THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502050076
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
A House committee killed the Allen administration's welfare-reform bill Saturday, substituting a more gradual plan that supporters said would protect children and opponents said is riddled with loopholes.
The Democratic alternative, which combines a few elements of the Allen plan with the bulk of a welfare-reform package approved last year, is likely to be the blueprint for the final legislation the Democrat-controlled Assembly approves.
On the Senate side, welfare legislation died in committee last week.
Although Republicans said they will try to force a House vote on the administration's tougher proposal, interviews over the last week suggest that Democrats are coalescing around the sort of plan approved by the House Committee on Health, Institutions, and Welfare.
Both parties call their plans ``welfare-to-work'' legislation, meaning that some recipients of Aid to Families With Dependent Children would have to work for their benefits. But the plans are substantially different in scope, tone, and - potentially - cost.
The Democrat-favored bill is a pilot program, phasing in 9,000 of the state's 74,000 AFDC recipients over a three-year period. Individuals would be required to work or get training for two years, after which benefits would end.
Benefits could be extended, however, for people who failed to find work, despite a good-faith effort.
If the pilot works well, the General Assembly could vote later to extend the program statewide.
The administration's plan would limit non-exempt welfare recipients to collecting no more than 24 months worth of benefits in a five-year period, although child care and medical support could continue for up to 12 months longer. In most cases, the recipients would have to work for the full two years they were collecting, even if they were involved in educational pursuits.
Only in extreme hardship cases could an individual get an extension, and then for no more than six months.
The Allen plan would would apply statewide after five years.
About 49,000 AFDC recipients would be eligible to be phased into the work plan gradually over that period. In figuring costs, the administration has assumed that almost half of those will voluntarily drop off welfare before the two years end. Their five-year cost estimates cover about 26,000 people.
The gradual approach is far safer, considering the potential impact on the children of welfare recipients, said Del. David G. Brickley, D-Woodbridge, who sponsored the bill approved by the House committee.
The Allen bill would ``inevitably make a certain number of poor Virginians and their families homeless,'' said Steve Meyers, an attorney with the Virginia Poverty Law Center.
Secretary of Health & Human Resources Kay Coles James countered that critics had taken ``the heart and soul'' out of a plan developed over the last year by a commission appointed by Allen.
With the alternative, ``we still don't have enough teeth in here to make it an effective welfare-to-work program,'' said Del. Robert F. McDonnell, R-Virginia Beach, who carried Allen's bill.
The House committee voted 12-10 along party lines against the administration's bill. The tally for Brickley's alternative was 14-3.
Del. Joyce Crouch, R-Lynchburg, later said she and other Republicans voted for the measure as a tactical move to ensure that the GOP's alternative could be heard when the welfare bill reaches the House floor.
In drafting his alternative, Brickley added several of the Allen commission's ideas to a welfare package approved last year. That bill has not been implemented, however, because changes in state welfare policy must have federal approval, which has not yet been granted.
Democrats accused the administration of delaying in applying for that approval until their own welfare package was complete.
Secretary James said the delays stemmed from a desire to seek approval for all the changes simultaneously. The administration mailed its application for waivers in late November, about nine months after last year's legislation was approved.
Estimates of the cost of the Allen plan and the Democrats' plan vary widely. Democrats have questioned whether the administration is allotting enough money to cover the child care, health, and transportation help it pledges. Republicans say that the Democrats' insistence on intensive case management could be prohibitively expensive if the program goes statewide.
The Brickley alternative calls for intensive case management, with about 45 clients per case-worker.. The administration's bill does not adjust current ratios, which range up to 100 clients per case-worker, or higher. But officials say local social services departments would have the leeway to develop plans with lower ratios.
Brickley accused the administration of ``being unwilling to budge'' during negotiations that went late into Friday night.
Administration officials did agree to a change extending benefits to two-parent families on welfare from six months to one year, however.
James, who applauded that switch, said that on other principles, the administration could not yield. She also attributed some of the differences to ``a very partisan environment'' in this year's Assembly.
KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY WELFARE REFORM by CNB