Deukmejian Launches Workfare Program : Fresno Ceremony Represents ‘Fresh Hope’ for Poor, Governor Asserts

FRESNO —  Gov. George Deukmejian formally launched the state’s newest workfare program Monday under which many welfare recipients will be required to work, go to school or receive job training in exchange for their checks.

Celebrating the start of one of the few new programs to begin during his Administration, Deukmejian said that workfare “will give welfare recipients fresh hope for the future and it will benefit taxpayers as well.”

The landmark program launched Monday in Fresno County resulted from a compromise between the Administration and Legislature last year. It combines mandatory work for able-bodied welfare recipients with a variety of educational and training programs designed to help them find jobs.

Liberal Assemblyman Art Agnos (D-San Francisco), who was instrumental in negotiating the bipartisan agreement, called it the most comprehensive work and training program for welfare recipients in the nation.

“We finally have confronted the real welfare cheat in society--a system which cheated poor people out of opportunities to make their own decisions and cheated the taxpayer who has been footing the bill,” Agnos told several hundred Fresno community leaders and welfare officials.

The state plans to spend up to $78 million this year on workfare as more than 20 other counties join Fresno and begin operating their own versions of the program for recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children. State officials said they were unable to estimate how many recipients will participate in the first year but said the program is designed to pick up more participants as it goes along.

All 58 counties must have fully operating workfare programs by 1990, at which time state officials estimate 194,000 welfare recipients will be participating.

By then, officials project that the program will be saving the state money by removing recipients from the rolls.

Under workfare, which is known officially as GAIN (Greater Avenues for Independence), able-bodied recipients with children over the age of 6 must search for work.

Those unable to find a job are required to choose from an assortment of educational and training programs. Those who are still unable to find work after receiving their training will be required to perform community service work for a one-year period--the portion of the program considered to be actual workfare.

Thus, in Fresno, it could take six months before the first welfare recipients are assigned public service jobs, said Carl Williams, a deputy director of the state Department of Social Services.

A mandatory work program for those receiving public assistance has long been the goal of California political conservatives. As governor, Ronald Reagan initiated the state’s first workfare program in the 1970s. It was never fully implemented and was dismantled after he left office.

Later, former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. approved an experimental workfare program in San Diego County that demonstrated some successes and helped build momentum for the more sophisticated statewide program launched by Deukmejian.

Last year, Democratic lawmakers agreed to go along with the workfare idea after Deukmejian made major concessions, including offering a broad choice of educational and training programs and pumping millions of dollars into child care for both welfare and working families.

Deukmejian, who is seeking reelection, won praise from an unusual source at the Fresno ceremony: Assemblyman Agnos, who is better known as a Democratic critic than as an ally of the Republican governor.

Political Rarity

“I know it’s an election year and it’s not politically correct to be saying nice things about the other party,” Agnos said. “But this program wasn’t created by people being politically correct. No governor in America, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, has done more to put together a welfare reform program in the fashion that I think all progressive people would want to see it than this governor, Gov. Deukmejian.”

Although the governor presided over the official kickoff, the Fresno program actually began operating two weeks ago. Napa County is scheduled to start its workfare program today. Present plans call for Los Angeles County to begin the program by the fall of 1988.

Citing the need for workfare, Deukmejian told the audience, “A rising tide of prosperity may lift all boats, but without oars, some boats won’t get as far as others.”