32-Hour Workweek Levied for Welfare

The Board of Supervisors broke a three-week stalemate and adopted local welfare reform guidelines Tuesday, beginning a historic effort to move more than 22,000 Orange County residents off public assistance and into the work force.

The vote came after two supervisors switched their stance to support slightly tougher requirements for welfare recipients, leaving Supervisor Charles V. Smith, the lone dissenter on a 4-1 board vote, complaining that the final plan puts “politics and ideology ahead of sound policy.”

Approval of the far-reaching guidelines came as a relief to many county officials, who feared that the state and federal governments would withhold millions of dollars in social services funding--and perhaps even take control of the welfare reform process--if supervisors didn’t agree on a plan by the state’s Jan. 10 deadline.

Last month, the board deadlocked on several elements of the local plan, especially over whether recipients should work 26 hours or 32 hours a week during the first year welfare reform is in effect.

The board finally decided Tuesday to require 32 hours of work, to the disappointment of some welfare recipients who worry that the requirement will make it difficult for single parents to make the transition to work.

“I can’t see how a mother in school will be able to make classes, do all the homework, work for 32 hours and spend any time with her children,” said Marie Hernandez Elston, a Golden West College student and mother who receives aid.

“I’ve tried. I end up doing my homework at 3 a.m. so I can spend a little time with my son,” she told the board. “I know you want to hold people on welfare responsible for [getting jobs]. But they have to be responsible parents as well.”

The board originally voted 3 to 2 to require 26 hours of work during the first year, and 32 hours after that. But for the entire plan to be officially adopted, it needed the votes of four supervisors.

After much jockeying, Supervisors Thomas W. Wilson and William G. Steiner agreed to abandon their earlier support for the 26-hour workweek and vote instead for the 32-hour requirement. Supervisor Todd Spitzer and newly installed Board Chairman Jim Silva had favored 32 hours from the start.

Smith was the lone holdout. “This 4-5 vote holds the process hostage,” he said. “Welfare reform isn’t about philosophy and ideology. It’s about finding practical solutions to implement these policies.”

The county welfare reform effort is dictated largely by state and federal rules, which set a five-year lifetime aid limit for most recipients, and requires them to work, attend school or participate in job-training programs. Individual counties do have discretion on some points, however, including the number of hours recipients initially must work.

While Spitzer and Silva prevailed with their demand for the 32-hour workweek, they backed down on several other proposals aimed at toughening Orange County’s welfare plan.

Spitzer, for example, dropped demands that new mothers be required to return to work within 12 weeks of giving birth. Instead, the Social Services Agency will decide on a case-by-case basis how long a mother can remain out of work, ranging from 12 weeks to a full year.

“I feel we have compromised,” Spitzer said. “But there were some issues we felt we had to be firm on. . . . We wanted to have a plan that makes sense.”

Before the vote, about 10 speakers addressed the board, most of them urging the board to opt for fewer work hours.

Julia Sutton, a welfare recipient, mother and student at Orange Coast College, expressed concern about whether adequate child care, job training and drug rehabilitation will be available for those in need.

Sutton also said the 32-hour workweek sets up some single parents for failure, because they simply can’t juggle their jobs with school and other family responsibilities.

“They’ve made it very difficult for these people,” she said.

Steiner and Wilson said they would have preferred beginning with a 26-hour requirement, but said they felt a need to break the deadlock and not threaten the larger welfare reform program, known as CalWorks.

“Six hours a week I don’t believe is worth holding up the entire CalWorks program,” Wilson said. “The negative impacts to the county of putting this in limbo would be tremendous and unacceptable.”

He noted that the county’s current work program, Greater Avenues for Independence, requires recipients to work 40 hours a week. “It’s become clear to me that 32 hours is feasible,” Wilson said.

If the county didn’t submit a welfare plan, the state could withhold $50 million in funding, forcing the county to pay for social services through its already overtaxed general fund.

Steiner said he was reluctantly supporting the 32-hour workweek as long as the Social Services Agency retained discretion over how long new mothers can have off before returning to work.

“I can’t support throwing new mothers right back into the work force,” Steiner said. “That’s not helpful to the children.”

The county will now submit its welfare plan to the state for approval.

Eventually, the estimated 22,500 welfare recipients will be summoned to Social Services Agency offices to discuss how they will comply with the local welfare rules.

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Orange County Welfare Reform

Here are some of the key provisions in Orange County’s welfare plan:

* Recipients will be required to work 32 hours per week

* The Social Services Agency will determine on a case-by-case basis how long new mothers can be exempt from work, from 12 weeks to one year

* Some recipients can receive cash payments of up to three months of benefits; money could be used to fix cars and make other purchases needed to secure a job

Source: Times reports

Researched by SHELBY GRAD / Los Angeles Times