General Assistance Law: Lump Sum Income

General Assistance (GA) is a program run by each Maine city and town. GA helps people who do not have enough income to meet their basic needs.

Under the GA Program, the town usually estimates your income for the next 30 days to see if you are eligible. One exception to this rule is when you get "lump sum" income. Lump sum income is a one-time payment like a back SSI check, a retroactive Worker's Compensation check, or an insurance settlement.

If you get this kind of income, the town will not count some of your lump sum income. The town will count the rest in seeing if you can get GA. Here's how it works.

Step 1: Determine how much of the Lump Sum should be counted:

Some of your expenses can be subtracted from the full amount of the lump sum income you got. You must have paid for these expenses after you got the lump sum income. These expenses include:

• Any money you spent on basic necessities, such as food, clothing or shelter;

• Any money spent to repair or purchase a vehicle that you need for work, education, training or other day-to-day necessities;

• Any money spent to repair or replace any essential items that you lost in a flood, fire, or other natural disaster;

• Reasonable funeral and burial expenses for a family member;

• Money used to repay loans or credit that were spent on basic necessities; and

• Bills related to the purpose for which you received the lump sum; for example, medical and legal costs associated with a personal injury award.

Once you have figured out how much you should subtract from your lump sum, add to it any other income that household members got between the date you got the lump sum and the date of your GA application. The result is the amount of lump sum income that will be used in seeing if you can get GA.

Step 2: Determine how long the lump sum will affect your eligibility for GA:

Take the number that you got in Step 1 and divide it by whichever of the following two choices is greater:

1. The actual monthly costs for all of the household's basic necessities since the lump sum was received; OR
2. 150% of the federal poverty level for your household size for each month since the lump sum was received. See chart below.

Family Size	Monthly Income Guidelines
1	$1,354
2	$1,822
3	$2,289
4	$2,757
5	$3,224
6	$3,692
For each additional person add	$468

This is the number of months, starting with the month that you got the lump sum, that the GA program will count that income as available to you. They cannot count this income for more than 12 months from the date of your GA application.

In an Emergency:

If you are in an emergency situation, and it is the first time you have ever applied for GA, you cannot be denied help solely because of the way they count your lump sum income.