Supervisors Facing Hard Choices on Welfare

SANTA ANA — With powers never given to it before, the Board of Supervisors will help determine the future of welfare in Orange County.

Local control is the cornerstone of welfare reform and stems from the recognition that local officials can better craft programs to move people off welfare than the state or federal governments.

But the change also promises to interject a new level of politics and ideology into the welfare debate as the five supervisors struggle with such weighty issues as job training, child care and whether the neediest of recipients should be given extra time to wean themselves off assistance.

Although most of the key decisions are months away, divisions on the board are already emerging, with some supervisors demanding a quicker, more sweeping implementation of welfare reform than even the county’s Social Services Agency has recommended.

“We have a window of opportunity, and we can’t miss it,” said Supervisor Jim Silva, who has emerged as the board’s welfare reform hard-liner. Silva said he has a duty “to represent that taxpayers who work hard and allow these other people to sit at home and get a check.”

Others, like Supervisor Charles V. Smith, take a more cautious view and are urging that the county move sensitively and deliberatively.

“I’m very concerned that if we move too quick on this, we will make victims out of people in our zeal to get going with welfare reform,” said Smith, who represents Santa Ana, Westminster and other central county cities likely to be hard hit. “I think the poor children and elderly and disabled need to have a voice in the process.”

The differences say something about the individual supervisors as well as about the politics of Orange County, according to experts and board observers.

“The political climate in Orange County suggests that anyone who receives welfare is a bum, and that the best social program is a job,” said Fred Smoller, an associate professor of political science at Chapman University. “Because of that, the county will probably move in the same direction as the rest of the country on welfare reform, and probably one step further.”

Softening the blow to welfare recipients will be especially challenging in Orange County, Smoller and others agreed, because the poor are far less of a political force here than in urban areas like Los Angeles or San Francisco.

It’s been nearly a year since Congress approved the most sweeping overhaul ever of a welfare system that critics have long complained encourages dependency over self-reliance and gives recipients little incentive to work their way off public support.

More than 100,000 Orange County residents--from able-bodied adults and the elderly to disabled people and small children--stand to have their welfare benefits affected by the changes.

Gov. Pete Wilson and state legislators are now debating the merits of half a dozen separate welfare proposals for California, and a final resolution is probably months away. The state will set general welfare guidelines and eligibility rules. But the county is likely to have broad authority to tailor specific programs that meet the needs of local residents.

All five supervisors said they believe welfare reform is necessary, but differ on the specifics.

The board’s first major decision came in March, when the county welfare task force unveiled a “policy statement” that suggested softening some of the rules proposed by the governor and provide more time to implement the changes.

The committee, for example, suggested that some disabled people, victims of domestic violence, new parents and others be allowed to keep some benefits if they cannot find jobs.

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The board approved the policy statement on a 4-1 vote. Silva cast the dissenting vote, saying the proposal strayed too far from the governor’s plan and diluted some of the reforms.

“I’m not going to support anything that waters this down,” Silva said in an interview. “We can think of all sorts of reasons not to change. So I think we need to implement welfare reform as soon as possible.”

Silva, a former high school teacher, pulls no punch in his assessment of able-bodied adults who receive public assistance. “We have families with meager incomes who are paying taxes so that these people can sit around, watch the cars go by and not work,” he complained. “They don’t want to work.”

Earlier this month Silva and Supervisor Todd Spitzer voted against a plan that would give able-bodied residents of Santa Ana and Stanton an extra six months before their food stamp benefits run out.

Spitzer said he has little sympathy for for able-bodied recipients though he vowed to protect children who might be affected by the changes.

“My own philosophy is that welfare is designed to be a safety net, not a lifestyle,” he said. “I empathize with people who are truly needy. But I don’t support people who use the government and are too lazy to find jobs.”

Spitzer, a former prosecutor, has urged county officials to link welfare reform with efforts to improve child support collections. If single mothers receive adequate child support, he said, their dependency of public aid will decline.

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The remaining three supervisors have, so far, supported the Social Services Agency’s recommendations on welfare reform. Smith has organized a countywide task force of elected officials, community activists and nonprofit service providers to determine how the impending changes will affect residents.

“I’m more practical than ideological,” said Smith, a retired aerospace manager and Westminster mayor. “We need welfare reform. But at the same time, we need to keep sight of the fact that there are needy people who we have to take care of. . . . We can’t take a meat-ax approach.”

Supervisor Thomas W. Wilson, also a retired aerospace manager, agreed with Smith that the overhaul of the welfare system must be done deliberatively. “You can’t expect someone to get a new lifestyle by tomorrow morning,” he said. “There is going to have to be a transition period.”

Wilson said the county will have to provide enough educational and training opportunities so recipients to get decent jobs. It must also ensure that “people don’t fall through the cracks.”

Like his colleagues, Board of Supervisors Chairman William G. Steiner said he is most concerned about how welfare reform will affect children and people with disabilities. Steiner said he strongly supports efforts to make adults less dependent on government handouts but said children should not be punished in the process.

“There may be anger against welfare recipients because they may be perceived as not being needy,” he added. “But why should their children be caught in the middle of this struggle?”

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As supervisors begin grappling with the issues, voices on both sides of the debate are making their views known.

Robert W. Poole Jr., president of the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank that has studied the county, said the public’s strong support for welfare reform should give the supervisors the confidence to embark on sweeping changes.

“There is a political groundswell for meaningful reform, so I think Orange County can be a laboratory for something very aggressive,” Poole said. “I would be very disappointed if the politicians dropped the ball on this one.”

But advocates for the poor said the supervisors need to look beyond the public opinion and ideological rhetoric.

“I’m really hoping that the board can put the politics aside,” said Jean Forbath, founder of the Share Our Selves charitable organization in Costa Mesa. “Historically, the supervisors have not seemed to consider the poor as part of their power base. I hope that this board will take a different attitude.”

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REFORMING WELFARE

Here are some comments from county supervisors concerning welfare reform. The Board of Supervisors will be grappling with the complex issue over the next year:

“We have families with meager incomes who are paying taxes so that these people can sit around, watch the cars go by and not work. They don’t want to work. This has to stop.”

--Jim Silva

“My own philosophy is that welfare is designed to be a safety net, not a lifestyle. I empathize with people who are truly needy. But I don’t support people who use the government and are too lazy to find jobs.”

--Todd Spitzer

“I’m very concerned that if we move too quick on this, we will make victims out of people in our zeal to get going with welfare reform.”

--Charles V. Smith

“There may be anger against welfare recipients because they may be perceived as not being needy. But why should their children be caught in the middle of this struggle?”

--William G. Steiner

“You can’t expect someone to get a new lifestyle by tomorrow morning. There is going to have to be a transition period.”

--Thomas W. Wilson