Get Healthy Off Welfare, Officials Say : Budget: Two supervisors say thousands of able-bodied adults capable of holding jobs are abusing the county welfare system.

Claiming that thousands of able-bodied adults are abusing the San Diego County welfare system, Supervisors Susan Golding and Leon Williams on Monday proposed eliminating general relief payments to anyone capable of holding a job.

The controversial change in eligibility for the $291-a-month program could save the county as much as $10 million annually by cutting about 2,700 mentally and physically “employable” people from its rolls after they receive one or two emergency payments, the supervisors said.

“General relief, I don’t believe, is necessary for those who are employable, for those who can get out and look for a job,” Golding said. Those cut from the program would turn to “friends, families, the churches or to jobs to help themselves,” she added.

The initiative appears almost certain to win approval of a majority of the five supervisors. Supervisor Brian Bilbray has been calling for similar action since June, when the board first started grappling with a series of sizable budget deficits, and Supervisor John MacDonald said Monday he would support the move. Supervisor George Bailey did not return a telephone call to his office.

But the move could run into legal problems because it conflicts with a string of court decisions that prohibit cutting off benefits to people strictly because they fall into a category such as “employable.” A court ruling also appears to block another Golding and Williams’ suggestion for a yearlong residency requirement.

“There are existing legal precedents from the California appellate courts that indicate that any categorical exclusions of classes of individuals from general assistance is not permissible,” said Anson Levitan, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of San Diego County. “I assume they will ask their own counsel to review the law before proceeding.”

A decision to throw the able-bodied off the program is tantamount to “hurting many of the most desperate members of our society,” Levitan said.

The two supervisors acknowledged that their suggestion would probably draw a lawsuit, either from attorneys for welfare recipients or from the state, which mandates the program but does not fund it.

They said they did not know whether their initiative, combined with the slumping economy and rising jobless rate, would create more homelessness and crime.

“None of us likes what we are faced with today,” Golding said. “If we don’t cut this program, we’re going to have to cut other programs.”

Golding and Williams issued their proposal on the same day that county administrators suggested much the same thing as part of a larger package to cover $20 million of the county’s current $32 million deficit. The staff proposal would allow able-bodied adults three months of payments before cutting them off.

General relief recipients are predominantly adult men in their 30’s and 40’s who have no children and qualify for no other kind of support payment. About 20% are homeless.

In addition to payments of as much as $291 monthly, recipients can qualify for as much as $111 in food stamp payments, said Joan Zinser, deputy director for income maintenance programs in the county Department of Social Services.

About $24 million in benefits will be distributed this year, and another $4.5 million will be spent to administer the program, Golding said.

Of the 6,375 people receiving general relief as of Nov. 30, 42%, or 2,677, had no physical or mental handicaps that prevented them from working, Zinser said.

Employable recipients are required to work 72 hours monthly at public service jobs such as beach cleaning and apply for at least four jobs, Zinser said. About 44% of the employable fail to complete those requirements and are cut from the program for three months, Zinser said.

“I think for some people, general relief has become a way of life,” she said. “I think for some people on general relief, searching for a job is not in their makeup.”

Only 35 states offer a program like general relief, and many of those restrict payments to the unemployable, she said. In a controversial experiment, Michigan cut 90,000 able-bodied recipients from its welfare rolls Oct. 1.

Faced with a $32-million budget deficit for 1991-92 and longer term fiscal problems based on the state’s inability to fund many programs, Golding and Williams said that the general relief cutback is but a first step in what Golding called a “fundamental restructuring of county government.”

The two supervisors contended that if cuts are not made in general relief, other social services programs, such as mental health and child protection, would feel the budget ax.

In addition to cutting recipients from the rolls after a month or two of payments, Golding and Williams would impose a requirement that recipients show they have lived in San Diego for at least a year.

In a 1987 decision, the state appellate courts struck down a San Diego county residency requirement for welfare recipients, a ruling that paved the way for more homeless people to receive general relief payments.

Golding and Williams also called for a review of the cost effectiveness of new fingerprint technology to combat fraud by those who file more than one welfare application.