridge the gap over the next few months.”

 

“I have heard the concerns of families and communities throughout Delaware as emergency SNAP benefits end. Many families are already struggling to put food on the table,” said Lt. Governor Bethany Hall-Long. “This partnership with the Food Bank of Delaware will help ease the burden of the increased food hardship on these families as they transition back to regular benefit levels.”

 

The Food Bank of Delaware will announce the mobile food pantry distribution events in the coming weeks. Volunteers can look for additional information on the Food Bank of Delaware’s volunteer scheduling website (www.fbd.volunteerhub.com) Local and community food pantries can be found by visiting delaware211.org, texting their zip code to 898-211 or calling “2-1-1.”

 

“We are always stronger as a community when we partner together. We are grateful for our partners in state government who care deeply about our community’s most vulnerable,” said Food Bank of Delaware President and CEO Cathy Kanefsky. “When emergency SNAP benefits were first issued at the start of the pandemic, I don’t think any of us imagined that grocery prices would be so high due to inflation. Due to these increased costs, we are serving more people now than at the height of the pandemic. We hope these additional resources will provide much relief to our neighbors.”

 

As of March 1, 2023, SNAP households will receive their regular monthly food benefit amount on the normal issuance date and will no longer receive additional emergency food benefits on their EBT cards at the end of each month. Due to a change in federal law passed in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, the final emergency benefits SNAP payment was issued on February 28, 2023.

 

“We know the end of federal Emergency Food Benefits is going to be hard on Delawareans who receive SNAP benefits,” said Secretary for the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services Molly Magarik. “We hope this partnership with the Food Bank of Delaware will help relieve some of the burden now faced by SNAP households in our state as they deal with fewer benefits and higher food costs.”

 

More information and resources around this change can be found at de.gov/snapchanges.

 

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Maiss Hussein to Represent Delaware in 2023 Poetry Out Loud National Semifinals

Wilmington, Del. (March 3, 2023) – From a field of twelve Delaware high school students, Maiss Hussein, a junior from Paul M. Hodgson Vocational Technical High School, earned the title of 2023 Poetry Out Loud Delaware State Champion at the state finals held on March 2 at the Smyrna Opera House. The first runner-up was Kaylee Rathbone from Sanford School and the second runner-up was Abigail Ehemann from Saint Mark’s High School.

Hussein’s recitation, “The Poem You’ve Been Waiting For” by Tarfia Faizullah, earned her high marks with the judges. The full poem can be found on the Poetry Foundation’s website.

As the 2023 Poetry Out Loud Delaware State Champion, Hussein will receive $200 and the opportunity to compete in the national semifinals from May 8-10, 2023, which will be streamed on arts.gov. Paul M. Hodgson Vocational Technical High School will receive a $500 stipend for the purchase of poetry materials. Kaylee Rathbone, the first runner-up will receive $100, and Sanford School will receive $200 for its school library.

The Poetry Out Loud state competition, sponsored by the Delaware Division of the Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, is part of a national program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization, performance, and competition.

To learn more about the competition and for a full list of state finalists, please view our website.

To view the entire livestream of the competition, click the YouTube video below:

Photos by Joe del Tufo, Moonloop Photography.  Livestream by Terry Cruz.


Governor Carney Formally Extends Public Health Emergency

WILMINGTON, Del. – Governor John Carney on Friday formally extended the Public Health Emergency order another 30 days. Under Delaware law, Public Health Emergency declarations must be renewed every 30 days.

 

Visit Governor Carney’s website to view the Public Health Emergency Extension.


Delaware Joins Equity in Infrastructure Project

Secretary of Transportation Nicole Majeski joined Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy Carlos Monje and Department of Transportation officials from four other states this week to sign the Equity in Infrastructure Project (EIP) pledge.

The Equity in Infrastructure Project was created to improve public contracting practices by creating more opportunities for Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUBs) to build generational wealth and reduce the racial wealth gap by creating more prime, joint venture and equity contracting opportunities for these firms.

Pledge signers will work to increase the number, size and percentage of HUBs growing to prime contractors, participating in joint ventures or as equity participants by December 2025. A total of 13 states have now signed the EIP pledge.

Historically Underutilized Businesses (HUBs) includes firms designated as Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (DBE), Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises, and Small Business Enterprises.

“As we continue the work to ensure that state government is inclusive, diverse, and representative of all Delawareans, we are also committed to doing the same with our business community who provide services for all our state agencies,” said Governor Carney.

“I am proud Delaware is one of 13 states to have signed this pledge. This furthers DelDOT’s commitment to equity in transportation by expanding opportunities for HUBs across our state,” said Secretary of Transportation Nicole Majeski. “Over the course of this year we are implementing new training opportunities, streamlining our process, and creating specific contracts tailored towards advancing HUBs.”

“The Equity in Infrastructure Project is in an exciting initiative that will allow us to continue to build capacity among minority and women-owned businesses in our state,” added Wendy Henry, DelDOT’s Civil Rights Administrator. “We are confident that these actions will truly make a difference as we further create contracting opportunities.”

More information about Delaware’s DBE program can be found at deldot.gov/Business/dbe/

EIP was co-founded in 2021 by Denver International Airport CEO Phillip A. Washington, former US Deputy Secretary of Transportation John D. Porcari and others in anticipation of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and to advance President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative and his executive order 13985 on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities pledging to increase by 2026 the share of federal contracts that go to small and disadvantaged businesses.


DHSS Launches CostAware 2.0 With Enhanced Cost Comparison Data

CostAware Compares Health Care Costs Based on Delaware Medical Claims

NEW CASTLE (March 3, 2023) – The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) announced today the launch of a new version of its CostAware website, designed to help Delawareans understand how their health care dollars are spent by comparing the variation of average costs for different episodes of care and medical services based on actual medical claims in Delaware.

In early 2020, DHSS and the Delaware Health Care Commission began working with Delaware Health Information Network (DHIN) to develop and implement various health care cost and quality analyses. These analyses leverage data in the Delaware Health Care Claims Database (HCCD), which was established through legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2016. DHIN manages the claims database and DHSS uses it to inform and support a variety of policy initiatives.

The initial version of CostAware, launched in April 2022, compared hospital costs for several common episodes of care at six unnamed hospital systems: cardiac procedures, C-section birth, emergency department visits, knee and hip replacement, and vaginal delivery. The costs across five accountable care organizations (ACOs) are also compared for seven common services: blood count, colonoscopy, doctor visits, hemoglobin A1c, head CT, lumbar spine MRI and screening mammography.

In addition to the above data, this version of CostAware includes the following enhancements:

  • Average cost estimates for episodes of care reported for named Delaware hospitals.
  • Estimates of the average cost per visit for additional medical services, including child wellness visits, mental and behavioral/health services, diabetes care, cardiac investigations and procedures, doctor visits by complexity, and lab tests (blood and urine tests).
  • Results reported by type of care setting (e.g., hospital outpatient facility, outpatient lab, professional office, urgent care facility, and telehealth) to facilitate additional comparisons.
  • Additional years of data included – 2020 and 2021 were added to the 2019 data used for CostAware 1.0.
  • Trend visualizations, with multiple years of data, show changes over time in average cost, quality, and other measures.
  • Improved filtering of results by insurance category (Commercial, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage) and patient age range and gender (as appropriate).

“Since its launch last year, CostAware has served as a valuable tool in highlighting the variation in the cost, utilization, and quality of health care in Delaware,” said DHSS Secretary Molly Magarik, who is also a member of the Delaware Health Care Commission. “We are excited for these additional data enhancements, as they add yet another layer of transparency and awareness around the health care dollars that are spent by Delawareans and their insurers.”

CostAware also includes quality measures, including the readmission and utilization rates, and patient satisfaction scores, all from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of its Hospital Compare and Medicare Shared Savings Program initiatives. Each episode of care and service can be filtered further by the type of insurance: commercial, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid.

Early in his administration, Governor John Carney said one of the most important things he could do as Governor is to slow the growth of health care spending. In late 2018, the Governor signed Executive Order 25, establishing a state health care spending benchmark, a per-annum rate-of-growth benchmark for health care spending, and several health care quality measures. The first spending benchmark went into effect on Jan. 1, 2019, and was set at 3.8%, with the target expected to decrease gradually to 3% over the following three years. The first benchmark report measured the growth rate at 7.8% for 2019, or more than twice the 3.8% target. This has proven to be an invaluable initiative, which lead to it being codified in 2022 through House Amendment 1 for House Bill 442.

The CostAware website was developed by DHSS and the Health Care Commission in collaboration with DHIN.