Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 10, 1995 TAG: 9506120029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
James, with state social services and employment officials at her side, held a two-hour statewide video teleconference with social services workers, job development staff and adult education specialists to discuss preparation for the July 1 implementation of Virginia's sweeping welfare reform plan.
The plan will cut off Aid to Families with Dependent Children after two years and requires recipients to begin working for their benefits within 90 days of receiving aid.
The plan's work component will be phased in over four years. Thirty-one localities, including Bedford, have been selected for the first-year phase-in. A schedule for other localities, including the Roanoke and New River valleys and Franklin County, has not been determined.
But the majority of the plan's components will become effective statewide next month. Those include denying extra benefits to welfare recipients who get pregnant after July 1; requiring unmarried mothers under 18 to stay in school and live with a parent or adult relative to get benefits; and requiring unmarried fathers under 18 to stay in school or be held liable for child support.
James encouraged workers in those localities that have not been scheduled to phase in the plan's work component to proceed as if they had, and place emphasis on moving welfare recipients toward self-sufficiency.
"There really is no reason to wait until the work component is phased in in your locality," James said. "There is much for all of us to do. It's going to be difficult, but we are going to get the job done."
Betty McCrary - director of the Roanoke County Department of Social Services, who watched the teleconference at Virginia Western Community College - said implementing the majority of the plan's components should be standard procedure and simply require training. But she is concerned about how the work component will "play out, and who's going to do it."
"That's going to require an awful lot of preparation," she said.
Localities have been encouraged to tap community resources - churches, civic leagues and businesses - in locating jobs and providing day care and transportation to help recipients meet their work requirement.
The plan hinges on approval of a waiver from federal welfare requirements. Virginia's waiver application is under review by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Carole Simpson, special assistant to Gov. George Allen, said during Friday's teleconference that she was "optimistic" approval will come by July 1.
Michael Kharfen, an HHS spokesman, said this week that nothing was hampering the review but that the application - as are 25 others under review - is "very comprehensive." Kharfen would not say whether approval on a waiver application has ever cut this close to the deadline.
But Sherry Stiesel, of the Washington-based National Conference of State Legislatures, said this week that "this is the closest I've seen to an implementation date. It's a very short time between enactment and implementation."
by CNB