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

DATE: TUESDAY, January 10, 1995                   TAG: 9501120052
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VA. WELFARE CHIEF DEFENDS ALLEN PLANS

Gov. George Allen's budget proposals are necessary if state government is to downsize and set limits on its role, the Virginia Department of Social Services commissioner said Monday.

Among Allen's proposals are cutting temporary assistance to people who can't work because of illness or injury, increasing child-care funding for low-income families and eliminating core funding for community-action agencies.

"We've expected government to do far more than it was ever designed to do," said Carol Brunty, in Roanoke to address a group of social services directors from the department's Piedmont and Western regions. "It's not without sacrifice and loss."

Brunty has held meetings throughout the state to discuss Allen's proposals with the people who oversee local social services programs. Monday's meeting - closed to the media - was her fourth.

"I felt it was imperative that I have a face-to-face with all of them to talk about where I am and what I believe," Brunty said.

Since the 1940s, social services programs have used general relief funds to provide temporary emergency and non-emergency assistance to people who cannot work because of illness or injury. The program is funded by state and local money.

Allen wants to eliminate the non-emergency funds, which cost $7.4 million, leaving $897,000 to spread statewide for emergencies - rent payments, utility cutoffs, prescriptions and burials of paupers.

"It is not a mandated program," Brunty said. "It has very good benefits, but again, it's optional. It has become an ongoing assistance in some jurisdictions. We don't feel that is in order."

Allen's proposal to overhaul the state's welfare system by moving Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients into self-sufficiency with a two-year limit on benefits is an effort to "provide choices so people can make a way for themselves," Brunty said.

As part of that reform plan, Allen's proposals include increasing child day-care money for those families by $6.2 million and expanding education, training and employment services for AFDC recipients with $3.4 million.

"We are truly going to change people's attitudes," Brunty said. "We are not going to continue to provide assistance as a way of life. We need to get people to start dreaming and get them to look at alternatives."

Cutting state money - about $2.1 million - that community-action agencies use to acquire additional money - would mean "agencies would really have to reach out and find hopefully private dollars," Brunty said.

"It's a loss to community action throughout the state," she said. "But there's no legal mandate that state money be put into these programs. I don't doubt that it'll hurt them. But they're survivors. They'll find other resources."

Roanoke-area social services directors say it is too soon to know how Allen's proposals would affect their departments.

With local governments beginning work on the next fiscal year's budgets, "it's very frustrating," said Betty McCrary, director of Roanoke County Department of Social Services.

General relief funding requires a local contribution. The state puts up 62.5 percent of funding; the locality, 37.5 percent.

The proposed cut in non-emergency funds would have an impact on the department, McCrary said. From June to November last year, the county spent $43,474 in non-emergency general relief.