Welfare-to-Work Effort Awash in Unused Funds

Millions of dollars in federal welfare-to-work funds have been funneled to California for job training programs, but much of it remains unused, mired in governmental red tape and shifting priorities.

The Department of Labor awarded a grant of $161.8 million to the state nearly a year ago to help long-term welfare recipients with the poorest prospects obtain training.

But less than $9 million has been expended for local programs so far, according to state and federal figures. In a welfare caseload numbering more than 503,000 adults, fewer than 1,700 had been enrolled in job training programs by the end of March.

The bottlenecks are severe in Los Angeles County, with a welfare-to-work caseload of more than 135,000 adults. County job training programs received more than $65 million of the federal grant. But only about 150 recipients had been enrolled in the programs through March, according to state numbers, although enrollments have been increasing in the last few weeks. Experts fear that as much as three-quarters of the county’s job training grant may go unused this year.

In Orange County, which qualified for about $11 million of the federal moneys, the caseload is about 15,000, with about 600 people enrolled in job training programs, said Angelo Doti, director of family self-sufficiency in the Orange County Social Services Agency. He said he didn’t know why Orange County’s job training enrollment exceeded that of the larger Los Angeles County.

Interviews with welfare officials and nongovernmental experts reveal several reasons for the money not being used statewide:

* The complicated, strict entry requirements for welfare recipients to join job training programs.

* Difficulty in persuading recipients working at entry level jobs to attend training sessions after a long day at work.

* Tension between welfare officials who believe strongly in job training and those who favor untrained recipients going to work immediately, even if their job is menial. This means that fewer recipients than expected are being steered into training classes.

The low participation rate has become a major issue for several states and has prompted a move to lower the qualifications so more people are eligible.

On the other hand, some members of Congress have threatened to take away unused funds.

“Because it hasn’t been drawn down yet, some in Congress are talking about reallocating it and using it for something else,� said a staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee who requested anonymity.

The appropriation, which expires in 2001, is part of the billions of dollars appropriated by the federal government to kick-start the massive effort of moving the nation’s poorest citizens into jobs and self-sufficiency. The effort was spawned by the landmark 1996 overhaul of federal welfare policy, which imposed strict time limits and work requirements.

The welfare-to-work training programs nationwide were awarded nearly $3 billion to help move recipients beyond entry-level jobs by upgrading their skills and providing them with subsidized child care and transportation services.

Social welfare experts say that successful implementation of welfare-to-work programs is especially important now. That is because many recipients will soon be forced off the welfare rolls because of federally imposed time limits on receiving aid. They need training, child care, transportation assistance and other services provided by the funds. Such services, advocates say, help them find better jobs.

“If people use up the clock before services that could have helped them are made available, that is certainly a misuse of funds,� said Casey McKeever, director of the Sacramento-based Western Center on Law and Poverty.

California’s sluggish enrollment of recipients into the job program has sparked concern among state and federal authorities and much conjecture about how to improve performance.

The state recently completed a study to determine why counties were faring so poorly and whether there were any programs that might be used as models.

“There was a big confusion over the referral process, and getting people from county into job programs has taken longer than we had hoped,� conceded Kathy Mailer, deputy director of the Employment Development Department in charge of work force programs. The department has formed a task force with county welfare offices and federal agencies.

The obstacles damping participation are varied.

The programs were designed to provide post-employment training and support for long-term welfare recipients who live in the poorest neighborhoods and have the poorest job skills.

Participants must have been on aid for at least 30 months and must meet two of three other tests: reading and mathematics skills below the ninth-grade level and lack of a high school diploma or equivalency; a need for substance abuse treatment; or having not worked more than 32 hours a week for more than three consecutive months in the previous year.

The requirements have proved to be daunting. Los Angeles County officials estimate that only about 15,000 people out of its entire caseload would qualify and be able to participate.

Many needy individuals are slipping below the radar.

“You find people with very low literacy skills but maybe they have a [high school equivalency], you know these people are the ones you need to serve but you can’t,� said Mailer.

Doti said many Orange County welfare recipients are landing jobs before they qualify for job training, a function of the booming economy and low unemployment rates. Even people who normally would have trouble finding work--high school dropouts, or those with limited English skills--are getting hired, he said.

“Five or six years ago they would have been unable to do that,� Doti said.

There have also been severe clashes of culture and philosophy among welfare departments, which make the referrals of participants, and the privately run job consortiums that provide the training.

“The welfare [department] and job training jurisdictions are very large, rigid, highly structured organizations, and getting them to interface is very difficult,� said Daniel Flaming, president of the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit group that studies welfare reform in Los Angeles County.

Bill Yaney, special projects manager for the Los Angeles County Employment and Training Agency, spoke yearningly of having a compatible computer network to speed exchange of information with county welfare offices.

“Another thing we found in our collaborative effort is that we were using the same terminology but it took us several sessions to figure out we were meaning different things,� he added.

Officials with the county concede many of the problems but point out that it has a larger welfare caseload than those of many states. And while not changing the overall emphasis of getting people into jobs, officials say they are working harder to place people in programs best suited for them.

One program recently initiated would allow recipients with particularly low literacy skills to work part time while taking classes in basic education. Under another proposal, the county is trying to find employers with large numbers of welfare workers to use on-site training centers that would be easily accessible to all workers.

“There is tremendous pressure on all of us to make this work,� said Eileen Kelly, manager of GAIN services for the county Department of Public Social Services. GAIN, or Greater Avenues for Independence, is the county’s main welfare-to-work program. “I think we are going to start seeing the fruit of a whole lot of frantic activity.�