Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9507030026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the end, though, the federal government could not be held to state-imposed deadlines.
Welfare changes will become law in Virginia today but without federal approval to implement the plan, which is designed to move people off a cycle of dependency and into self-sufficiency.
``I am extremely disappointed in the inability of the federal bureaucracy to complete this process in time,'' Kay Coles James, Virginia secretary of health and human resources, said Friday.
The Virginia plan has been called one of the strictest in the country. It will require most welfare recipients to begin working for their benefits and would limit most payments to two years.
Aid to Families with Dependent Children - a primary form of welfare and the plan's targeted benefits program - would be cut off after two years. Recipients could choose to receive a third year of ``transitional'' aid - child care, transportation and medical coverage. AFDC could not be reinstated for three years.
Most of the plan's components will become effective statewide as soon as the plan officially passes federal muster.
Those components include denying extra benefits to welfare recipients who get pregnant after the plan is implemented; requiring unmarried mothers under 18 to stay in school and live with a parent or adult relative in order to get benefits; and requiring unmarried fathers under 18 to stay in school or be held liable for child support.
``The only thing we could do without waiver approval is allow for people to be able to get married and, if they are eligible for AFDC, still receive it,'' said Martin Brown, spokesman for James.
The federal government must approve any changes in the way states administer AFDC by granting waivers from federal welfare requirements. Health and Human Services policy is to act on waiver requests in 120 days. The state submitted its application March 28.
Michael Kharfen, an HHS spokesman, said Virginia was the first state to apply for a waiver with an implementation date already set.
``We recognize that the state had planned to implement this on July 1, and we've been working with them to review their submission as quickly as possible,'' he said. ``We're still within 120 days. In fact, we're still at about 90 days.''
To date, the Clinton administration has given 29 states waivers to do demonstrations of welfare changes. Not all, including one for Virginia while former Gov. Douglas Wilder was in office, have been implemented. Applications from 21 states are under review.
While the Virginia Poverty Law Center was not involved in actual negotiations on the plan, the organization did file comments with HHS on the proposed waiver.
``Our essential concern was that there were insufficient hardship exemptions to ensure that women and children in need of benefits continue to receive them,'' said David Rubinstein, executive director. ``In our view, it was not providing sufficient opportunities.
``It is obvious that the state administration and the U.S. administration are in serious negotiations trying to work out some kind of amiable waiver and conditions. That's what's causing the delay.''
Brown insisted that the negotiating was over.
``At this point, all of the policy issues have been worked out and the only things that will hold up the process are procedural and process-oriented,'' he said. ``We requested our waivers in good faith, they looked at the request in good faith and sat down and worked out all of the differences in good faith.
``At this point, we're just waiting. We're not talking weeks or months, we're talking about days.''
by CNB