Kentucky Works Program

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Newsletter   |   Jul 13, 2022

Tommy Wheatley, Kentucky Works Director

The Kentucky Works Program supports the Kentucky Transitional Assistance Program (K-TAP) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the following Kentucky counties: Anderson, Breckinridge, Bullitt, Franklin, Grayson, Hardin, Henry, Larue, Marion, Meade, Nelson, Oldham, Shelby, Spencer, Trimble, Washington, and Woodford. Our goal is to assess these individuals to identify barriers and work to overcome those barriers to make them self- sufficient. We also have job readiness classes to help with resumes, job search, job interviews, etc.

COVID-19 continues to have a significant impact on both of our programs. The state of emergency that the state of Kentucky had implemented with a “Good Cause exemption” where clients are not required to participate in the programs was lifted on July 1st, however there are still no sanctions being levied for non-participation until December 2022 so participation is still low. Kentucky Works staff have returned to working in the office. 

  • We currently have 9 clients that are employed in the K-TAP Program, and the referrals have picked up a little with the state of emergency ending. Our Employment Specialists continue to follow up with each of these clients and track the hours they are working. We served 26 clients in the K-Tap program for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022.
  • On the SNAP Employment and Training program we continue to reach out to these clients and complete assessments when they are referred to us. We had 250 referrals for the SNAP program during the last quarter.
  • We continue to stay in touch with employers and if we do get referrals we match the clients skills with the employer needs to have a good match. We call new employers each week and keep a current job listing for each county we serve.
  • We continue to see an impact with COVID on our Work Experience Program sites as some of them are still unable to accept our referrals. We have 123 sites in our 17 counties that we send our clients and as of now, only 60 are open and/or willing to accept referrals due to COVID-19. Staff visited these sites in June to update paperwork and check to see if they were needing workers.
  • Our staff continues to stay in touch to discuss all relative matters in the program. We have staff meetings every other month. We started in person staff meetings again on May 17th instead of zoom.
  • We continue to offer a wage subsidy program where if an employer hires one of our K-TAP clients they will be reimbursed for a portion of their wages during the first six month of employment.
  • We just started our new KTAP and SNAP E & T contract for July 2022 through June 2024 on July 1st.
  • We recently hired a new employee for the Kentucky Works program, Brittany Henson, to cover Breckinridge and Grayson counties. Her start date was 6-20-2022.