Welfare Plan May Become State Model

Ventura County’s pioneering welfare-to-work program could become a model for the state under legislation being considered in the Assembly.

The bill by Assemblywoman Nell Soto (D-Pomona) directs the Department of Social Services to conduct a three-year study of programs that focus on helping hard-to-employ welfare recipients in Ventura and two other counties.

If the state finds that Ventura, Alameda and San Bernardino counties have exemplary programs, the counties’ procedures could be designated as models for others statewide, said Lynn Suter, Ventura County’s Sacramento lobbyist.

Ventura County may also be given waivers from strict state rules that would allow it to design an even more efficient system, said Randall Feltman, the county’s director of welfare reform. Suter asked Soto to include Ventura County in her legislation because of the potential benefits, Feltman said.

“It will give us flexibility and put us in with other counties that want to assert some leadership” in welfare reform, he said.

The three counties all use a team approach in helping long-term welfare recipients find work. The teams, which include social workers, probation officers, substance-abuse counselors and nurses, meet regularly to discuss why an aid recipient is having a difficult time getting work and what could be done to smooth the way.

However, the legislation would broaden the team’s ability to share information about an aid recipient that is typically considered confidential. A counselor at a domestic-violence shelter, for example, could share information with a social worker trying to help a recipient find work.

It will also give the county the option of reducing the number of forms that public aid recipients are required to fill out, Feltman said. The state currently has about 500 forms related to welfare, he said.

“There are a lot of things we wish we didn’t have to do,” Feltman said. “We don’t want to concentrate on following rules and filling out forms. We want to concentrate on getting people jobs.”

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to give its support to the legislation at today’s meeting.

Ventura and the other counties would pay the minor cost for the pilot out of their own budgets. Although it brings no extra dollars, being part of the pilot would be prestigious for the county, Feltman and others said.

An evaluation at the end of the observation period will document whether the team approach results in more job placements for welfare recipients who face difficult problems, such as long-term alcoholism, Suter said.

Ventura has led the state in many welfare-to-work efforts, the lobbyist said. The county designed its own program in 1996--two years before the Legislature adopted CalWORKS, the state’s welfare-reform program, she said.

“It would allow Ventura to showcase what it is doing,” Suter said. “Ventura has been successful at getting welfare clients to work, and not all of the county programs [in California] have been successful.”

Since 1996, 4,100 Ventura County families have left the welfare rolls, a 40% decrease in the caseload. A typical family is made up of a single woman with two children.