THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501150087
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long : 158 lines
If the devil is in the details, it may be years before Virginians know whether Gov. George F. Allen's proposed welfare-to-work reform is heaven or hell for the poor.
It's clear that welfare recipients will have to work to get checks from the state. It's less certain that the state can meet its end of the bargain: helping line up jobs and paying for child care, job transportation and doctors' bills during the switch to work.
Bureaucrats are just starting to identify the number of largely low-skill jobs that the program will require. Up to 17,000 could be needed by this summer or early fall, and many more in the next three years, if the legislature and federal officials approve the plan.
As for day care, budget analysts cite a 150-page computer study in saying that funds are adequate, at least this year and next. Long-range, the plan relies on a stable federal cash flow. Congressional Republicans are calling for deep cuts in welfare grants to the states.
The task of making welfare-to-work succeed ``is mind-boggling,'' acknowledged Secretary of Health and Human Services Kay Coles James, chief architect of the Allen administration's welfare policy. If Virginians want less welfare, she said in an interview, they ``are going to have to think in different ways about solving problems.''
That means local car dealerships and bakeries finding ways to hire welfare workers, churches and civic clubs setting up after-school programs while parents work, and some welfare moms earning benefits by watching the children of other welfare moms.
As for details, those are evolving, she said, noting that the 70-page report of the Governor's Commission on Citizen Empowerment has been turned over to the state department that administers welfare. ``In terms of how it will all work out practically . . . that's Phase II,'' she said.
Skeptics see chaos on the horizon.
``You can sit up there and socially engineer on paper, but you can't make it apply to the lives of people,'' said Corinne Gott, director for 22 years of the Roanoke social services department.
James dismisses doubters with characteristic verve. Can it work? ``No question,'' she said.
There is little doubt that the state is set to embark on welfare reform. Democrats studied the idea for two years before Allen took office, and last year passed a more gradual version of the overhaul he's proposing.
``All of us agree this system has outgrown itself,'' said Suzanne Puryear, acting director of human services in Norfolk.
The current program ``pays people not to work, pays people not to get married, pays people to have extra children,'' said Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer, the state's top Democratic officeholder.
In today's climate, voices such as Gott's appear to be in the minority.
Arguing that the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program ``has never been funded with any level of hope or encouragement,'' she said the poor already are like one-legged contestants in an economic race with the middle class. ``Do you cut off the other leg, or do you give them a prosthesis so they'll have two legs?''
The gist of the Allen plan is that most welfare moms and dads whose children are 18 months or older will have to work for their money and will be limited to collecting benefits for 24 months in a five-year period.
The eligible pool, phased in over four years, would be about 48,000 people - roughly two-thirds of the AFDC caseload. Even with new people coming onto welfare, Virginia's AFDC population will drop from 74,000 to 36,000 after five years, administration analysts predict.
In return, clients will get day care and other support while they work. They'll be able to collect child care and medical benefits for an additional third year after leaving welfare, according to the plan.
Other proposed changes include denying bigger checks to welfare moms who have new babies and making parents of teenage fathers help support their grandchildren.
The critical moment in the plan comes with the two-year benefit cutoff. Critics fear that, without a safety net, some parents will flounder, exposing their children to hunger, homelessness and abuse. Supporters say the risk is one that must be taken to reform a system that penalizes marriage and squelches personal initiative.
For policy-makers, the road to change is largely uncharted. ``What really happens at the two-year mark?'' asked Terry Atkinson, a budget analyst for the House Appropriations Committee. ``Are we going to wind up costing ourselves more in homelessness and prisons? What's the consequence if we're not successful?''
There are no national studies, no data to point the way. ``From a budget data analyst's perspective, it's impossible to answer,'' she said.
Few argue that Virginia has been lavish in its government handouts. A mother with two children earning more than $595 a month is ineligible for AFDC. If she earns less, that woman would qualify for $291 a month in most areas. Benefits rise about $50 for each additional child, up to five.
Twelve states, the bulk of them in the South, pay less. Virginia ranks 49th in overall state and local welfare spending as measured against the personal income of state residents, according to the 1994 State Policy Reference Book.
Regardless of rank, the state's annual $2.9 billion welfare tab is too high for the results, said James. ``If we're spending all this money and not getting results, we've got to fix something,'' she said.
Medicaid, which pays for health care for the poor, makes up almost three-fourths of the bill, and food stamps about 16 percent. AFDC, the focus of the reform, accounts for 8 percent of the tab.
Reformers say AFDC fosters reliance on government, boosting some of the other costs. ``The difficulty of what we're trying to do here is to fundamentally change the culture, but to do it in a compassionate way,'' said James. ``It really is a balancing act.''
The debate in the General Assembly will focus on how best to weight the scales.
Three concerns: Will the jobs materialize? Will the day care and transportation money hold out? Will the poor get enough training and other support during the transition to survive on their own after two years?
Beyer, who has unsuccessfully tried to figure out a way to hire a welfare worker in his 68-employee Volvo dealership in Northern Virginia, said ``the fatal flaw'' in the proposal may be jobs. ``What good does all this do if no one will hire you?'' asked Beyer, the Democrats' leading advocate of reform.
James said her office is looking to the Virginia Employment Commission, private job-placement companies and corporate seminars featuring Northern Virginia businessman T. Coleman Andrews III to convince employers of their duty to help. If private sector jobs can't be found, the state will come up with work, she said.
State budget analysts have identified about $23 million that should be available for day care for the poor in the budget year beginning in July.
While about 17,000 people will be eligible to enter the welfare-to-work program in July, fewer than 10,000 of them will require full day care, transportation and medical benefits over time, the analysts figure. Their cost estimates assume that about 26,000 of the 48,000 eligible for the program over four years will need all the benefits.
Del. David Brickley, D-Woodbridge, who heads one of the committees evaluating welfare reform, said analyzing such cost estimates will be a major challenge for lawmakers.
A prime difference between cost estimates prepared for James' commission and those worked out for an earlier welfare reform commission headed by Beyer is in support staff.
The Beyer group figured that a 1-to-45 ratio of caseworkers to clients was essential if those on welfare were to be prepared for self-support at the end of two years.
The James commission hasn't adjusted case loads, which run to 1-to-100 in some localities.
Debbie MacArthur, Beyer's welfare policy adviser, said strong support is essential ``to get at the hard-core, multi-generational welfare recipients. . obligations.''
It will soon be up to the state's welfare recipients to find out if workfare theory works. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
ALLEN'S PLAN:
Most welfare moms and dads whose children are 18 months or older
will have to work for their money and will be limited to collecting
benefits for two years within a five-year period.
KEY QUESTIONS:
Will they be able to find jobs?
Will state funding for day care and transportation hold out?
Will the poor get enough training and other support to survive on
their own after two years?
KEYWORDS: WELFARE SYSTEM VIRGINIA by CNB