U.S. Welfare Cuts Seen as Big Burden for County : Services: L.A. officials say costs could soar at least $500 million if legal immigrants are thrown off federal rolls and end up on general relief.

Los Angeles County officials are nervously trying to calculate the hundreds of millions of dollars in additional costs they will have to bear if Congress approves a massive overhaul of the federal welfare system.

Officials predict that county costs will mushroom in a series of rippling reactions if the limitations on welfare approved last month by the House are approved by the Senate and President Clinton.

Among the rough estimates so far:

* The prohibition on federal welfare payments to legal immigrants who are not citizens will force a huge number of welfare recipients to apply to the county’s general relief program, costing the county an extra $507 million and doubling the number of people on general relief.

* Family strains caused by cuts in welfare payments could cause thousands of additional children to wind up in foster care, further draining the county treasury.

Legislation that limits who may apply for federal welfare payments and shifts administration of welfare to the states was approved late last month in the House. Although the Senate may soften the legislation with amendments, county officials say the situation appears grim--particularly for a county with a $600-million-plus deficit looming in its budget for this fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Under the bill, Aid to Families With Dependent Children and other guaranteed benefit programs would be consolidated into a smaller number of block grants, which have dollar limits. Control would be transferred to state and local officials. Under the present entitlement status of welfare, anyone who qualifies receives benefits regardless of how much money has been budgeted.

Of major concern to the county is a provision in the proposed legislation that would bar most legal immigrants from receiving AFDC, Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, non-emergency health care, cash assistance for disabilities and other services.

County officials say that if the 275,000 legal immigrants now receiving federal AFDC and SSI payments turn instead to the county’s general relief program--funded entirely by county dollars--the extra cost to the county would top $500 million. County officials say their hands are tied by California’s Welfare and Institutions Code, which requires counties to “relieve and support all incompetent, poor, indigent persons.”

Supporters of the congressional welfare reform plan note that there would still be a net savings in welfare costs because individual benefits paid under the county general relief program are less than those paid under the AFDC program.

However, that perspective is of little cheer to the county.

Eddy S. Tanaka, director of the county Department of Public Social Services, said in a letter to the Board of Supervisors that the county’s dilemma is unfair.

“The federal government alone controls (legal immigrants’) entry into the U.S. and should be responsible for their care, not counties,” Tanaka wrote.

Congress’ swiftness caught the county off guard. “The freight train has moved about 150 miles down the track and there has been no time to evaluate what’s going on,” said Gale Swensson, the social services department’s human services administrator.

Officials at the county Department of Children and Family Services expect an avalanche of children to hit the foster care system if Congress approves proposals to stiffen welfare eligibility requirements: restricting payments to five years, freezing the number of eligible children and prohibiting unmarried teen-age mothers from receiving cash assistance.

“When families are under extreme economic stress, we see more physical abuse and neglect,” said Peter Digre, director of the children’s department. “By definition, neglect is a lack of food, clothing and shelter.”

Digre postulated that removing legal immigrants, teen-age mothers and others from AFDC rolls and forcing them into the general relief program might affect 300,000 children. If 5% of those children wound up in foster care, he said, it would cost his department $185 million.

To pay for that increase, “I would have to lay off three-fourths of my staff,” Digre said in Washington, where he was lobbying senators against the reforms.

The National Assn. of Counties’ board of directors recently passed a resolution criticizing many elements of the reform package, saying a number of the changes could “hurt vulnerable children and would shift costs to the county level.”

The association called for the continuation of entitlement programs, which guarantee individual families’ welfare subsidies, rather than the system of paying block grants to states. And it came out against the proposal to deny benefits to legal immigrants.

Los Angeles County, which has one of the highest concentrations of legal immigrants in the nation, could experience severe consequences, officials said.

They said the general relief population may also be increased by two other significant groups. Those suffering from alcohol and drug addictions would no longer be eligible for SSI payments under the new legislation. And teen-agers who become pregnant and cannot live with their parents may have no alternative but general relief.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the county has been put in a difficult situation. “Washington is trying to get the poor off its books and so is Sacramento,” he said. “The poor, the people with the least political clout and the softest voices, tend to be left out.”

For Republican local officials, the issue is more sensitive: The very welfare-cutting policies they support in Washington threaten to play havoc with local budgets. Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a Republican, declined to be interviewed on the subject. He issued a statement saying he backed the block-grant approach to welfare because it allows more innovation.

“That is why I’m supporting what the Republican congressional majority is attempting to do in Washington,” he said. “However, this commendable effort should avoid being a cost shift from the federal government to counties.”