Welfare-to-Work Program Flawed, State Official Says

The state’s chief of health and welfare services said Wednesday that California is falling far short in making the best use of millions of dollars in federal welfare-to-work funds and called for mid-course corrections in the way the state is implementing welfare reform.

“We are a long way from being as effective as we can be in putting people to work and utilizing welfare-to-work money, and the state is concerned about that,” said Health and Welfare Secretary Grantland Johnson.

Delivered at a community meeting in Los Angeles, Johnson’s remarks were the first substantial acknowledgment by a senior member of Gov. Gray Davis’ administration that the state must seriously improve its approach to moving thousands of people from welfare to self-sustaining jobs.

Johnson said he has called for an assessment of current welfare-to-work efforts and will hold meetings with the heads of the state Employment Development Department and the Department of Social Services to better gauge what needs to be done.

“I need to sit down with these two directors and get their counsel and thoughts,” said Johnson. “We want to jointly agree on an approach.”

Those talks will include representatives of county governments, educators and program directors who have a stake in meeting deadlines set by the federal government.

It is too soon, Johnson said, to speculate on what initiatives the state and local governments might take to improve the process.

“There are no simple, easy remedies,” he said. “There are serious flaws and deficiencies in the way some programs were designed and the way they are administered.”

California has faced the biggest job implementing welfare reform among the 50 states. It has more people on welfare than any other state and a disproportionate number of legal immigrants who face such barriers to employment as limited English and education.

California’s poor performance is causing special concern in two key areas:

* The state failed in the last two years to meet federal requirements that 75% of adults in two-parent families get jobs. As a result, federal officials slapped the state with a $7-million penalty that is under appeal. Experts believe it is highly unlikely the state will meet the target this year of having 90% of two-parent families join the work force. Penalties for missing the deadline could reach $28 million.

* The state has failed to spend millions of dollars in federal funds already appropriated for welfare-to-work programs. Experts with the nonprofit California Budget Project estimate that by the end of the current fiscal year June 30, the state will have left unspent $612 million of its total $1.5-billion grant.

Some members of Congress have threatened to take away unused funds, worrying local and state officials. Many experts believe the threat is real and they welcomed Johnson’s plan.

“In this time-limited world, there needs to be some level of urgency in finding out what’s happening,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, which studies state financial issues. “There needs to be a systematic attempt to figure out if people are not getting the services they need, if people perhaps don’t need as many services as they thought or do people need something different than what we are offering.”

Ross said some residents will start losing welfare benefits beginning next month under federal and state deadlines that require them to be working. Many desperately need services that may come too late if the state and local governments do not act quickly, she said.

Eileen Kelly, chief of Los Angeles County’s Greater Avenues to Independence program, said the county welcomes the opportunity to discuss problems with Johnson.

“We are already meeting on a quarterly basis with several agencies, but if he convenes a meeting then it lends a whole different tenor to it,” she said.

Kelly identified several areas in which the state might assist the county, including the standardization of program services.

“We spend so much time trying to coordinate about 35 agencies that receive money,” she said. “We’re sitting with each one of them setting up individual referral agreements, and it takes a tremendous amount of time to get things rolling. If the state provided a forum to facilitate that communication, we could spend much more time providing services.”