MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG
Mo. Digital News
Missouri Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Mo. Digital News
MDN.ORG:
Missouri Digital News
JEFFERSON CITY - No Missouri child would have to live below the poverty line under a welfare reform bill passed out of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee.
But there's one condition, the parents would have to agree to work or undergo work training.
The bill creates Families Work as the main program to allocate federal and state welfare dollars, also known as Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). This replaces the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program.
Families Work has two major subgroups -- Work First and Child Support Assurance.
The Child Support Assurance program stipulates that all Missouri children whose parents opt into the program will live at least at the federal poverty level, even if that means the state subsidizes the child.
In order to guarantee support for their child, both the mother and father have to be in a work-related activity and contributing toward the care of the child. If this money does not meet the federal poverty level, the state will make up the difference. Sen. Joe Maxwell, D-Mexico, said the estimated cost of this provision is $24 million on state funds.
Under the new federal law, anyone receiving public assistance must be in a work-related activity after two years. Missouri includes education, job training and job placement activities as work. This assistance is limited to five years throughout a recipient's lifetime. Under the Senate bill, however, children could receive support from the state for an unlimited time period, with the state picking up costs not covered by the federal law.
The Work First program mandates that everyone receiving public assistance must develop a plan with the Social Services Department to get them off of welfare.
"They are required to sit down and develop an individual plan for self-sufficiency," Maxwell said. "This allows the department to be flexible and use the programs that will work best."
Other aspects of the proposed welfare bill include penalties for individuals who use drugs while receiving welfare support.
Anyone who is convicted of a criminal felony of drug possession would automatically lose their benefits forever. If a TANF recipient failed a drug test required for a job they would lose their benefits for a maximum of 60 days.
"The state answered a need by providing job training," Maxwell said. "There is a balance of state and citizen responsibility. If the citizen does not live up to their end there will be no more assistance from Missouri."
Sen. Ken Jacob, D-Columbia, said he is not sure it right to punish people for their drug use.
"The only thing to do with people who have a drug problem is treat them," he said. "I like to help people not punish them."
The bill omits some key provisions of the federal bill including a means of tracking welfare recipients.
The Social Services Department has proposed requiring fingerprinting for all TANF recipients in order to track them across Missouri and the country. Maxwell said he knows a method of tracking TANF recipients must be in Missouri's welfare laws, but said he is not familiar enough with the issues to have included it in his bill.
The bill also excludes legal aliens from receiving benefits. This is a provision of the federal law and Maxwell said Missouri simply cannot handle the cost of making up the difference.
"We don't even know how many we have," he said. "I don't want Missouri to be left holding 100 percent of the bag."
Other provision of the bill are:
* The state will contribute to TANF 100 percent of the money it previously spent on AFDC. Missouri could opt to spend as little as 80 percent of those funds, but keeping the funding at the 100 percent level allows Missouri to be eligible for federal contingency funds if the economy were to worsen.
* Businesses can receive a 10 percent tax credit for providing day care facilities for employees.
* Teen-age TANF recipients would be required to live with their custodian and participate in education programs working toward receiving a high school diploma or equivalent or lose their benefits.