ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 7, 1996 TAG: 9611070028
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
AND YOU thought welfare reform would reduce the size of social-service bureaucracies.
In fact, the caseload at some local social-service departments is increasing. More low-income people are becoming eligible for Medicaid, often because of growing inability to afford health-care insurance. And many social workers are spending more time trying to help welfare recipients find jobs to get them off the rolls.
As a result, social-service offices throughout the commonwealth are finding they need more, not fewer, employees.
Currently, many local offices face critical staffing shortages. On average, say human-services officials, they are understaffed by about 25 percent; in Montgomery County, it's about 35 percent.
And the problem may grow worse as more social workers - overwhelmed by growing mounds of paper-work requirements and regulations as well as by numbers of clients - quit to find a less stressful line of work.
Although local departments' operations are funded by a mix of local and state funds, the bulk comes from the state. This makes sense, since the state mandates the services that the local offices must provide. But it also means the General Assembly needs to look into staffing problems.
In Floyd County, clients who used to be able to walk into the social-service department and see a benefits specialist must now make an appointment. Which may not seem like a big deal. But a delay of several days can be a big deal for, say, an elderly person in need of health care and afraid to seek it because he or she has no way to pay for it. Or for a mother who needs food stamps to feed her children.
While many social programs are mandated to the state by the federal government, the state can't shirk its responsibilities simply by blaming the feds. Nor can it reasonably expect local governments to put up extra funds to staff social-service offices that are essentially satellites of a state department.
Legislators need to ensure that localities have the tools they need - in this case, workers - to do the job the state requires them to do.
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