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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 24, 1995                   TAG: 9502240097
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

VA. A LEADER IN WELFARE CUTS?

As Virginia legislators and administration officials worked behind closed doors Thursday on a compromise welfare plan, individuals familiar with the national movement said only Wisconsin, Massachusetts and Michigan have undertaken the statewide, across-the-board elimination of major benefits envisioned in Virginia.

Although Democrats and Republicans have lined up behind separate proposals in Virginia, both plans cut off payments from Aid to Families With Dependent Children after 24 months. Benefits cannot be reinstated for two or three years, depending on the plan.

While Gov. George Allen has called the Democrats' proposal "a welfare preservation act" and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Kay Coles James has said its passage would put Virginia behind every other state on welfare reform, national experts said any statewide plan capping benefits at two years would be unusual.

"It's as tough as anything I've heard of," said Mike Laracy, senior program associate with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which works with programs affecting disadvantaged children.

"All the states are looking at welfare reform, but in terms of real breakthroughs, they're limited," said Bob Moffit, deputy director of domestic policy studies at the Heritage Foundation.

The Republican plan in Virginia would be in effect statewide in five years; the Democrats' would phase in over four, as long as a future session of the legislature agreed that the plan was working. In both cases, about 49,000 of the state's 74,000 AFDC recipients would be eligible.

While a group of states has passed similar test plans in a few counties, and others are contemplating cutting off benefits, the most far-reaching actions to date have come in three states:

On Feb. 10, Massachusetts Gov. William Weld signed legislation limiting payment of AFDC benefits to 24 months in a 60-month period. If federal approval is granted, the plan will be phased in over 12 months beginning July 1. The plan would affect about 40,000 of the state's 104,000 AFDC recipients, according to a state spokesman.

Wisconsin has a test plan similar to Virginia's in effect in two rural counties. But the legislature also has passed a law totally eliminating AFDC in 1999. Officials are crafting a replacement program, and Gov. Tommy Thompson has said that he hopes to have it in place by 1996 or 1997.

While Michigan has passed substantial changes in its AFDC program, its primary experiment with cutting off benefits involved another welfare program, general relief. In 1991, the state eliminated general relief payments for individuals deemed capable of working. About 82,000 individuals were cut off of public support. That experience is the nation's most extensive to date in eliminating benefits for a broad group of people.

What distinguishes the Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Virginia experiments from Michigan's is the large numbers of children who'll be affected by eliminating AFDC benefits.

One of the great unknowns of the welfare experiment, individuals on both sides of the debate agree, is what will happen to those children when the two years run out. Opponents of the plans say homelessness, child abuse and other dire social consequences may await. Supporters say nothing could be worse for children than a system that now encourages illegitimacy and dependence.

The bottom line, said Kent Weaver, senior fellow in the governmental studies program at the Brookings Institution, is that "we don't know what would happen ... because there is no relevant experience."

A three-year University of Michigan study of what happened when general relief ended there is due out today. It will show that "most people are worse off," said Sandra Danziger, the principal author.

According to interviews and data supplied by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, states that are experimenting with a two-year cutoff of benefits on a test basis include Indiana, Florida, Vermont, Connecticut and Wisconsin.

Other states are considered leaders in welfare reform for a variety of reasons. New Jersey, for instance, pioneered the concept of eliminating benefits for additional children born to welfare mothers. California recently passed a reduction of benefits and is experimenting with allowing individuals who work to keep more of their earnings.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995