Refugee resettlement: City of Fargo trying to find out the costs
By Bradford Arick |
Posted: Mon 10:37 AM, Oct 10, 2016 |
Updated: Mon 11:17 AM, Oct 10, 2016
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live): The Fargo City Commission will be discussing the refugee resettlement program at Monday night’s meeting. The central question in the debate: what are the costs of the program?
For Cass County, the city found the 2017 budget to be estimated at about $74.1 million, with the Human Services portion at $12.5 million. Taking out the federal and state money, the cost to the taxpayers is $9.1 million. The City says roughly 10-12% of the social service caseload is believed to be people not born in the U.S. and Cass County Social Services does not track who is, and who is not a refugee. Furthermore, Social Services has a $20,000 contract with the New American Consortium for “basic services”.
The cost to Fargo Public Schools was also examined. As we’ve reported, $2.8 million is budgeted for the English Language Learner program (ELL). The City reports $800,000 of that is federal and state funding, and roughly 25% of new enrollees are connected to Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota. They City also mentions the free and reduced lunch program, however there is not state or local funding of that program.
http://www.valleynewslive.com/content/news/Refugee-resettlement-City-of-Fargo-trying-to-find-out-the-costs-396532411.html
