Welfare Check Distribution

I’m afraid that “L.A. Activists Denounce Welfare Check Proposal� (Jan. 20) missed the salient point. This plan is part of an ongoing effort by all county departments to change and improve the way services are delivered to the public. These reforms will promote efficiency and increase public safety.

Automated delivery of benefit checks at specified outlets is hardly new; food stamps have been issued this way for more than a decade, and the system was expanded to include general relief checks in 1993. Meanwhile, thousands of AFDC checks are reported lost or stolen from the U.S. mail every month, delaying payments to recipients and racking up additional costs related to forgeries and duplicate check issues. Online payment has virtually wiped out these problems for food stamp and general relief recipients, and should do the same for those on AFDC.

Further, eliminating 300,000 checks from the mails each month should curb a major cause of postal carrier robberies and assaults.

With more than 90% of AFDC recipients already receiving monthly food stamp benefits from one of 44 current issuance outlets, client traffic shouldn’t increase substantially when they begin picking up their AFDC checks at the same time. The current system efficiently serves some 430,000 people monthly with 99.96% reliability rate. System downtime typically lasted little more than a few minutes, and 47 unannounced outlet inspections last year found significant lines only twice, with the longest wait only 20 minutes.

In response to public concern, however, the current plan permits participation by additional issuance outlets beyond the initial 44, provided they install the necessary hardware. In addition, while the proposal calls for check issuance to be staggered across a 10-day period to minimize crowding and related problems, efforts are underway to shorten the interval to five days, with special exceptions for hardship cases.

ZEV YAROSLAVSKY

Chairman, County Board

Supervisor, Third District

* The new staggered check mailing plan will benefit the banks and post office while harming recipients and landlords, since the checks will arrive over the first 10 days of the month. Why not stagger the check delivery over the last 10 days of the month? The recipients will get their money in time to pay the landlords and the postmen will have less exposure.

GEORGE LISSAUER

Mar Vista