At long last, my IHSS paycheck for April 06 (yes 2006!) has been fixed and I finally got it Wednesday! Lost "hours of care" for my dad that hadn't been properly (by law) given to him that month have been finally paid. It took 13 months to resolve and it would have been so much simpler to just give up the fight, which I'm sure a lot of people do, which is partly why agencies like this get away with it. It was a pretty extreme bunch of hoops I was made to jump, a lot of time spent waiting as IHSS dragged it on, and on, and it's great that I can finally put this particular issue behind me. Now financial goals I'd had to put off are finally in the works! Booyah! or whatever. This means I can also begin to make other plans that I also had to cancel or postpone last year. Seems like I've had a lot of bad luck the past year and it's time for a turnaround.
While all this has been going on I've been spending as much time as possible working on music. It's something I can really zone out with and gives me an outlet for some volatile energy that could be explosive and maybe unhealthy if not expressed somehow. For a variety of reasons I have not been doing anything related to animating :( I'm going to return to the world of animation, just I've had too many negative things to deal with and it was affecting my attitude toward all creativity. Luckily, music wasn't impacted so heavily, thus that's what I've been working on. There are so many ideas in my head for tunes and it just takes so much time to get any of them arranged and recorded. For the curious, I've posted some samples on my music myspace.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Monday, May 07, 2007
3% Minus 7% Equals Negative Cost of Living Adjustment
One more related item and it's not good, either. My dad's share of cost for Medi-Cal went up after the recent "re-determination" (why don't they just say review?). It is now 90% of his gross income. Let me repeat that because it seems so ridiculously wrong: My dad's Medi-Cal share of cost is ninety percent of his income! My parents, who along with millions of other retired Americans receive Social Security, got a cost-of-living raise of less than 3%. This caused their shares of cost for Medi-Cal, based on income level, to increase 7%! As ridiculous as that probably sounds, something tells me my parents have it easy compared to some people out there. How can this unfairness be allowed? It's insanity.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
IHSS Derails Celebration Again
I finally received backpay that IHSS has owed me since last April. That was a big relief. The process required new timesheets for the months affected. But there was a hitch; payroll mailed timesheets for me to fill out and mail back, but the one for April was missing. I had to call and request it twice and it took 2 weeks to finally get it in the mail (postal delivery time is usually 1 or 2 days). The good news I alluded to in my last post is that I was also given an extra 10 hours of pay for some of the other months last year. But my celebration was cut short.
When my paychecks arrived I found a rather large error to my detriment. Once again, IHSS over withheld the share of cost from my wages by $800!! I was fuming. I only just got reimbursed last month for a similar screw-up that happened 10 months ago, and now they've done it again! I phoned payroll immediately and was told they'd inform the social worker and get back to me. Days later I hadn't heard from anyone so I called again. This time they said it would take "a little bit of time". The social worker was not in the office, so I left a message and still haven't got a callback. I seriously hope they're not gonna make me wait 9 months for reimbursement again. This is beyond unbelievable!
It's a good thing I was cautiously optimistic. Experience with this agency taught me to be wary of errors and delays, so I put off some of my plans (like paying down my student loan), and had saved up just in case. I'm very lucky to have done this 'cause it could have been a financial disaster otherwise. Once again, my plans have to wait.
I'm beginning to think maybe this is just how things go when you're dealing with government agencies. I gotta wonder though, how much damage is done to other IHSS recipients and their families who don't have the capacity to fight for a correction or even know they've been cheated. Something more has got to be done to protect people from ongoing abuse for which there are currently no consequences.
When my paychecks arrived I found a rather large error to my detriment. Once again, IHSS over withheld the share of cost from my wages by $800!! I was fuming. I only just got reimbursed last month for a similar screw-up that happened 10 months ago, and now they've done it again! I phoned payroll immediately and was told they'd inform the social worker and get back to me. Days later I hadn't heard from anyone so I called again. This time they said it would take "a little bit of time". The social worker was not in the office, so I left a message and still haven't got a callback. I seriously hope they're not gonna make me wait 9 months for reimbursement again. This is beyond unbelievable!
It's a good thing I was cautiously optimistic. Experience with this agency taught me to be wary of errors and delays, so I put off some of my plans (like paying down my student loan), and had saved up just in case. I'm very lucky to have done this 'cause it could have been a financial disaster otherwise. Once again, my plans have to wait.
I'm beginning to think maybe this is just how things go when you're dealing with government agencies. I gotta wonder though, how much damage is done to other IHSS recipients and their families who don't have the capacity to fight for a correction or even know they've been cheated. Something more has got to be done to protect people from ongoing abuse for which there are currently no consequences.