New I.D. Cards Aim to Cut Welfare Fraud

Beleaguered by widely publicized cases of welfare fraud, San Diego County officials will begin photographing and fingerprinting relief recipients.

Welfare and General Relief applicants and recipients will be issued identification cards, which they will be required to display when collecting county checks.

When cashing checks, welfare recipients will be required to present the identification, endorse the check and, each time, provide the bank or vendor with a fingerprint, said Department of Social Services Director Cecil Steppe. Checks can be withheld from those refusing to comply.

The system is patterned after one used in New York City and has been endorsed by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, Steppe said. It will go into effect when camera and fingerprinting equipment is purchased for the 10 county welfare offices, he said.

Steppe was named interim director of the department six months ago, stepping into a problem-fraught system where cheating occurred inside and out.

The county’s welfare office has been under increased scrutiny since five county employees last fall admitted siphoning up to $1 million from the relief system. And in April, a county grand jury report criticized the department for failing to detect fraud cases. Among the recommendations was an identification system that would detect multiple-identity cases.

Steppe submitted a memo describing the new identification system to the county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen on Tuesday.

Start-up cost for the program, which does not require supervisor approval, is estimated at less than $75,000, Steppe said.

The photo and fingerprinting ID system was used for five years in Los Angeles County but was replaced in July, 1991, with computerized fingerprint records, said Los Angeles County Department of Social Services spokeswoman Carol Matsui.

Other changes proposed for the San Diego County system include a revamped General Relief program, accommodating recipients who have medical conditions that restrict them from performing some kinds of work, but who are still capable of “light duty,” such as graffiti abatement or simple maintenance work, Steppe said. County workers will visit homes of registered recipients to verify that addresses are valid.

“Clearly there will be segments of the community who will not like these procedures,” wrote Steppe in his memo to Janssen. “Once in place, we will probably be in court defending these actions.”

Supervisor Brian Bilbray voiced support for the reforms.

“Cecil Steppe knows the issues and is willing to stand up and speak his mind in public,” Bilbray said. “The welfare system needs to be reformed, and he is one of the few people with the guts to start revolutionizing the process.”

Welfare rights advocates raised concerns about the changes, saying on Wednesday that the short-term actions suggested by Steppe will contribute little to overall welfare reform.

“Aside from violating all notions of privacy in this county,” said Gregory Knoll, executive director of the San Diego Legal Aid Society, “the new (identification) system does nothing to address the deeper problem of how to get poor people off of the welfare system.”

Eleanor Slaughter, executive director of the Welfare Rights Organization in San Diego, said the proposed reforms appear to be hasty reactions to an embarrassing report by the county grand jury.

“Ever since the report came out, the County Board of Supervisors have been jumping with Band-Aids.”