Welfare Panel Recommends County Make Tough Choices

A committee helping to craft Orange County’s welfare reform plan is recommending a blend of tough measures and new flexibility in moving the county’s nearly 40,000 welfare recipients from aid to work.

The committee’s lengthy report, developed in the three months since Gov. Pete Wilson signed into law the state’s welfare reform program, goes before the Board of Supervisors for a public hearing and possible adoption next week.

In several areas where counties were given discretion in setting rules, Orange County’s proposed guidelines call for the strictest possible measures.

Single parents on welfare, for example, would be required to work or be in school 32 hours a week beginning in January, even though the county could have required only 20 hours a week.

“I think the feeling was, ‘Let’s get on with it,’ ” said Social Services Agency Director Larry Leaman, who noted that the county would face sharp cuts in funding from the state if it did not meet federal goals for moving recipients to work. California already failed to meet one such benchmark last month.

“So these are not just philosophical issues. It’s also driven by the financial penalties we face if don’t achieve certain levels,” Leaman added.

In some areas, however, the guidelines would introduce a degree of flexibility for setting welfare conditions on a case-by-case basis, such as how long new mothers should have off before they must return to work and school.

Community college administrators and some advocates for the poor say the proposed county welfare plan is too strict and would make it difficult for recipients to get a meaningful education while caring for children.

But some supervisors have pushed officials to develop a tough plan that would prevent Orange County from becoming a “magnet” for welfare recipients across the state.

If the Board of Supervisors adopts the proposed guidelines Tuesday, the county will prepare a full welfare reform plan that would be submitted to the state for approval early next year.

The state has already established general rules that give current welfare recipients only 24 more months of aid starting Jan. 1. Those receiving aid will be required to participate in job-training programs, and will be penalized for refusing to accept valid job offers.

Orange County’s plan contains several novel approaches to weaning recipients off aid. One provision would allow the Social Services Agency to give recipients lump sum payments equal to three months’ worth of welfare payments if they use the money to get off welfare.

“If a mom comes in the door and says that she could go get a job if she had the money to repair her car, we could provide that to her,” said Angelo Doti, the county’s welfare reform chief. “If she ends up going back on aid, that amount would be deducted from the payments she receives.”

One of the most controversial elements of the proposed guidelines is the requirement that single parents spend 32 hours a week either at work or in school. The state gave the county the option of requiring only 20 hours a week of work this January and building up to 32 hours by July 1999.

Doti said the committee selected the maximum requirement because it best approximates the normal 40-hour workweek. He pointed out that participants in the county’s current job program work 35 hours a week.

“The overriding goal is to foster self-sufficiency and early entry into employment,” he added. “We want to be as fair as possible while staying with that objective.”

But educators and some recipients complain that the rules make it difficult for single parents who must get training and hold down a job. They also criticize federal rules that don’t count homework and commuting time as “work.”

“It really seems unfair to the single mother or father,” said Ruth Dills, a counselor at Coastline Community College. “The standard we use is that for each hour of class, you assume three hours of homework out of class.”

Another area in which the county has flexibility is in determining whether new mothers are exempt from work rules for three months to a year after giving birth.

The proposal says the county should urge mothers to rejoin the work force or resume attending school as early as possible. But it also urges evaluation of each mother’s situation on a case-by-case basis to determine whether she needs more time to find suitable child care.

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Welfare Recommendations

The state’s welfare reform plan gives counties some flexibility in the way they design welfare-to-work programs. Here are the key recommendations made by a county committee to the Board of Supervisors, which will vote on a major portion of Orange County’s welfare plan next week:

* Requires single parents to work or be in school 32 hours per week rather than 20 hours, which some educators advocate

* Allows welfare recipients to use either professional child-care services or get help from family members

* Urges new mothers to return to work or school as early as possible, but leaves it up to county officials to make case-by-case determinations about how long mothers are exempt from work, for up to a year

* Provides some recipients with “lump sum payments” of as much as $1,600 if they agree to use the money to help find jobs and get off welfare

* Gives recipients broadest possible options for work and training, including vocational education, on-the-job training and income-producing self-employment

Source: Orange County Social Services Agency

Los Angeles Times