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 - The 76,000 Missouri families who receive some form of welfare from the state would no longer be guaranteed that money under a Senate welfare reform bill given first-round approval Wednesday night.
Senators debated for more than two days on the bill that implements the federal welfare law signed by President Clinton in August 1996.
The bill would limit welfare recipients to five-year total lifetime benefits and work require them to be working within two years.
"If you are able-bodied and on assistance, the goal is to work toward self-sufficiency, and that means work," said Sen. Joe Maxwell, D-Mexico, the sponsor of the bill. "If you are a child we have a plan for you. If your parents play by the rules we are not going to leave you hanging."
One amendment to the bill would allow the Social Services Department to test public assistance recipients for drugs. The department could declare anyone who tested positive ineligible for benefits for up to one year.
An amendment offered Tuesday that would have automatically terminated benefits for three years to anyone who tested positive for drugs was defeated on a 17-17 vote.
Lt. Gov. Roger Wilson was not in the chamber to break the tie, but said the outcome would have been the same -- implying he would have voted against the amendment.
"I don't think its appropriate for the Department of Social Services," he said. "I think that is intimidation and when we are trying to get people off of welfare, intimidation offers no tools. We need to be offering transportation, child care and health care," Wilson said.
One amendment approved by the Senate would only earmark for welfare programs 80 percent of what the state previously spent.
Federal law requires the state to spend at least 80 percent of what it spent in 1994 on welfare in order to receive the maximum amount of federal funds. In order to encourage states to keep a maintenance of effort of 100 percent, the federal government will provide access to extra money to those states if the economy worsens.
The amendment puts the entire 100 percent of funds into a specific account in the state treasury, but only earmarks 80 percent to be expended on welfare-related items. The remaining 20 percent is subject to appropriations at the sole discretion of the General Assembly.
"I don't agree with it but I accept it," Maxwell said of the compromise. "Someone will have to decide to spend the money on something else and they will have to face the people and explain why they didn't want to help people."
The $30 million difference between spending 100 percent or $147 million, and 80 percent, $117 million, is significant, said the amendment's sponsor, Sen. Mike Lybyer, D-Huggins.
"I think it is very important that we do this," he said. "It provides proper management and oversight."
The bill does not include a method of tracking welfare recipients, such as fingerprinting, that the federal law requires the state eventually to implement.
"We ran out of time to determine which way to go," Maxwell said. "We will have to address it next year."
Other aspects of the welfare-reform bill would:
* Create the Child Support Assurance program that would give state money to children who live below the poverty line even though their mother works and there is a support order in place against their father.
* Allow exemptions from the five-year lifetime support limit for those who are elderly, physically or mentally disabled, or have some other incapacity as determined by the Social Services Department.
* Prohibit anybody who has been convicted on a felony drug charge from receiving benefits for a time to be specified by the Social Services Department.
* Declare ineligible for benefits mothers who do not help establish paternity and minors who do not live at home.
* Provide for a one-time payment to help families overcome temporary problems that limit their ability to work. This might include car repairs, child care payment or primary housing payment or rent.
* Establish Individual Development Accounts that allow public assistance recipients to save for post-secondary education or a first-home without having it count against their assets.