Legislature(2001 - 2002)
04/23/2001 01:44 PM Senate JUD
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 116-AK TEMP. ASSISTANCE PROGRAM AMENDMENTS
MR. JIM NORDLUND, Director, Division of Public Assistance,
Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), said the original
bill was introduced by the governor and dealt with one provision
that had been removed from SB 116, with the concurrence of DHSS.
The governor introduced the bill because there was a 60-month limit
to client benefits under the Alaska Temporary Assistance Program
(ATAP). This program was created with the welfare reform
legislation that passed five years ago. Although ATAP contains a
60-month limit to benefits for clients, 20 percent of those
individuals may be exempt from that limit. Congress recognized
that there would always be people on welfare who would not be able
to support themselves and would need to receive benefits beyond the
60-month limit. The problem is that the 20 percent exemption
applies to the current caseload rather than the caseload "as it was
way back when." And since the caseload had been lowered from
12,000 families to 5,000 families, the number of exempt families is
much smaller. DHSS has a problem with that and Senator Green said
the HESS committee would take that issue up next year. The urgency
would be greater next year because the first families will be
hitting the five-year limit in July 2002.
MR. NORDLUND noted that Section 2 of CSSB 116(HES) dealt with a two
parent court case that DHSS lost. He explained:
During the summer, DHSS reduces benefits for two parent
families by half, a policy choice made by the legislature
and the administration five years ago. That policy was
developed because it was felt that two parent families
were better able to work during the summer months because
there was more employment in Alaska during the summer and
because one of the parents would be able to stay home
with the children.
MR. NORDLUND said that when language regarding two parent families
was put into the new law, antiquated language from the AFDC law was
carried over saying benefits would be provided to two parent
families. The court looked at that language literally and said
that DHSS had to do an eligibility determination of two parent
families to determine who was the principal wage earner and what
the unemployment status was of that person. It was the intent of
the legislature and the administration to say all two parent
families would have their benefits cut during the summer, except
families with one parent who was incapacitated. But the court did
not look at it that way and said that DHSS had to do the
eligibility determination. The determination would have a cost
attached and there would be some two parent families receiving full
benefits through the summer in a way that would be unrelated to the
intent of the legislation.
MR. NORDLUND noted that Section 2 strips the original bill of that
antiquated language and brings the legislation back to the original
intent. If SB 116 does not pass, DHSS would have to do the
eligibility determination this summer and would probably end up
paying benefits to some families who would otherwise not be
eligible.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked about Section 3.
Number 690
MR. NORDLUND said under ATAP, all families are required to develop
a family self-sufficiency plan, which is a plan that charts their
course from welfare to work. The original law exempted families
where one parent was disabled or incapacitated. DHSS thinks it is
a good idea for all families to have a self-sufficiency plan
because it assists DHSS in helping families, even disabled
families, improve their situation in life.
SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if that was just the exception from the
self-sufficiency plan.
MR. NORDLUND said that is correct.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if Section 4 is a transition section set up
to allow each of the others to go into effect so the department
could draw up new regulations. Mr. Nordlund indicated that is
correct.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if Sections 5 and 6 are effective date
clauses. Mr. Nordlund indicated that is correct.
SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if Section 4 speeds up the process rather
that waiting for the statutes to become effective. Mr. Nordlund
said that is correct.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if they even need Section 1 at this time.
MR. NORDLUND replied that Section 1 is an attempt to conform with
federal law.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if that is the section the Senate HESS
Committee would take up next year.
MR. NORLUND indicated that was not correct; that the section they
would take up next year was already taken out of the original bill.
He said they are now looking at the committee substitute.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said he thought the first section talked about the
five year program.
MR. NORDLUND replied that it was related to the section that was
stripped out of the bill, but federal law says that anybody who is
living in an Alaska Native village is exempt from the five-year
limit. "That's a provision in federal law."
MR. NORDLUND explained that our state law does not have such a
provision and so that section conforms state law to federal law in
that regard.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if this exempts them from the 20 percent
rule.
MR. NORDLUND responded, "Yes."
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said that by exempting them for five years, the
administration doesn't have to find a job for any person living in
a Native village.
MR. NORDLUND responded:
It is a two-edged sword, I think. This provision is not
something that we necessarily originally promoted in the
federal law…. Even the Native community would tell you
that they see this as good and bad. The fact of the
matter is that there aren't jobs in so many of those
Native villages and cutting off individuals from public
assistance when there's absolutely no hope of employment
is very harsh.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked about the qualifications of a Native village.
MR. NORDLUND replied, "The reference in the federal law is to
ANCSA, which recognizes the Native communities in the state."
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR asked if it was only the village corporations that
would apply.
MR. NORLUND responded, "Locations or communities that are
recognized in the federal law as being Native villages under
ANCSA."
MR. NORLUND said there is a list of those communities in committee
packets.
Number 1038
SENATOR COWDERY asked why the term "gainful activity" was used in
Section 2.
MR. NORLUND replied that was a good question and he didn't know why
they couldn't use the word "employment" because that is what it's
intended to mean.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said he thought it might be defined somewhere in
Title 47.
SENATOR COWDERY asked if increased employment in Alaska and welfare
have remained in proportion to each other.
MR. NORDLUND replied, "Definitely. The fact that we've had a policy
change, first of all, is a big piece of it, that we're now
requiring clients to look for work."
He said that the fact that the economy has been so good in Alaska
has been a huge contributor to the fact that the welfare cases have
come down so much across the nation. Another reason for success is
that basically the legislature and administration have been willing
to put forward a budget that's necessary to help move folks into
work - money for child care and case management.
MS. KRISTEN BAUMENGEN, Assistant Attorney General, said:
The term "gainful activity" is used in other places in
this particular statute and so it is a kind of term of
art that has been adopted in AS 47.27.015, AS 47.25.025
and AS 47.27.030. It was a part of the original ATAP
bill. The term was used to describe general employment
activities. There is a definition that's been generated
in a substantial section in the regulations that address
this. Using this term now would make it consistent with
the other applications of the terms in the act."
SENATOR COWDERY said that assumes the term was being used correctly
in the other parts of the statute.
MS. BAUMENGEN said she had a reference to the definition as it was
generated in the regulations, if that would helpful. They indicated
assent.
SENATOR ELLIS asked if Mr. Nordlund had addressed the House's
concern about an exemption for caretakers of disabled children.
MR. NORDLUND replied:
Yes, there was a discussion on the House side. The House
version of the bill does have an additional exemption in
here. The exemption you're seeing in this version brings
it back to the status quo situation. That is, in a two
parent family, we will exempt them from getting the two
parent benefit cut in the summer months if one of the
parents is incapacitated. The amendment that was added on
the House side says that as well, if in a two parent
family, if they have a child who has a severe disability,
then that two-parent family is exempt from the two-parent
benefit cut in the summer months. That is not in this
version.
SENATOR ELLIS asked what his position was on that.
MR. NORDLUND said they were neutral on that addition by
Representative Dyson.
SENATOR ELLIS said he raised that as an issue for the committee to
consider because there were some compelling examples, specifically
the Jackson family from Pt. Baker.
MR. NORDLUND said he had an amendment that they prepared for the
House.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said they wanted to make certain that that option
is available.
SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if the federal exemption was over the 20
percent for state exemptions.
MR. NORDLUND answered that is correct.
SENATOR THERRIAULT pointed out that language says, "The department
shall disregard the months that are required to be disregarded
under that federal law." He thought Mr. Nordlund explained that it
was just a location-based exemption across the board.
MR. NORDLUND replied:
What we do as long as somebody is living in that exempt
village, we simply do not count that month. We just stop
the clock for those folks. If they move back to an
unexempt village, the clock picks up again. Even though
we consider stopping the clock for purposes of the way
our computer system works, the Department of Law tells us
it doesn't matter. From the state's standpoint, it still
counts on the state clock. So, if they run up to 60
months, for the purposes of the state law, we have to
count those folks within that 20 percent exemption
category. This is just the terminology we use to say that
we're stopping the clock for those families.
SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if this was an example of lawful
discrimination.
MR. NORDLUND said he wasn't qualified to answer that question.
SENATOR THERRIAULT explained:
We're treating different groups of people differently,
based on some reasoning. If we treat them differently,
we've discriminated between the benefits one group can
get that another group can't get. The Congress has found
that there is justification for doing that and made that
discrimination lawful. Is that a correct interpretation?
MS. BAUMENGEN responded that this was based on federal law and the
special relationship with Native American and the Alaska Native
populations in the Welfare Reform law. She said:
This language was generated after the time the state
accepted its language for the ATAP program and it's a
specific disregard that mandates in 'shall' language that
the states disregard those months.
SENATOR THERRIAULT asked if it treats individual Alaskans
differently based on some criteria in federal law and this change
to state law would make that acceptable.
MS. BAUMENGEN responded, "Yes, it addresses all adults who live in
an Alaska Native village."
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said, "Interestingly, a person need not be a Native
Alaskan, but if you find yourself living in that area, you
qualify."
MS. BAUMENGEN replied that is correct.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said to Senator Ellis, "If we conform [the
amendment] by putting in page 1, line 13, that's the word
'activity' that we are seeking to modify. Is that right Kristen?"
MS. BAUMENGEN responded that is correct.
SENATOR ELLIS moved to adopt amendment , which reads as follows.
AMENDMENT 1
Page 2, line 7
Following "activity":
Insert "or to be providing care for a child who is
experiencing a disability"
MS. NICOLE NELSON, Anchorage, said she supported the amendment on
caretaker relatives of disabled children and had no further
comments.
SENATOR DONLEY said he didn't agree with the analysis that is
contained in paragraph 3 of the sponsor statement that says Alaska
sets an extremely excessive goal compared to other states regarding
welfare reform. He pointed out, "I have seen several analyses that
have appeared in national publications saying that we were the
least aggressive on welfare of any state in the Union."
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said the fiscal note confused him and asked how it
could be zero when, if this law was left unchanged, there would be
greater savings. By changing the law, they are going to spend more.
MR. NORDLUND explained the reason is:
Any time the Alaska Temporary Assistance Program is
changed, is because of the way the funding mechanism for
the program works. We get a set block grant from the
federal government regardless of what happens to the case
load and regardless of what we do with that caseload,
what kind of programs we're providing. Also, that's the
federal side. On the state side, we're required to put up
what's known as a maintenance of effort, 80 percent of
the funding that we provided in 1994. So, essentially,
the state amount is fixed, as well.
You have a fixed amount of money, both federal and state
to run this program and if the caseload goes down,
basically what you do is you're freeing up money from the
benefit side of the program to move over to services. In
addition, what the legislature has done in the past few
years is take a lot of those savings, which really are
federal savings, using it to fund other programs in state
government that are allowed under the TANF Program and
there's been some general fund savings to the state in
that way. As an example, we used to fund childcare with
about $10 million from the general fund. With the savings
of welfare reform, we've been able to move those federal
funds over, supplant that, take the G.F. out and you get
a budget savings that way. But the overall amount of
money we have for the program is set. So, as the caseload
goes down, we can shift the money over, but it's internal
to the program. It doesn't really show up in the fiscal
note.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said they understand and commented that they do
an accounting and, at the end of that process, they usually end
up shifting some funds within the budgeting process.
Number 1840
SENATOR DONELY said the sponsor statement, dated February 21,
2001, doesn't say what bill number it's referring to.
MR. NORDLUND explained that this is the Governor's bill and it
usually has the Governor's transmittal letter. He didn't think
they had a sponsor statement, per se.
SENATOR DONLEY asked if there were any parts of the sponsor
statement that were no longer applicable to the committee
substitutes that were produced. He asked for an updated sponsor
statement.
MR. NORDLUND said he would do that; but he didn't know that as a
rule, they rewrite their transmittal letters.
CHAIRMAN TAYLOR said he thought that would be a good idea since
the bill had changed so much.
SENATOR ELLIS moved to pass CSSB 116(JUD) from committee with
individual recommendations. There were no objections and it was
so ordered.
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