S.D. County Gets OK to Cut Welfare Rolls

A judge Friday cleared the way for San Diego County to begin eliminating nearly 2,000 able-bodied adults from a last-resort welfare program, ruling that the county’s fiscal plight outweighs the personal suffering that recipients will endure if their benefits are cut off.

Superior Court Judge Judith Haller’s ruling would allow the county to remove the first 425 recipients from the General Relief welfare rolls when a temporary restraining order barring the cuts expires Feb. 21. Haller extended the order to that date to allow an appeal by Legal Aid lawyers representing the welfare recipients.

“Having strongly considered the public interest as a factor, this court finds that defendants (the county) are likely to suffer greater injury from the granting of the preliminary injunction than plaintiffs (the recipients) are likely to suffer from its denial,” Haller wrote in a two-page decision.

Legal Aid attorney Anson Levitan warned that some of the 10 people he represented could be put on the street for the first time if their $291 monthly welfare check is cut off. He promised to ask the 4th District Court of Appeal by Wednesday to overrule Haller.

“Many of our clients have never been homeless before and because of this, they’re going to be homeless,” Levitan said.

But Deputy County Counsel Ian Fan said that the $2.45 million that could be saved this fiscal year by cutting so-called “employable” welfare recipients from the rolls is critical to solving the county’s budget deficit.

“We think the public harm is actually fairly substantial,” Fan told reporters. “The county is facing a $32-million deficit and it has 5 1/2 months to balance the budget.”

General Relief supports about 6,000 indigent adults without children who qualify for no other form of public assistance except food stamps, which provide up to $111 monthly in cash. About 20% of General Relief recipients are homeless, according to county statistics.

Hoping to help bridge its budget gap, the County Board of Supervisors finalized a plan Jan. 14 to eliminate 1,940 able-bodied recipients from the program after they had received three months of benefits. The cuts would save the county $6.2 million annually.

Under the supervisors’ new rules, recipients would be allowed to reapply for benefits nine months later.

The cuts were due to start Feb. 1, but the Legal Aid attorneys filed their class action lawsuit Jan. 28, claiming that state law and a 1971 Supreme Court ruling prohibited the three-month limit.

Haller granted a temporary restraining order two days later, agreeing with that argument.

But in the intervening weeks, the judge considered county officials’ written descriptions of the severity of the budget crisis and legal arguments by county lawyers on the state law.

“Legal issues have been raised by the (county) which create a doubt as to the probability that the plaintiffs will prevail on the merits,” Haller wrote in her decision. Ultimately, that decision may have to come after a full trial on the merits of the supervisors’ plan.

In documents filed under his name, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen argued that other programs need the money more. For example, he described the “great need for programs and services for the severely mentally ill, especially among children, the elderly and the homeless.”

“In the area of public health, only 53% of children at age 2 are being adequately immunized in the San Diego region, resulting in needless deaths in preschool children,” Janssen wrote.

In a Friday morning hearing, Levitan told Haller that it is unreasonable to impose a three-month limit on welfare benefits in the midst of the county’s severe economic slump, when finding work can take much longer.

“You can’t have a limited duration,” Levitan said. “You have to look to need.”

Fan, however, argued that the 21-year-old court case and state law are “obsolete” in the post-Proposition 13 era, when county governments no longer possess the power to raise additional tax revenue as their spending needs increase.

Diane Bardsley, chief deputy county counsel, noted outside the courtroom that the county is not denying welfare benefits to the employable recipients. It is simply limiting the length of time it must provide them to three months each year.

In recent months, other financially strapped governments, including the states of Michigan and Maryland and the District of Columbia, have ended aid for employable adults.

Dale Fleming, coordinator of the General Relief program, said that if Haller is not overruled, the first 425 recipients would be eliminated immediately after the restraining order is lifted. The remaining 1,500 would be gradually cut from the rolls over the next 45 days, she said.

Fleming said that two of the lawsuit’s 10 plaintiffs have already been cut from the welfare rolls. One was eliminated for failing to comply with workfare job requirements. The other was removed for missing a recertification appointment, she said.