Senate Oks Two-Year Limit On Welfare Controversial Bill, Part Of Batt’s Reform, Now Goes To The House For Vote

The state Senate unanimously approved legislation on Wednesday giving the Health and Welfare Department authority to impose a 24-month lifetime limit on welfare payments.

“There must be and will be a change in attitude,” Senate Health and Welfare Chairman Grant Ipsen, R-Boise, said.

The bill, which now goes to the House, was another piece of Gov. Phil Batt’s 44-point welfare reform program that has been moving through the Senate for the past several days.

But while no one in the Senate voted against the bill, several Democrats raised questions about the benefit limitation, which many see as the most controversial aspect of the reform package put together by a special gubernatorial task force last summer.

“We should use real caution when we start picking on the poorest people in our society,” Pocatello Democrat Lin Whitworth told his colleagues. He urged them to track the changes closely to make sure the truly needy are not simply dumped after two years.

The limit on financial assistance under the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program has been considered a key to transforming Idaho’s welfare system from one of ever-increasing dependence to one that gives beneficiaries the lift they need to regain their status as productive members of society.

Republican Sen. Gordon Crow of Post Falls, who served on the task force, conceded the controversy surrounding the limitation but argued that no needy people or their children will be denied aid if they remain unemployed after two years when they had conscientiously tried to find work.

“We recognize there are individuals and families out there who will always require some sort of assistance,” Crow said, estimating that in Idaho that could be as high as 15 percent of the state’s 23,000 welfare recipients.

Crow also said the average recipient in Idaho, where eligibility and benefits are among the lowest in the nation, stays on welfare between 14 and 18 months, indicating 24 months is not as draconian as critics would suggest. In addition, medical and child care assistance would continue for another 12 months.

But the existing welfare statistics do not keep track of those recipients who drop off the rolls after 14 months or so only to go back on a few months later, and Democrat Mary Lou Reed of Coeur d’Alene pointed out that even the federal welfare reform plan being pushed by congressional Republicans sets the lifetime benefit limit at 60 months.

Both Reed and Boise Democrat Sue Reents said the critical factors in making the revamped system work are the availability of child care, job training and jobs.

“We are committing ourselves to put the resources into those things that people need to move off welfare,” Reents reminded the Senate.