Non-Profit Program Design Consultant

Pisgah Legal Services is a community-based non-profit corporation governed by a local Board of Directors. PLS has an annual budget of $8 million from a multitude of funding sources.  Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, Pisgah Legal Services (PLS) provides free civil legal assistance to low-income people in western North Carolina. PLS has offices in Asheville, Burnsville, Hendersonville, Rutherfordton, Brevard, Highlands/Cashiers and Marshall. With a dedicated and growing staff of ninety-six, including thirty-six attorneys plus supporting staff, an active pro bono panel of 300 private attorneys, and dozens of other volunteers, the law firm provides free services to more than 20,000 people per year to meet their basic needs, primarily in the poverty law areas of housing, public benefits, domestic violence prevention, health care, immigration, and consumer law. PLS also operates an “assister” program to help more than 1000 people each year select appropriate health insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act, as well as a small VITA tax clinic to provide free tax return services. These two, non-legal programs utilize about 30 volunteers. PLS seeks a design consultant to help expand these latter programs utilizing what we have learned in operating these programs for several years.

Nature of Position:  This is a temporary consulting position that will assist a program manager and senior leadership at PLS to design and implement an expanded program to enroll thousands of low-income people in Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance plans and file federal tax returns to obtain child tax credits, earned income tax credits, and ACA advanced premium tax credits to help children and adults escape poverty. This expanded program will (a) boost the rate of insured low-income people and (b) reduce the number of children living below the federal poverty line -across the 18 westernmost counties of N.C.  The program will combine expertise in helping consumers select appropriate ACA health insurance plans during open and special enrollment periods (year-round, yet concentrated in the Fall) with expertise in filing federal tax returns (year-round, yet concentrated in tax season). Thus, staff and volunteers will be able to help low-income consumers obtain health insurance and escape poverty. The features of the program are outlined below.

Design Elements and Responsibilities

• The enhanced program will involve considerable community outreach and education to identify and inform non-tax return filers that it is in their interest to file tax returns and avail themselves of the child tax credits, the earned income tax credits, and the ACA advanced premium tax credits. (The ACA advanced premium tax credits must be revised or reconciled on their annual tax returns.) These non-filers will include people who earn too little income to be required to file tax returns, people who prefer to be paid “under the table” so that they do not have to pay self-employment taxes, and people who live in households with undocumented residents yet have citizen children and are eligible for tax credits.
• The consultant will help determine realistic goals for outreach, enrollment, and tax returns filed county by county, based on the numbers of uninsured residents and children living in poverty county by county. Goals will be needed for each of three years with goals increasing after Year 1 that will be calendar year 2022.
• The consultant will help PLS define the goals in terms of numbers of people insured, numbers of people who rise above the federal poverty level, and dollars of estimated ACA tax credit subsidy as well as dollars of total tax credits, county by county. These results will be tracked by a data manager at PLS and reported to funding sources year by year.
• The consultant will help determine how PLS should deploy staff and volunteer resources based on estimated numbers of eligible low-income consumers.
• The consultant will help PLS identify partners who will make referrals to the program of people who are identified as non-tax return filers and help establish a program of incentives for partners making referrals. This program will include memoranda of understanding between key partners.
• County governments will be asked to participate in achieving the goals, year by year, so the consultant may be needed to help involve counties in setting and achieving goals.
• The consultant may help with hiring the 20-25 staff and recruiting the 50+ volunteers who will be needed to implement this project across the WNC region that includes 18 counties.

Salary/ Benefits

Salary depends on experience.  Excellent fringe benefits, including 401(k) retirement plan, as well as life, health, and disability insurance, although this is estimated to a six-month position.