Increase would come as lawmakers contend with surplus built up as precaution
COLUMBUS - The state is proposing the first raise in five years for families receiving welfare and other ways to spend most of the program's balance, which has surpassed what the federal government gives the state each year for welfare.
Staff with the Department of Job and Family Services were to present the agency plan to House lawmakers. The legislature must approve spending for the federal-state program as part of the state's next two-year budget that begins in July.
The federal government in 1996 replaced traditional welfare with a three-year temporary grant program combined with child-care and job-hunting help. Ohio's $728 million annual grant has stayed mostly unchanged, supplemented by state money to make a more than $1 billion program.
Meanwhile, an account of nearly $790 million has built up as lawmakers put aside savings based on concerns that it would run out of money and counties spent less than they were budgeted. Agency Director Barbara Riley's plan calls for spending down the balance to $265 million by July 2007.
About $320 million of the yearly total is direct aid to families in which the parents or grandparents aren't working or can't work. The number of recipients fell below 200,000 for the first time in 2002 but hasn't dropped below 190,000 since then, agency spokesman Jon Allen said.
The agency is planning an average increase of about 10 percent to reflect inflation since the last increase in 2000. A family of three now receiving $373 a month would get about $410.
Even then, the family would be making 30 percent of the federal poverty level, said Athens County's human services director, Jack Frech, who has criticized the state for allowing the surplus to build up.
``They are so far behind on what they need to live on,'' said Frech.
Half of families receiving the help won't be able to get jobs because the parent or grandparent raising the children is disabled, Frech said, and only 15 percent receive subsidized housing. From the grants they have to pay for rent, utilities, diapers, school fees and other daily expenses.
Frech advocates a $100 monthly increase to families.
The goal is to avoid any spending changes that can't be sustained beyond 2007, Allen said.
Other proposals include $8.6 million in 2007 for cash bonuses to those who leave welfare for a job and stay employed for one year, $64 million over two years for increased child care payments and $70 million over two years for demonstration projects to help keep people off welfare.
The plan also assumes the state will repay $30 million yearly for five years from a $150 million debt incurred when the state mistakenly allowed counties to withdraw from the welfare fund for the administrative expenses of food stamps and Medicaid. The federal government has not yet approved the repayment plan, Allen said.
By Carrie Spencer
Associated Press