Workfare Program Is Criticized : Inglewood: Welfare recipients do clerical and maintenance tasks at no cost to school district. A union representative says they’re taking away jobs.

County welfare recipients paint over graffiti, pick up trash and answer phones at Inglewood Unified School District--at no cost to the district.

The labor, administrators say, allows the district to save money while helping overburdened maintenance employees and groundskeepers. At the same time, says Supt. McKinley Nash, the district is giving able-bodied welfare recipients a chance to earn their keep.

But representatives from the California Professional Employees union--which represents the district’s maintenance, landscaping and clerical staff--say the workers are taking union jobs.

In two years, the district has laid off 12 union employees. In addition, despite a district screening process introduced last year, many of the welfare workers still have not been checked for criminal records, said union spokesman Christopher Graeber.

“The issue is safety. All regular employees have to meet standards that (the general-relief workers) aren’t always held to,” said Graeber, whose union has passed out flyers urging parents to lobby for the welfare workers to be removed.

Recently, several hundred students marched from Inglewood High School to the district office to protest, among other things, alleged cases of welfare workers verbally harassing students. Those allegations were investigated but officials were unable to determine if they were true, said Inglewood High School Principal Kenneth Crowe.

Inglewood Unified joined the General Relief Workfare program in 1984. Under the program, welfare recipients can work six to eight days a month for public agencies. For their services, the workers receive about $200 a month, said program spokeswoman Mary Robertson.

District officials and school administrators say the workers are indispensable.

“I think all of us . . . think everybody who is able should have the opportunity to work,” said Inglewood school board President Lois Hill Hale.

But instances where the workers were caught smoking, showing up for work drunk or where workers with criminal records slipped through have raised questions about the program. Graeber said those incidents show a need to scrap the program altogether.

The recipients, Robertson said, must be fingerprinted to make sure they have not registered for relief in other offices. But criminal record checks are not made.

“That is not a criterion for receiving aid, so we don’t do it,” Robertson said. The responsibility for background screening falls on the districts that use the workers, she said.

Several school districts in Los Angeles County have used general-relief workers in the past. But problems with worker behavior led many to leave the program. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, background checks revealed that several general-relief workers had been convicted for assault and sexual molestation. The incidents showed the necessity for background checks, but the high cost of checks--reportedly $65 each--led Los Angeles Unified to phase out the program, officials said.

Inglewood is the only district in the county still accepting new workers, Robertson said.

Inglewood has had its share of problems with the general-relief program. Workers have been caught smoking in school bathrooms or with alcohol on their breath, school administrators say. In each instance, officials said, the workers were dismissed.

In June, a worker at Woodworth Elementary School was dismissed after he ordered several fourth- and fifth-graders to kiss his feet, said Woodworth Principal Lacy Alexander. The worker, officials said, had a criminal record.

The worker slipped through the system despite a 1993 district mandate that all welfare workers’ backgrounds be checked, Alexander said.

School officials say the problem may have come from a misunderstanding of district policy. Administrators at several schools believed that all general-relief workers were checked by the county before being sent. Others believed that the checks were completed by the local police. Still others believed that the background checks applied only to new workers.

Many principals admit they are still unsure if all general-relief workers have been checked. Inglewood School District Police Chief Michael Johnson said only 60 checks have been completed since the district began checking last year. Officials say the district has 80 welfare workers at any given time, but that number changes as new workers are added and others leave.

But Supt. Nash said the problem has been corrected and a new set of guidelines was sent to all school principals last month. Those guidelines include mandatory background checks by school district police.

Many school principals said they rely on the general-relief workers to help complete tasks that regular employees cannot finish.

At Morningside High School, Principal Liza Daniels said only two regular employees are assigned to clean up the 56-acre campus. Without five to eight relief workers, the work would not get done, she said.

Several general-relief workers agree.

“If we left, the school would be a mess because we do it all,” said Walter Capers, who has worked at Morningside for two years. Capers says the stereotype of general-relief workers as criminals is unfair.

Graeber and other union employees admit that general-relief workers help keep campuses clean. But, Graeber said, getting rid of the workers would be a good way to force the district to rehire employees who were laid off.

“They have to make having a clean campus a priority, and they have to make rehiring our employees a priority,” Graeber said.

But school officials say the cash-strapped district cannot afford to rehire the employees.

“If we lose the (welfare) workers, we will all lose,” board President Hill Hale said.