Proposed budget cuts to welfare offices: penny wise and pound foolish
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Valerie Bowens works part-time and takes care of her 82-year-old mother. On three separate occasions over the past nine months, the welfare office has tried to stop their food stamps and Medicaid.
Each time, the reason given was because paperwork they had submitted was lost or the office mistakenly thought they had moved. Each time, Ms. Bowens took time away from work and went to the office to try to fix the problem. She has submitted duplicate papers and spent countless frustrating hours on the phone and in the waiting room trying to fix the problems.
If you have been to a county assistance office lately, you know that Ms. Bowens is not alone.
We recognize that it is a difficult budget climate and many agencies are being asked to tighten their belts. However, the governor's proposed budget currently calls for $56 million in cuts to county assistance office operations and programs to help families move from welfare to work. The staff at county assistance offices is working as hard as it can, but simply cannot keep up with the growing work load. This is the wrong time to cut personnel and operations at the welfare office.
These days, the Department of Public Welfare is being called upon to provide critical safety net services to more and more Pennsylvanians. Since July 2007, the number of unemployed Pennsylvanians has jumped 92 percent. The food stamp rolls have increased by 35 percent, the Medicaid rolls are up 17 percent, and the number of cash assistance cases has increased 4 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of workers at the welfare office has dropped by 2.5 percent -- on top of an 11.7 percent cut between 2002 and 2007. Fewer workers are being called upon to do far more work. Welfare workers' caseloads have gone up 89 percent (from 250 Medicaid and food stamp cases per worker to 472).
First Published April 21, 2011 12:00 am
