Senate Bill No. 140
(By Senators Tomblin, (Mr. President) and Boley,
(By Request of the Executive)
____________
[Introduced January 25, 1996; referred to the Committee
on Health and Human Resources; and then to the Committee on
Finance.]
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A BILL to amend chapter nine of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, by adding
thereto a new article, designated article nine, relating to
the WV WORKS program for welfare assistance to at-risk
families; short title; legislative findings; purpose;
definitions; authorization for program; eligibility for
benefits; work requirements; responsibilities of program
benefit recipients; schooling or training requirements;
participation limitation; exceptions; sanctions; emergency
assistance loans in lieu of monthly cash assistance;
employer subsidy for employment; transitional assistance;
supportive and required linkages; and relationship with
other law.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That chapter nine of the code of West Virginia, one thousand
nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended by adding thereto a new article, designated article nine, to read as follows:
ARTICLE 9. WV WORKS PROGRAM.
§9-9-1. Short title.
This article may be cited as the "WV WORKS Act".
§9-9-2. Legislative findings; purpose of the WV WORKS program.
(a) The Legislature hereby finds that with regard to at-risk
families, as defined in section three of this article:
(1) At-risk families are capable of becoming self-
supporting;
(2) A reformed assistance program should both expect and
help parents and caretaker-relatives in at-risk families to
support their children and children for which they are
caretakers;
(3) Every child's parent or caretaker-relative can exhibit
responsible patterns of behavior so as to be a positive role
model, thus preparing children to become responsible adults;
(4) Every child's able parent or caretaker-relative who
receives welfare assistance has the responsibility to participate
in an activity to help them prepare for, obtain and maintain
gainful employment;
(5) For a child's parents or caretaker-relative who receives
welfare assistance and for whom full-time work is not feasible,
participation in some activity is expected to further themselves,
their family or their community;
(6) A reformed assistance program should promote the value of work and the capabilities of individuals;
(7) Job development efforts should enhance the employment
opportunities of parents and caretaker-relatives in at-risk
families;
(8) An effective public education system is the key to long-
term self-support;
(9) A reformed assistance program should be driven by
results, not rules; action can be driven by a clear set of
outcomes, such as employment, graduation rates, wages and
benefits; and program accountability can be based on evaluation,
monitoring and reporting outcomes;
(10) Services for at-risk families can be provided quickly
and simply; and services can be delivered in an expedient,
effective and efficient manner, without tolerating fraud; and
(11) A reformed assistance program should maximize community
support for at-risk families.
(b) The purpose of the WV WORKS program is to assist at-risk
families to become self-supporting through a work-oriented,
performance based, time-limited system that emphasizes employment
and personal responsibility.
§9-9-3. Definitions.
In addition to the rules for the construction of statutes in
section ten, article two, chapter two of this code and the words
and terms defined in section two, article one of this chapter,
the following words and terms when used in this article have the following meanings unless the context clearly indicates
differently:
(a) "At-risk family" means a group of West Virginians living
below the federally designated poverty level, lacking the
resources to become self-supporting and consisting of a dependent
minor child or children living with their parents, stepparents,
or caretaker-relative, including an unmarried minor parent and
his or her dependent child or children in an adult supervised
setting;
(b) "Community or personal development" means activities
designed or intended to eliminate barriers to participation in
self-sufficiency activities which provide community benefit and
enhance personal responsibility, including but not limited to,
classes or counseling for learning life skills or parenting,
dependent care, job readiness, volunteer work, participation in
sheltered workshops, or substance abuse treatment;
(c) "Division" means the division of human services;
(d) "Employment with some support" means employment with
earnings, after mandatory deductions, that provides a level of
income that does not allow an at-risk family to exist independent
of government support such that supplemental cash assistance,
child care subsidies, food stamps, subsidized housing or other
assistance may be provided as necessary for a period of time;
(e) "Income" means money received by any member of an at-
risk family which can be used at the discretion of the household to meet its basic needs:
Provided, That income shall not include
earnings of minor children in school, payments received from
earned income tax credit or tax refunds;
(f) "Secretary" means the secretary of the state department
of health and human resources;
(g) "Subsidized employment" means employment with earnings
for which the employer is subsidized;
(h) "Support services" means, but is not limited to, the
following services: Child care; medicaid; transportation
assistance; information and referral; resource development which
is assisting families to receive child support enforcement and
supplemental social security income; family support services
which is parenting, budgeting and family planning; relocation
assistance and mentoring services;
(i) "Unsubsidized employment" means employment with
earnings, after mandatory deductions, that provides a level of
income that allows a family to become completely independent of
government support;
(j) "Work" means unsubsidized employment, subsidized
employment, employment with some support, work experience or
community or personal development; and
(k) "Work experience" means unpaid structured work
activities that mirror unsubsidized employment and provide
training in occupational areas that can realistically be expected
to lead to unsubsidized employment.
§9-9-4. Authorization for WV WORKS program.
The secretary is hereby authorized to implement a WV WORKS
program to replace welfare assistance programs for at-risk
families in accordance with this article and within federal
requirements; to develop such rules for the regulation of such
program as the secretary deems necessary or desirable; and to
apply to the federal government for a waiver from federal
requirements, if necessary to accomplish the purpose of this
article.
§9-9-5. Eligibility for benefits.
Support services through WV WORKS may be provided to at-risk
families to eliminate the need for cash assistance. Cash
assistance through WV WORKS may be provided to at-risk families
if their incomes are below the income and asset test levels
established by the division.
§9-9-6. Work requirement; responsibilities of WV WORKS program
benefit recipients.
A WV WORKS program shall require that anyone who possesses
a high school diploma, or its equivalent, or anyone who is of the
age of twenty years or more, to work to receive welfare
assistance. In order for parents and caretaker-relatives in
at-risk families to receive reform assistance, they shall enter
into personal responsibility contracts, which will be reevaluated
periodically, that require them to do the following:
(a) Prepare for, obtain and maintain gainful employment or participate in some activity expected to further themselves,
their family or their community, attend school or training as
required or participate in some other activity as required;
(b) Have the children for which they are the parent or
caretaker-relative undergo well-child examinations as required by
the attending physician and adhere to the immunization schedule
for the children;
(c) Establish paternity or actively pursue child support, or
both, if applicable;
(d) Live at home or in other adult supervised arrangements
if they are unemancipated minor parents; and
(e) For those parents and caretaker-relatives who must
remove barriers in order to go to work, develop a plan to
overcome those barriers which may include, but is not limited to,
counseling, child care arrangements, transportation, medical
treatment, substance abuse treatment, testing, education, and
training.
§9-9-7. Schooling or training requirements.
Parents and caretaker-relatives in at-risk families may be
required to comply with the following:
(a) If they are teenage parents, they may work and must:
(1) Remain in an educational activity to complete high
school, obtain a general equivalent diploma or obtain vocational
training; and
(2) Attend parenting classes or be subject to participation in a mentorship program, or both; and
(b) If they are under the age of twenty years and do not
have a high school education or its equivalent, they must
participate in mandatory education or training which may include
a return to high school if they are unemployed.
§9-9-8. Participation limitation; exceptions.
The length of time an at-risk family may receive WV WORKS
program benefits will be dependent upon the personal
responsibility contract:
Provided, That an at-risk family shall
not receive benefits for a period longer than sixty months,
except in circumstances as defined by the division.
§9-9-9. Sanctions.
The WV WORKS program may impose sanctions for failure to
fulfill the terms of a personal responsibility contract.
§9-9-10. Emergency assistance loans in lieu of monthly cash
assistance.
In order to encourage at-risk families not to apply for
ongoing monthly cash assistance from the state, the secretary may
issue one-time emergency assistance loans to families in an
amount not to exceed three months of cash assistance in order to
enable such families to become immediately self-supporting:
Provided, That if within one year of receiving such loans a
family subsequently applies for monthly cash assistance, the
secretary shall recoup the amount remaining unpaid on the loan
from future monthly cash assistance payments:
Provided, however, That one-half of the amount of such loans may be forgiven after
a loan recipient has been employed in unsubsidized employment for
one year, and the full amount of the loan may be forgiven after
two years of unsubsidized employment.
§9-9-11. Employer subsidy for employment.
To the extent resources are available, an employer may be
paid a subsidy by the division for the employment of a parent or
caretaker-relative of an at-risk family if the employer agrees to
hire the parent or caretaker-relative at the end of the
subsidized period.
§9-9-12. Transitional assistance.
The WV WORKS program may provide transitional assistance in
the form of supportive services and allow at-risk families to
retain a portion of their cash assistance when they have earnings
below fifty percent of the federally designated poverty level.
For those at-risk families with earnings between fifty and one
hundred percent of the federally designated poverty level,
supportive services such as child care and medical coverage may
be continued.
§9-9-13. Supportive linkages.
The Legislature encourages the development of community
linkages with the WV WORKS program to implement the program. The
secretary shall require coordination between the WV WORKS program
and the child support enforcement division for the purpose of
establishing paternity, promoting cooperation in the pursuit of child support, encouraging noncustodial parents to get job search
assistance, and determining eligibility for cash assistance and
support services.
§9-9-14. Required linkages.
The commissioner of the bureau of employment programs and
the superintendent of the department of education shall assist
the secretary in the establishment of the WV WORKS program, shall
address in their respective agencies' plans the ways in which
their respective agencies' resources will be devoted to serving
the at-risk families identified by the division and shall
coordinate with the division their respective agencies' programs
in the provision of services to such families. Each county board
of education shall designate a person to coordinate with the
division the board's services to at-risk families as identified
by the division, and such person shall work to achieve such
coordination at the local level.
§9-9-15. Relationship with other law.
If any provision of this article conflicts with any other
provision of this code or rules, the provisions of this article
shall supersede such provisions:
Provided, That the provisions
of this article shall not supersede any provisions which are
required or mandated by federal law.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to authorize the
Secretary of Health and Human Resources to establish a WV WORKS
program for the welfare assistance of at-risk families through a work-oriented, performance-based, time-limited system that
emphasizes employment and personal responsibility.
This article is new; therefore, strike-throughs and
underscoring have been omitted.