ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
IN THE paperwork maze of bureaucratic federal programs, the Social Services Block Grant has been a rare jewel: assistance with no strings attached. States can spend the money to help the needy in whatever way they choose.
Such flexibility is the keystone to successful welfare reform. But the landmark welfare reform legislation that Congress passed last session takes some of that flexibility away. Fifteen percent of this particular funding source, to be exact, or $420 million.
These funds typically are used for safety-net programs - to help the elderly poor get nutritious meals, or enough help to live on their own; to provide shelters for the homeless, rehabilitation for young offenders, protection for children abused or neglected by their parents. In Roanoke, some of it is used to pay part of the salaries of child protective services workers.
The grants are separate from the far larger block grants to states that will replace the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children cash-assistance program. But with the new Temporary Assistance for Needy Families designed to be just that - temporary - the demand on safety-net programs is bound to go up. Just as funding goes down.
State officials hope to spare localities the full brunt of the cut by trying to replace at least some of the missing funds with other federal monies that the state has not tried to retrieve in the past. But make no mistake. The federal government's devolving role in programs such as this one will increase the burden on every state to deal with tough, costly social problems.
And states inevitably will slough part of the load onto localities - as has happened before. Under President Reagan, this block grant was cut 25 percent and capped. Virginia then capped its allocations to localities. The cost of services is not stagnant, however, and the city of Roanoke now provides half a million dollars in local funds to the Department of Social Services over and above the matching allocation it makes to receive the block grant funds.
Cuts made in Washington will cause localized pain, forcing local governments either to scrape together more money, or to reduce services to the needy. Neither will be easy, all the bilious rhetoric about slashing welfare aside. Local officials won't have the luxury of distance that lets state and federal officials turn people into numbers on budget work sheets. People will be standing in the flesh before their hometown officials, explaining their needs and crying for help.
Local spending for social services cannot increase limitlessly either, of course. Nor can localities with higher proportions of poor be expected to absorb a disproportionate share of the burden-shifting from federal to state to local budgets.
The coming challenges of welfare reform make it all the more imperative that government spending at all levels be concentrated on early-childhood intervention, to reduce costs in the long run, and that state and regional strategies be developed to tackle deeply rooted poverty, the causes and consequences of which cannot be confined to any single jurisdiction.
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