DATE: Thursday, September 4, 1997           TAG: 9709040418

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   42 lines

STATE IS IN LIFE FOR WORKFARE FUNDING

Vice President Al Gore announced Thursday that $1.1 billion is on its way to states - including $17 million to Virginia - to help give welfare recipients job training and experience.

The money will help those who have been the hardest to prepare for jobs, said Scott Oostdyk, Virginia's deputy secretary of health and human resources.

The new budget law President Clinton signed last month included $3 billion for welfare-to-work grants. That included $1.5 billion for the coming year and $1.5 billion for 1999.

For Virginia, that means $17 million in the 1998 federal fiscal year and $15.9 million in fiscal 1999, said Oostdyk.

Federal fiscal years begin on Oct. 1, but the first monies may not be available until January 1998, depending on when federal regulations are made final, he said.

The new money, Oostdyk said, means ``additional resources to do what we're already doing, moving people from welfare to work. . . . It allows us to have a more-concentrated effort for people who, for whatever reason, haven't been able to make the transition.''

Oostdyk said the new ``money will be spread around the state based on caseloads.''

It was too early, he said, to say how much will be allocated in each locality.

In addition to the new money to the states, some individual cities will compete for even more funds - 25 percent of the total federal allocation by sending applications to the Labor Department, which is administering the program.

In Virginia, Oostdyk said Norfolk and Richmond probably would be the best candidates for the extra competitive grants, based on the hardships in those two cities.

Virginia has about 48,500 welfare people statewide who are deemed eligible for help under welfare-to-work programs. That's down from 73,900 in March of 1995, Oostdyk said. MEMO: Staff writer Mike Knepler and The Associated Press contributed to

this article.

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