Overhaul of Welfare Agency Approved

With little more than two months before sweeping state and federal welfare reform legislation takes effect, County Administrator Lin Koester will spend the next few weeks creating a new county agency that will reinvent the way the 60-year-old public aid system does business.

County supervisors on Tuesday gave Koester the green light to devise a new government agency that they said must veer radically from the way public aid is now administered.

Instead of determining whether clients qualify for welfare checks, the county agency will have to help recipients find ways to earn paychecks.

“The cultures have to change, both the client culture and also the people who have worked in [county welfare administration] for 30, 40 years,” said Board Chairman John K. Flynn, who has led the county’s welfare reform effort.

The county’s welfare reform effort will center on eight one-stop, job-to-career centers, where an array of county and state agencies will help welfare recipients find the services they need--such as child care, transportation, job search and drug and alcohol abuse programs.

The move toward establishing the new agency comes after months of work by county officials to develop funding for child-care and transportation programs, entice area employers to hire qualified aid recipients and enlist the help of community volunteers and community colleges.

“It can’t just be welfare with a different set of rules,” Supervisor Judy Mikels said.

“It’s got to be a whole new concept or it really won’t work.”

Supervisors expect to vote on a proposal establishing the new agency in early December.

‘This is a chance of a lifetime in government, to look and be creative and come up with a fiscally responsible agency to deal with these issues,” Koester said.