
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 10, 1994                   TAG: 9408300059
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WELFARE

WITH A new administration in Richmond - especially one holding high the "out with the old; in with the new" banner - it's not surprising that an initiative or two might get lost in the egress-ingress confusion.

Gov. George Allen, though, has stressed the need for welfare reform. A reasonable welfare-reform proposal - already approved by the General Assembly - should not have been left to atrophy because it wasn't marked Allen initiative.

That appears to have been the fate of a pilot job-training program, championed by Allen's predecessor, Democrat Douglas Wilder, and Democratic Lt. Gov. Don Beyer. The program's intent was to link women on welfare with employers willing to give them jobs, for which the state would provide specialized training.

In its pilot stage, the program was supposed to get 1,000 women off the rolls. But barely getting off the ground in the Wilder administration's last year (a mere seven women were matched with jobs), the initiative was suspended when Allen took office in January.

The reason: State welfare employees were reluctant to go on with it not knowing whether Republican Allen approved of the Democrat-spawned program. With the flurry of firings and threatened firings that preceded and followed Allen's inauguration, little wonder state workers avoided taking risks.

Allen administration officials now say there was a communications breakdown. Sure 'nuff, Allen likes the program; promises to jump-start it.

Yet, The Washington Post reports, the number of women targeted for help has been cut in half, and the program's budget has been slashed.

To be sure, the pilot does not approach comprehensive welfare reform, which is ostensibly the goal of a welfare task force that Allen has appointed. The Wilder-Beyer initiative, for instance, is limited to welfare recipients with high-school degrees. It emphasizes job-training, instead of more helpful schooling. It represents a fairly substantial investment for the benefit of a relative few, who are the most likely to get off welfare anyway. It is too expensive to replicate for more than a fraction of welfare recipients.

Still, the thrust of the idea - intensive support to aid the transition from dependency to work, and involvement of businesses in a public-private partnership - is on target. If it works, who cares who gets the political credit?

by CNB