Welfare Reform’s First Waves Roll In July 1 Grandparent Responsibility Act Takes Effect, Paternity Rules Change, Work-Oriented Shift Begins

Idaho’s brand of welfare reform will begin touching lives - and wallets - July 1, when three of the reforms take effect.

For the first time, grandparents on both sides must support their minor children’s babies.

“Hopefully, this grandparents’ responsibility will be a reality check for everyone who’s raising their children in a careless way,” said Coeur d’Alene attorney Norm Gissel, a children’s advocate.

Secondly, it will be easier to establish paternity without going to court. The idea is to pin responsibility for child support on a father from the very beginning. Now, proving paternity can be a long and expensive trip through the courts.

“I’ve known cases where it’s dragged on for over a year,” said Gissel.

The third reform allows the state to pay worker’s compensation insurance for welfare recipients who do unpaid on-the-job training.

That’s not all. The state already is testing “personal responsibility contracts” that require welfare recipients to work.

If it all works, people on welfare are headed for “a much more rapid entry into the job market,” said Mary Anne Saunders, project director.

Last winter, Gov. Phil Batt’s welfare reform advisory council came up with 44 proposals to reform Idaho’s welfare system and make it a short-term program that nudges recipients toward self-sufficiency.

The Legislature approved much of the program this year, and more than a dozen of the proposals are in the works. Twenty-four more require waivers from strict federal rules.

Among those: Idaho wants a two-year lifetime limit on cash assistance, including benefits received in other states.

Saunders said Idaho probably will submit requests in September to waive about 60 federal rules. Some, like increasing work-hour requirements, are similar to waivers granted other states and should win easy approval. Others, like the lifetime limit, may take time and negotiation. Montana last year sought 76 federal waivers for its welfare reform program; 68 were approved.

Although welfare reform means sweeping changes in the jobs of hundreds of state workers, a survey of Health and Welfare employees found that 84 percent support the changes.

The reform program requires all welfare recipients, including new mothers, to work or learn job skills. Child care would be provided.

The program also includes stepped-up child support enforcement, because unpaid child support is the major factor that puts Idaho families on welfare.

Starting Jan. 1, 1997, anyone who fails to pay support or comply with visitation orders faces revocation of licenses for driving, hunting, fishing and professional services.

The grandparent measure, called the Grandparent Responsibility Act, will help provide for infants born to teen parents and may keep some off welfare.

First, the young parents will be contacted at the hospital when the baby is born, and encouraged to voluntarily establish paternity. Under the proposed reforms, mothers who won’t name the father wouldn’t be eligible for welfare.

At Kootenai Medical Center, records clerk Kathy Kenas is the person charged with getting new parents to sign birth forms.

It can be a touchy, complicated job.

Just last year, the state printed a new form for cases where a mother is married to one man and having a baby with another.

Occasionally, Kenas said, mothers won’t name the father.

“A lot of times it’s an abusive situation, or they don’t know who the father is, or they’ve broken up and they don’t want to have anything to do with the father,” she said.

The new form, unlike the current paperwork, is legally binding on fathers. It makes it easier for a mother to get child support and easier for a father to get visitation.

Now, teen dads typically are ordered to pay only a minimal $50 a month, said Shannon Barnes, chief of the state Bureau of Child Support Services. That’s to avoid forcing the teens to drop out of school.

But it’s not enough to support the child. Under the new rules, the boy’s parents would get an additional child-support order, based on their income. It would last until the father turns 18. If the teen mom doesn’t live with her parents, they would face a similar order.

“We will contact those parents, and explain the situation, that they are responsible,” Barnes said. “The focus of this is that this child not be placed in poverty.”

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Betsy Z. Russell Staff writer Staff writer Rich Roesler contributed to this report.