Week in Review : COUNTYWIDE : Report Recommends Welfare Fraud Policy

In 1980, Orange County adopted what was then the unique policy of referring welfare applications to the district attorney’s office when welfare workers suspected that they contained “inaccuracies.” Investigations would uncover applicants who had no right to welfare benefits and save lots of money, county officials said.

Since then, a federal study has shown that Orange County saved plenty: an estimated $26 million since the program started. Its apparent success attracted the attention of Gov. George Deukmejian, who in 1983 proposed imposing the system statewide. The state Legislature refused to go along, but 19 counties adopted the system voluntarily.

Now the Legislature has received a glowing appraisal of the Orange County system from within its own ranks. Legislative analyst William Hamm issued a new report estimating that if the Orange County system were adopted statewide, $68.6 million in welfare benefits would be saved each year.

Hamm said that in the 19 counties that have tried the Orange County system, $18 has been saved for every dollar spent on investigation. (In Orange County, the savings have been about 22 to 1.)

Hamm added that since there had only been seven complaints registered after 19,000 investigations statewide, “we conclude that the program has protected the rights of clients.”

But the governor’s office said the Legislature seems no more likely to buy the program now than in 1983.

Orange County Supervisor Roger Stanton, the biggest booster of Orange County’s program locally, said Hamm’s report finally may silence critics who have belittled the program from its outset. But it didn’t.

“The reality,” said Kevin Aslanian, legislative advocate for the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, “is that welfare fraud investigators intimidate applicants and in many cases never give the person a complaint form or inform them that they have a right to a fair hearing.”

Replied Stanton: “Baloney.” He said he would use Hamm’s report to tout the program on his next trip to Washington.