WIC nutrition program will get new operator

The 9,100 pregnant women, new moms and children under 5 in Snohomish County helped through a nutrition program will continue to get service even though a different group will be taking over the program, state Health Department officials say.

Women, Infants and Children, a federal-state program, provides nutrition and medical screenings, nutrition education, promotes breast feeding and supplies nutritious food for women who meet low-income guidelines. A single mother with two children could make no more than $28,231 a year to qualify.

Since the 1970s, the program has been administered in Snohomish County by the nonprofit group Pregnancy Aid of Snohomish County. The organization has offices in Everett, Arlington, Granite Falls, Lynnwood, Marysville, Monroe and Snohomish.

However, last summer the state Health Department notified the group that it would get another agency to provide the services, said Cathy Franklin, nutrition coordinator for the state Health Department.

"It isn’t even on the radar screen that we won’t provide services up there," Franklin said. "There is strong commitment to have uninterrupted service for those 9,100 clients. If it comes down to it, we’ll get in a van and drive up there ourselves."

The Snohomish County group "ran into some fiscal and financial control issues the last couple of years," Franklin said, including providing incentive pay for employees who didn’t follow federal requirements.

"It’s really unfortunate," Franklin said. "We’re feeling saddened by this. They’ve been a long-term contractor of ours, and we wished this wouldn’t have happened."

The state had to pay back the federal government for the amounts in dispute, which was $78,342 in 2000 and $91,999 in 2001, she said.

Franklin said the state agency couldn’t ask Pregnancy Aid of Snohomish County for the money.

"We knew they didn’t have it," she said, explaining that virtually all the nonprofit’s money came from the state to run the program. "It’s not like they get another source of revenue, and we could ask them to divvy up to us," she said.

Stephen Good Sr., board chairman for Pregnancy Aid of Snohomish County, said bonus money was paid, but staff was paid less than workers at organizations providing similar services around the state.

Pay scales during 2000 and 2001 ranged from $7 to $20.56 an hour, said Aislann James, who coordinates the WIC program for the nonprofit.

Good said the problem occurred when audit results in 2000, the year in which the problem was discovered, weren’t released until the next year. "It wasn’t until after the first year’s audit came out we realized what the problem was," he said.

Since then, a new program coordinator and a new bookkeeper have been hired, Good said. "We’re going by all the regulations we’re required to follow."

But the state Health Department has asked the Snohomish Health District if it would be willing to take over. The local public health agency estimated it would take 14 to 25 people to staff the program, Franklin said. Based on the number of clients in the county, the agency would be paid slightly more than $1 million for general services and up to $18,000 more for programs to encourage breast feeding, she said.

"We’re asking the board to consider it," said Suzanne Pate, spokeswoman for the health district. A decision is expected by summer.

The agency already runs a similar program, called First Steps, which provides prenatal care, immunizations, nutrition information and other services to 521 pregnant women referred by the state Department of Social and Health Services or physicians.

Even if the health district approves taking over the WIC program, the soonest the change could occur is early next year, Pate said.

"This is a huge load of more than 9,000 people," she said. "Can we accommodate them, and how?"

Reporter Sharon Salyer:

425-339-3486 or

salyer@heraldnet.com.