Feds Give State Green Light For Welfare Changes Waiver Allows State To Require Recipients To Sign Contracts

The Clinton administration on Monday gave Idaho Gov. Phil Batt a qualified green light to implement a key component of his 1996 welfare reform package.

But the so-called fast-track waiver granted by the Health and Human Services Department did not go as far as the state had requested, and that has state Health and Welfare officials assessing whether to implement the reform under stricter requirements than they had envisioned.

Mary Anne Saunders, director of welfare reform for the state Health and Welfare Department, said the more expansive proposal is still pending before the Clinton administration and the state could wait until it is approved before going ahead.

Under the waiver granted Monday, the state could require its 9,000 adult recipients of Aid to Families With Dependent Children to sign responsibility contracts that require them to participate in the jobs program and financially penalizes them if they get fired from a job for good cause, quit without a good reason or turn down a job.

The state must provide job placement and necessary education or training and child care to make working feasible. And parents under 18 would be required to live with their parents, legal guardians or under adult supervision and go to school or get job training.

In making Idaho the 43rd state to receive a waiver from federal welfare requirements to experiment with new approaches, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said it “lays a strong foundation for Idaho’s new welfare program.”

But Saunders said the fast-track waiver process precluded the federal government from approving a key component of the Batt plan. That component would broaden the strict federal determination for acceptable participation in the welfare program to include not only working but actually looking for work.

“We wanted a broadening of our definition of work activities,” she said.

“For some people it’s going to take them quite a long time of searching to get a job, and we wanted that time to count in the participation rate.”

She said that problem would probably not be erased when President Clinton signs the welfare reform bill as he is expected to do later this week because it also retains strict participation guidelines that would result in financial penalties against the state should they be violated.

“The bill that’s going to Clinton basically embodies the same philosophy as Gov. Batt’s program, but there are some very stringent participation rates attached to that block grant funding as well,” she said. “That’s the tough question we have to assess.”

Batt has pushed a 44-point welfare reform package that he says is intended to change the system from a denigrating way of life into a safety net that quickly returns people to productive roles in society.

The Legislature ratified the plan last winter, enacting a number of components that do not require federal approval. The most notable is revocation of state licenses held by anyone $2,000 or three months behind on child support payments or refusing to honor visitation orders. That takes effect in January.

Saunders said it would probably be several weeks before the state decided whether to move ahead under the more stringent requirements of the fast-tract waiver or wait for approval of the full-blown waiver package that takes substantially longer.