Welfare Reform at a Price for County

Radical changes in federal welfare reform programs could cost Ventura County more than $40 million a year, making it crucial for the county to overhaul its public-assistance program to make it more efficient, county officials said.

While others may have been caught off guard by Congress’ approval of sweeping reform measures last week, county officials said they have long been anticipating such a change and the federal action may actually help them achieve their goals.

Indeed, Ventura County is the only county in the state that has a welfare reform bill of its own before the Legislature. The legislation would allow the county to work more closely with employers to better prepare welfare recipients to reenter the workplace. And it would give the county more flexibility in how it doles out state and federal welfare dollars and manages social service programs.

“The state has nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying this approach,” said Helen Reburn, project manager and deputy director of the county’s Public Social Services Agency. “It could be a model for the state.”

Supervisor John Flynn agreed.

“If [federal welfare] money is not going to flow as much as it once did then it gives our program all the more meaning and makes it all the more necessary for us to make it work,” he said.

Written by state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), the county’s welfare-reform bill will be reviewed Wednesday by the Assembly Committee on Appropriations. If approved by the Legislature this month, the bill could be on Gov. Pete Wilson’s desk by early September.

But county officials acknowledge that the bill’s passage is not a sure thing. The fact that it would give the county more control over its welfare system will very likely draw strong resistance from the state Department of Social Services, which wants to reserve that power for itself.

“If our bill doesn’t pass, then we have to wait for the state to decide what to do and that scares me,” said James Isom, director of the county’s welfare system.

As it stands, the county may be forced to absorb a massive financial burden as a result of welfare-reform legislation approved by Congress last week and that President Clinton has vowed to sign into law.

The reform package includes provisions that would require welfare recipients to rejoin the work force within two years or lose all cash benefits. It would also limit financial assistance to a lifetime total of five years.

But the most financially devastating provision of the legislation would deny Supplemental Security Income, food stamps and other federal benefits for most legal immigrants until they are citizens. This means that these federal welfare recipients may turn to the county for help as a last resort.

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Currently, there are 9,326 legal immigrants in the county receiving Supplemental Security Income, a combination of state and federal aid reserved exclusively for the elderly, blind and disabled. With the average recipient receiving $295 per month, the estimated cost shift to the county’s general relief program would be $33 million, officials said.

Also, the county may have to provide another $12 million in assistance if the 6,084 legal immigrants who are now receiving food stamps and Aid to Families with Dependent Children are cut off from those programs.

“There is a very real potential for a significant number of these people to need county general relief,” Reburn said. “This would be dire for Ventura County and California as a whole.”

To illustrate the huge shift this would represent, there are now about 200 county general relief recipients, she said. And the county’s general relief budget, which is supported entirely by the county’s general fund, is $730,000.

The new federal legislation would grant legal immigrants a one-year grace period to allow states and counties time to restructure their own local welfare programs.

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But with such a large financial threat facing all of California’s 58 counties, officials said they plan to launch an aggressive lobbying effort as soon as possible to get the state to take over the general relief program.

“It’s a longshot, certainly, but we have to make the effort,” Reburn said.

Meanwhile, Ventura County’s two congressional representatives took differing sides on the welfare-reform measure.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) voted for the bill, while Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) opposed it, saying its strict provisions go too far and fearing that women and children would suffer the most as a result.

“This is a repeal of the welfare system not a reform of it,” Beilenson said. “It repeals the requirement that the federal government be responsible to see to it that people with children do not go without some help. Instead, it gives that responsibility to the state. And it gives them less money to do more.”

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Although the new legislation includes more money for child care and job training, Beilenson said it will not be enough to keep pace with the demand for such services.

The congressman said one of his chief concerns is the two-year limit placed on welfare recipients to get jobs. To begin, he said, there are not enough private sector jobs available, especially considering all of the downsizing occurring at major companies nationwide.

“The burden is going to fall on local and state taxpayers,” he said. “And unless you want a lot more homeless people, then state and local governments are going to have to spend a huge amount of money.”

Margaret Pena, a legislative representative for the California State Assn. of Counties, took a similar view.

“This is really federal welfare reform at the expense of counties,” she said. “Several counties are now walking a fine line between fiscal solvency and potential bankruptcy and this could push them right over the edge.”