How to industry sign banking kentucky poa
benefits. Individual Development Accounts(IDAs),
now a lot of people said they didn't know what an IDAs was, so we'll go
through that a little bit. An individual... boy... I have to slow
down sometimes, sorry interpreters. An Individual
Development Accounts is a matched savings account that helps low-income
individuals purchase an asset, such as a home. Participants receive a match when
they've reached their savings goal. The federal program.
The federal government funds is called the assets for independence, Individual
Development Accounts. Under this program, participants can save for one of three
things, self-employment, post-secondary yet or home ownership. The savings in this program are exempt from Social Security Asset limitations. Is
it accurate, Carolyn? And the grants to do these programs are awarded to nonprofit
organizations. The match ratio can differ from program to program. There are some
programs if you save a thousand dollars, they'll give you a thousand dollars.
There are some programs that can... if you save a thousand dollars, they'll give you eight thousand dollars, which is pretty amazing. I don't know any of those, but these are
the existing programs, according to last week when I checked AFI site that
exists in the state of Kentucky. Brighton Center in north New Port, Jewish
families & Career Services is in Louisville, the Race for Education interestingly here in Lexington is restricted to individuals in the horse
race industry. The big one in Kentucky which we're going to talk about in more
details through the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association. They're a network
grantee with an annual fee. They have sixteen subgrantees, so they work with a variety
of programs around the state, not all of which are restricted to
survivors of domestic violence. Their main program is aimed at survivors of
domestic violence, but some of their IDAs qualify... other people could
qualify. They emphasize homeownership, post-secondary education and business capitalization and along with all these goals, a great amount of
financial education and counseling... KCADV, as I said, they target eligible low-income
domestic violence victims and you do have to have low income to qualify for
the AFI IDAs throughout Kentucky, but they do have some sub-grantees, for
instance, they do have a program for the community college system, for
individuals and the Return to Work program I think. Those folks don't have
to be disabled, but they do have to be low-income where they can save a
thousand dollars if they're going to Community College and they'll get a
thousand dollars for books or something else that helps them go to school, and
that's available I think. There was and all the community colleges around the
state except maybe for Owensboro and Henderson, the last thing I heard. This is pretty cool and we did pattern a program after this for a while. They have
a state-funded car IDA where they've used. This is not part of the federal
program where they've used foundation funding for the money and under this
again, you have to be a domestic violence survivor under this program. The
participants earn less than, must earn less than 200% of federal poverty level.
Earned income is not required. The savings match is one to one. They can save up to two thousand and get two thousand to buy a car and a lot of their folks, a
lot of our folks need transportation, so this is around the state. You also have
to complete a car maintenance course, financial education and case management
and the car has to be purchased outright or you could use it as a down payment
for a loan. So a couple years ago in 2014, we used
money we had at the vocational rehabilitation and a statewide
independent living Council to start our own car IDA for individuals with
disabilities. We targeted the Ashland and Murray areas, fairly rural sites. The
original goal was to help ten individuals save for cars; we later expanded to thirteen. To date, eight have received cars. Unfortunately, we had to discontinue
the program because the Independent Living Program which we were called as
an Independent Living Service moved over to another agency, but we found that
quite successful while we did it, (no, let me go back up) for
instance, there was one case I won't mention where it's from or... an individual
had a disability and they had a substance abuse problem and had spent time incarcerated in County Jail but was turning their life around and Sarah
Richardson, by the way, in our office handles these and she was needing a car
for work and she had a bad credit history but we got her involved in our
car IDA and she saved the $2,000 but she didn't want a $4,000 car. She wanted
a better car, so she used the $4,000 to apply for a loan to the KATLC to get a $10,000 car and as far as I know, she's doing well. She had a terrible
credit history but we took a chance on her with the loan and so far it's worked
out. I bring up the story because something that really irritates me. I
don't know if you remember one that I was talking about it before. This person
spent time in the county jail for substance abuse issues. When she got out,
they sent her a bill for her time in the county jail, which to me was a shock. I
didn't know they could do that. They can bill you for being in jail and then when
she didn't pay it, they turned it over to collections. So
one of the reasons our credit history is so terrible is that the County Jail
turned her over to collections for not fair to pay her debt.
It is bad enough. We dig a little hole for somebody, we have to dig a real big hole
and come out of it and that just kind of surprised me. The person who has done
this program has seen a lot of people. She provides financial education as part
of it and she's found...She had a positive effect with a lot of people. She got
somebody to stop smoking, so they could save for the car; somebody to stop
smoking something else to save for their car, so we had a lot of... We saw a lot of
value in it, just did not have a mechanism for continuing it. Some of you
are maybe familiar with it. Any questions about the IDAs? I mean they're not
necessarily widespread and I'll talk about another one here in a little bit,
but they are really important tools to help some people build assets. Audience:...Dave:Well,
and you know there were four AFI sites that I gave you earlier. I would
see if you're eligible for any of those, you could contact and they have a
website too. Kentucky Coalition Against Domestic Violence and see which one of
their IDAs, you don't have to be a domestic violence survivor. They are
limited, but I think, you know, it's a tool of the more people should be costing money of course, but it's a tool that more people should be using, more
organizations should be using. Bank On is a program that came out of San Francisco.
It is really locally-led partnerships between government and financial
institutions, community organizations to try to get people banked or underbanked people better services. I won't talk that long, because we
only have three and Kentucky right now is used to be about five or six, but
these are the three I found on the website that I knew were active and I'm
not sure how active bluegrass is anymore.
I think the United Way has kind of a... that doesn't have the resources to
continue it. Bank on Louisville is the strongest one, because Metro Louisville
government, Louisville Metro government has bought in hook line and sinker.
They have some substantial banking partners, the Fifth Third bank and a few others PNC. The idea is to get banks to develop programs for low-income individuals,
second chance banking programs for people, so it's limited in certain areas.
But I found it to be very effective. Bank On in the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation developed standards for bank accounts. That's
another handout. They're trying to encourage banks to offer these services. I'm not sure how many of them are doing
it because the ATM fee is 250 or less. I don't know any ATM fees that are 250 or
less, but this is what FDIC and Bank On encourages banks to go by. I just thought
to send that, give that information to you. Most banks do have some kind of
educational program. You have particularly bigger banks that you can
access and special accounts. Banks, the bigger banks are required to serve
low-income areas through the Community Reinvestment Act CRA, so if you ever
work with a bank and you want to know what they do for low-income people, you
can refer to the CRA and that's how we got involved with Fifth Third at KATLC.
This is a way they had a meeting, part of their CRA requirement. One of the talk briefly is about a program in Louisville and it'd be great if some of the stuff could
be duplicated elsewhere but I wanted to go through this kind of...so it's very interesting. We got involved in with this
program with Louisville Metro and the National Disability Institute funded
this program to create a community-wide culture financial inclusiveness and
accessibility. It serves a diverse Louisville Metro population, particularly
low incomes individuals with disabilities. The first year was mostly
just getting a group together to focus on the same issues, but now they have a
pilot project which I think is fascinating NDI's funding. So if you're
a Louisville resident, they are working with 20 participants with disabilities.
The participants will be eligible for an IDA or a micro loan of up to $500 to
purchase an asset for transportation, housing stability or equipment to
address their disability, even a refrigerator might be, something they
could buy. They'll get, they'll save five hundred dollars and get five hundred
dollars and all along they'll have a peer mentor with a disability, coach them
along the way and providing financial education. There's going to be two
cohorts went to center for accessible living in Louisville and one in Goodwill.
So I thought to bring that up because it is an innovative way as reaching
people and helping them build assets. I also gave you a financial directory that
honestly needs a little work, but there's a lot of resources in here. You might be
able to take advantage of their housing resources. Most of these are mostly for
low-income individuals, but there's some education resources and a lot of online
resources but financial education. In our car IDA, Sarah Richardson who's done
that has used "My Money, My Goals" produced by Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
She's found that to be a very helpful tool. I think FDIC uses smart money, but
these are resources you might want to check out for
different things. I'm almost done I think. You see... That's the wrong email, I put my
personal email in there and I just noticed that yesterday and that email
has been defunct for four years (laughs) so if send anything to that...
Yes, a couple other things I want to mention. We applied through the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau in the financial FDIC- Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation to be part of a train-the-trainer cohort. We haven't been
notified yet,supposed to focus on individuals with disabilities. You use
"My Money, My Goals" as a training tool. We're going to send
somebody to DC to be trained and it's probably gonna be Sarah Richardson. She
already knows too much about the tool to be trained, but she's going to come back
and we're going to look for volunteers among service providers to use the
tool. If we get it and we're pretty sure that we'll get it at this point. I
also mentioned that Carolyn and I were kind of having a discussion about Kentucky
Disability Benefits 101. It's a website that the World Institute on disability customizes to a state. They've done about
eight states and through a grant, through our SGA grant, we are going to purchase
it for Kentucky. It's not cheap but it does give people access anywhere in the
state even though we're paying for it to information about benefits. But
as Carolyn and I talked, you probably still need a certified person to really go
over the information with you to make sure you don't make any mistakes and you
have all the information, but it is a way to get people's information about their
benefits. That's probably going to take a rest of the year to develop, so it won't
be out for a while. Well, this isn't related. But while I'm here I'll mention a couple other things. Is that alright, Carolyn? Carolyn: You are fine... Dave: KATS network is the 18th project in the state which OVR now administers. We have a
few programs you might be interested in. Project CARROT is a reuse project. We
take in durable medical equipment like wheelchairs, baths stools and other
things, refurbish them and then give them back to people.
Anybody's eligible for that. We started a hearing aid program a couple years ago
for low income individuals. KATS Network assist individuals to apply with here now,
which is the foundation arm of Sharkey- the hearing aid company. A person can get a hearing aid for $250 application fee. KATS network over the two years has
provided some of those fees for people to come in for $250, so they start a
little bit money, but more importantly KATS sets them up with an audiologist
would be willing to work for basically nothing to do the hearing aids. Audience: What the KATS is? Dave: KATS
is Kentucky Assistive Technology Services network and on
Wednesday, we were awarded a grant from the reef foundation to by a substantial
number of portable ramps and ramp building kits and we will be
distributing those portable ramps of lending those out to people who might
need them on a short-term basis or other reason through about 10 sites around the
state since we just got the grant two days ago. We won't give enough information out about that for a month or two, but I want people to be aware of those
possible services. Yes, any questions for me? I know I talk too fast but anything
else? Do you get anything? We will get you returned. I don't know... It's nice to know...
it has very interesting innovative ties...It worthies reinforce... I do not know... Anybody want to hold that...
We'll leave him up here... There's too many UK fans here... You will still stick around,
right? You're not leaving. I'll stay for a little bit. Carolyn: Okay, alright. Okay, so I'm
going to move over here and see if I can drive this thing. So my name is Carolyn
Wheeler. And as Walt said, I am employed here at the Human Development Institute
and has been on a number of projects over a number of years and part of my
projects I've been involved with and also just a really strong interest that
I have is helping families plan for the future as well as helping people with
disabilities go to work and figure out ways to save money, so that they don't
lose their eligibility for really more Medicaid than anything, because in fact,
you could lose your cash payment for SSI and keep Medicaid, which is
unfortunately maybe a well-kept secret, but in any event. So I want to first say
thank you to three colleagues, so firstly I don't know if you can scan over your
pen over here to Karen Perch, so Karen Perch is an estate planning attorney
here in Lexington, with whom I've done lots of work and also encouraged lots of
families to meet with and Karen is also the executive director you can get to...
We're getting to Karen, we're getting to a table... Maybe to stay on
me, Walt and we'll see Karen later. Karen is an executive director of
life plan of Kentucky, which is a poor special needs trust that I'll be
speaking briefly about and then OJ Alica and Samara Hebburn are here with us
today from Treasurer Allison Balls office, so thank you all for coming.
OJ is the chief of staff and Samara is actually oversees several things
including Kentucky's STABLE program which is Kentucky's Able Account program,
so I'm going to present but then leave time for
Karen and Samara and OJ to come up here if you all to ask questions. So I'd ask
that you not ask questions now not because we're not interested but because
I'd like really the experts so to speak to be able to answer them for you. Now, I
did not make available my PowerPoint to you on purpose.
However, I did make available at least to those people online and maybe Walt,
people here if they registered, they have access to the Dropbox as well, am I
correct? So they do have access. So you do have
handouts in the Dropbox, which is a one to one page's description of STABLE
Kentucky gives you the information about the website. I'll also show you the
website. Information about life plan of Kentucky, also, information about a free
workshop that HDI is sponsoring in conjunction, in conjunction with life
plan of Kentucky, the arc of Kentucky on March 18th in Louisville. It's in the
morning at the University of Louisville, Louisville Shelby County, Shelby campus,
I'm sorry. But we're going to talk about some of these things again, but I also
have three adult siblings of people with intellectual and developmental
disabilities, who are going to talk about future planning issues and things they
wish their parents knew or had known or had done or did do and also talk about a
really important topic called Supported Decision-Making, so that's in the Dropbox
and also I gave you a comparison chart between ABLE Accounts, First Party
Special Needs Trust Accounts and by the end of this presentation, I hope you know
what that is and third party supplemental needs trust, which is what
families need to do, so there are handouts. And really, what I'm wanting you
all to do is to learn to fish, so as we all know, Medicaid is a lifeline that's
probably why you're here. You're interested in how people can save and
not lose their eligibility for Medicaid and people can actually receive Medicaid
even though they receive a Social Security Disability Insurance payment or
SSDI, as my friend Linda does, whom on a representative payee and power of
attorney. Linda has Medicaid because she's eligible for the Michelle P waiver,
so she has the resource issue because she's eligible for Medicaid through the
Michelle P waiver, not because her Social Security disability
benefit, and so this resource limit has been in existence I think since about
1972 or 1974,1973 and there's been efforts to increase this in Congress but it just
hasn't happened for whatever reason. So but I want you all to look at that we're
accountable, accountable. There are things and assets that people can have their own
that are excluded for purposes of eligibility determinations for both SSI-
Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid, and so I've got some of these
listed on the screen, so people for example could own a home. They could have afforded a home but if they owned a home and they live there. They can own a
car. There are ways to arrange for final expenses, so that's an excluded
resource. People can own stuff. It's not that people can't have anything, really
it's primarily you can't have cash or something that can easily be converted
to cash above that $2,000 limit in a given month .And property essential to
self support. There are people that I know who are on SSI have
some SSI payment, because they actually have their own business and they earn
money and whatever the business owns is excluded as a resource, that's entitled,
that's what property essential to self support is. So the Stephen Beck, Jr. ABLE. Act ABLE stands for Achieving a Better Life Experience. Act was passed by
Congress and signed into law by President Obama in December of 2014 and
the gentleman's picture in this picture is Stephen Beck Jr. and Mr. Beck helped
conceive the ABLE ACT and those of you who are advocates know that the ABLE Act
was around for a long time before I finally got passed. There was lots of
advocacy that occurred really primarily on the part of parents who wanted to be
able to save their child's own name and social security number as well as
people themselves with disabilities and Mr. Beck died unexpectedly several days
prior to the signing of the bill and so we know it is the ABLE account but
officially this is the title. So I want to talk about what is an ABLE, what
establishes ABLE accounts, so the ABLE Act created a new section 529 (A)
in the IRS tax code and this is really important for you to understand because
it will help you to understand why kind of things the way they are. And so
their taxes...It's tax advantaged in terms of the growth on the accounts, but then
there are restrictions in terms of what the money can be spent on in order for
it to be disregarded or excluded when determining the beneficiary's
eligibility for federal means-tested benefits, so it is side by side with
the program, with a program called 529 Account that already existed, so those
of you in the room, you may have heard of College Savings Plans or you could
save money toward college for a child or a grandchild or you can just for college
or maybe for a post-secondary schooling of some sort, so this is in the same IRS
code 529, and then the ABLE Accounts are 529 Account, so as you can see on the
screen again, but the earnings would accumulate tax-free and withdrawals then
are federally tax-free and penalty-free as long as they are used at an eligible
educational institution for the things listed on the screen. I don't think you
see your spring break trip to Daytona on that list that would not... I don't think
be considered a qualified educational expense for purposes of a 529 plan,
but the things that are here so that that parallel is with ABLE accounts.
There are qualified disability expenses, of which there are a number. So a really
great resource and I would encourage those of you here and those of you
online to visit the National ABLE Resource Center, so you can find in fact,
lots of information about ABLE Accounts. There are other resources, there are a number of webinars. Whoops, too quick I think. Well, it's not dropping down, but in any
event, there are archived webinars on that screen and there's also a map of
the United States assume you all recognize that, so the blue states are
the states that currently have active ABLE programs, I believe Ohio was the
first. I am pretty sure Ohio opened an account first, and so what I want you all to know,
although we're going to encourage you to really open your account here in
Kentucky, but you do need to know that Kentuckians have a choice. There are
a number of these programs that would accept, would glad to accept your money
from out of state. You just have to find out which ones are national programs. And
you can do that by clicking on any of the states that are blue and find out
whether or not they're accepting applications from people from just that
state residents only or from other states. Kentucky's program is just for
Kentucky residents, but if you'll learn we are essentially as we are by our
borders, we are essentially linked to Ohio, which to me is awesome for a number, for lots of reasons. And that Ohio is a national program, so
to me if you open an account in Kentucky and you did not move somewhere most likely, you could still stay where you are because Ohio, you can figure that out
how's that OJ, that's my guess. That could be figured out. But if you
want to compare, you can again click on this link, you can compare different
state programs because there are differences in terms of the financial
services company, where the money would be invested. There may be some
differences in terms of asset management fees, so if you want to do your due
diligence, this website can help you do that and i would anticipate by the end
of the year, there'll be more blue states. And so, here are some webinars and
actually I believe this one right here OJ was presented at the stable
Kentucky program and I believe the one from Michigan, Virginia and Oregon were
also presented, so these are archived webinars and again you can learn more
about those opportunities or just to learn more about ABLE Accounts in general. So ABLE NRC