H 3369 Session 111 (1995-1996)
H 3369 Joint Resolution, By J.S. Shissias, Cobb-Hunter, J.L.M. Cromer, Govan,
Inabinett, W.D. Keyserling, J.T. McElveen, J.H. Neal, C.C. Wells and
S.S. Wofford
A Joint Resolution to enact the South Carolina Self-Sufficiency and Parental
Responsibility Policy of 1995 so as to establish the welfare policy of the
State; to expand the Department of Social Services Work Support Program
statewide; to revise the requirements for participation in the Work Support
Program; to direct the Department of Social Services to apply for federal
waivers for a transition to employment program, removal of the automobile
resource value limit, a Self-Sufficiency Pilot Project, and elimination of the
parental deprivation rule; to require mandatory participation in the Work
Support Program by noncustodial unemployed parents; to expand the Department
of Social Services Teen Companion Program; to provide parenting and daily
living skills as part of the Work Support Program; to direct the Department of
Health and Environmental Control to continue expansion of family planning
services including a federal waiver extending Medicaid family planning
eligibility for two years after childbirth and to recommend a five-year
funding phase-in for these services.
01/25/95 House Introduced and read first time HJ-16
01/25/95 House Referred to Committee on Judiciary HJ-17
A JOINT RESOLUTION
TO ENACT THE SOUTH CAROLINA SELF-SUFFICIENCY
AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY POLICY OF 1995 SO AS
TO ESTABLISH THE WELFARE POLICY OF THE STATE; TO
EXPAND THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES WORK
SUPPORT PROGRAM STATEWIDE; TO REVISE THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE WORK
SUPPORT PROGRAM; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT OF
SOCIAL SERVICES TO APPLY FOR FEDERAL WAIVERS FOR
A TRANSITION TO EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM, REMOVAL
OF THE AUTOMOBILE RESOURCE VALUE LIMIT, A
SELF-SUFFICIENCY PILOT PROJECT, AND ELIMINATION
OF THE PARENTAL DEPRIVATION RULE; TO REQUIRE
MANDATORY PARTICIPATION IN THE WORK SUPPORT
PROGRAM BY NONCUSTODIAL UNEMPLOYED PARENTS;
TO EXPAND THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
TEEN COMPANION PROGRAM; TO PROVIDE PARENTING
AND DAILY LIVING SKILLS AS PART OF THE WORK
SUPPORT PROGRAM; TO DIRECT THE DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL TO CONTINUE
EXPANSION OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICES INCLUDING
A FEDERAL WAIVER EXTENDING MEDICAID FAMILY
PLANNING ELIGIBILITY FOR TWO YEARS AFTER
CHILDBIRTH AND TO RECOMMEND A FIVE-YEAR
FUNDING PHASE-IN FOR THESE SERVICES.
Whereas, the General Assembly finds that the welfare system of
South Carolina must be based upon a reciprocal agreement between
welfare recipients and those who pay the bill for welfare, the
taxpayers. The system must assist families in poverty to become
economically independent by providing the tools to achieve
self-sufficiency while deterring abuse of the system through the
imposition of fair and meaningful sanctions; and
Whereas, public assistance is not a desired choice for most
recipients since most recipients want to work and improve the lives
of their families as evidenced by the fact that the average Aid to
Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipient is on public
assistance for less than two years; and
Whereas, government resources for welfare, when used in an
effective manner, can reduce crime and prison populations,
encourage productivity, improve the quality of life of many South
Carolina families, and generally be as beneficial to this State as
resources spent on traditional economic development strategies; and
Whereas, preventing the need for public assistance is the most cost
effective approach for welfare reform with public policy that uses
resources to encourage and enable responsible family planning,
emphasize family unit preservation, and promote responsible
prenatal and parenting practices is a good investment in the future
of South Carolina; and
Whereas, public and private efforts to increase opportunities for
meaningful job creation and economic development can enable
public assistance recipients and other at-risk individuals to achieve
self-sufficiency; and
Whereas, if the public policy of South Carolina places a priority on
saving people who are mired in the welfare system, then the State
will benefit by saving money and the quality of life of all South
Carolinians can be enhanced by a lower crime rate, less
incarceration, less illiteracy, and stronger families. Now, therefore,
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South
Carolina:
Part I
State Policy
SECTION 1. This joint resolution may be cited as the
"South Carolina Self-Sufficiency and Parental Responsibility
Policy of 1995."
SECTION 2. It is the policy of the State that the welfare system
in South Carolina must be structured to assist families in poverty to
maximize their potential to become economically independent. At
the same time, there must be a reciprocal agreement between
welfare recipients and those who pay for welfare, the taxpayers.
The system must encourage individual responsibility by providing
the tools to achieve self-sufficiency and deter abuse of the system
through the imposition of fair and meaningful sanctions.
Part II
Self-Sufficiency
SECTION 1. The Department of Social Services Work Support
Services Delivery System (Work Support Program), Article 5,
Chapter 5, Title 43, an employability development and job
placement program for recipients of Aid to Families with
Dependent Children currently administered by the department in
twenty-seven counties must be expanded to provide the full array of
program services in the remaining counties.
SECTION 2. To foster the goals of self-sufficiency and
independence in the early stages of a family's involvement in the
welfare system, the Department of Social Services shall apply to the
federal government for a waiver authorizing the State to require an
Aid to Families with Dependent Children parent to participate in the
Work Support Program when the parent's youngest child is six
months old rather than three years old, the current threshold for
participation.
SECTION 3. To promote stability and longevity in employment,
the Department of Social Services shall apply to the federal
government for a waiver authorizing a transition program for
employed AFDC clients who because of their income would
otherwise be ineligible but who do not have sufficient income or
earning power to avoid returning to welfare following the abrupt
loss of AFDC benefits. The transition program waiver would assure
continued AFDC day care and Medicaid benefits but would reduce
economic benefits incrementally each quarter after the family's
income exceeds the net income allowed for AFDC eligibility,
according to the following schedule:
(1) For the first quarter, the family would receive a grant of
twenty percent of the maximum AFDC award for the family size.
(2) For the second quarter, the family would receive a grant of
fifteen percent of the maximum award for the family size.
(3) For the third quarter, the family would receive a grant of ten
percent of the maximum award for the family size.
(4) For the last quarter, the family would receive a grant of five
percent of the maximum award for the family size.
SECTION 4. In order to assist AFDC families in fulfilling their
obligations to participate in the work support program or to assure
their ability to get to their place of employment by having reliable
transportation, the Department of Social Services shall apply to the
federal government for a waiver authorizing the department to
remove the one thousand five hundred dollars equity value resource
limit on a car so as to allow a family one vehicle without regard to
value.
Part III
Self-Sufficiency Pilot Project
SECTION 1. The Department of Social Services shall apply
to the federal government for a waiver to revise its Work Support
Program and AFDC program to implement a self-sufficiency pilot
project in Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, and Barnwell Counties
providing individualized intensive case management which would:
(1) provide a continuum of services, including transitional
services, to clients and their children, based on a holistic model
where case managers are assigned to coordinate services based on
individualized client needs;
(2) consolidate all work support functions for AFDC clients
under the Department of Social Services and charge the department
with the responsibility for placing AFDC clients into meaningful
employment;
(3) establish a reciprocal agreement of service provision and
program participation and compliance between the client and the
State;
(4) establish and locate job development and placement
specialists and housing specialists at the Department of Social
Services to serve these needs for AFDC clients;
(5) identify the time frame necessary for each client to
complete an individualized plan for self-sufficiency;
(6) provide community service employment to clients when
they successfully complete their individualized plans but no jobs are
available for employment;
(7) sanction those clients who refuse to comply with their
individualized plans in the following manner:
(a) Upon the client's initial refusal to comply with the
plan, a thirty-day conciliation period will be granted to the client to
reconsider. During this thirty-day period, the recipient will have the
right to appeal the department's decision to impose sanctions. After
the thirty-day conciliation period all AFDC, food stamps, and
Medicaid benefits will be terminated and will not be reinstated until
the client agrees to comply with the individualized plan.
(b) If the client refuses to comply with the plan a second
time, all benefits will be terminated for at least three months. If
during this three-month penalty phase, the client agrees to comply,
training, educational, or other services as outlined in the plan may
be provided to the client but the client is ineligible for benefits.
(c) If the client refuses to comply with the plan the third
time, all benefits will be terminated for at least six months. If
during this six-month penalty phase, the client agrees to comply,
training, educational, or other services as outlined in the plan may
be provided to the client but the client is ineligible for benefits.
(d) If the client refuses to comply with the plan a fourth
time, all benefits will be terminated with no possibility for client
reinstatement of public assistance.
SECTION 2. The Department of Social Services shall seek
federal funds for a demonstration project in Charleston, Berkeley,
Dorchester, and Barnwell Counties using the concept of
entrepreneurial development to create jobs and provide incentives
for AFDC clients in their efforts to attain self-sufficiency and
independence. The project should create jobs in identified markets
for AFDC clients, provide clients with job skills and opportunities
to develop expertise in operating businesses, and allow clients to
accrue savings, buy stock in a business or, over a period of time,
purchase a business. In carrying out this pilot the department should
work in conjunction with public, community, and private sector
entities including businesses, banks, and other institutions to
develop strategies that provide training, technical assistance,
planning and research to AFDC clients in their efforts to own their
own businesses.
SECTION 3. The Department of Social Services and the
Department of Commerce shall develop a demonstration project in
Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, and Barnwell Counties that offers
incentive packages to industries in an effort to obtain employment
for AFDC clients. The industries identified for the pilot should
include manufacturing industries that employ large numbers of
people with minimum skills, industries that are willing to hire and
train workers with little or no skills, and industries that agree to
employ AFDC-trained workers. The demonstration should offer, at
a minimum, some combination of the following incentives:
(1) limitations on corporate liability for day care services as an
incentive to encourage more on site programs, provision of
vouchers for use by welfare clients at licensed or registered day
care centers, and expansion of public operated day care centers to
accommodate AFDC recipients;
(2) welfare payments as salary supplements for AFDC
employees for a limited but sufficient time for the employee to
acquire insurance coverage under the new employer and to complete
any probationary period established by the employer;
(3) transportation to the work site for new employees and
AFDC recipients or other assistance such as vouchers or tax credits
for co-workers who provide transportation to these employees.
SECTION 4. To assist AFDC families in these pilot project
counties to more gradually ease from the welfare system and
thereby attain a more stable level of self-sufficiency and reduce the
recidivism rate of families returning to welfare, the Department of
Social Services shall apply to the federal government for a waiver
allowing the department to revise its income requirements for
families on AFDC. Under this waiver the department would
disregard fifty percent of a family's total gross income until the
remaining fifty percent exceeded the amount of income allowed to
be eligible for AFDC, rather than the current disregard of
thirty-three-and-one-third percent for only four months.
SECTION 5. To assist AFDC families in the pilot project
counties to gain financial independence and to develop economic
stability through acquiring assets, the Department of Social Services
shall apply to the federal government for a waiver to increase the
amount of assets a family may have from one thousand to three
thousand dollars and to remove the one thousand five hundred
dollars equity value on a car so as to allow a family to have one
vehicle without regard to value.
Part IV
Parental Responsibility
SECTION 1. In order to strengthen and support AFDC families,
promote self-sufficiency, and provide children with the benefits of a
two-parent household, the Department of Social Services shall apply
to the federal government for a waiver to eliminate the
"parental deprivation rule" which deems a family
ineligible for AFDC benefits, regardless of the family's income, if
both parents live in the home and neither is disabled. Those parents
in an AFDC family who are unemployed or underemployed shall
participate in the Department of Social Services Work Support
Program.
SECTION 2. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, if a
court order for child support is in effect an unemployed or
underemployed noncustodial parent shall participate in the
Department of Social Services Work Support Program.
SECTION 3. As a vital strategy in the effort to break the
culture of dependency and deter young women from perpetuating
the role of welfare in their lives, the Department of Social Services
shall expand its Teen Companion program, a Medicaid funded
project in which professional staff and AFDC mothers counsel at
risk youth about the problems associated with teen pregnancy and
the difficulties of teenage parenthood. The department shall also
develop measurable goals to use in monitoring and evaluating this
program.
SECTION 4. In an effort to provide comprehensive assistance to
AFDC clients that leads to self-sufficiency, the Department of
Social Services Work Support Program should include classes on
parenting skills and daily living skills including, but not limited to,
money management and budgeting, managing a household, marriage
and family relationships, stress management and coping skills.
SECTION 5. In order to encourage responsible family planning
and enable AFDC clients to limit family size, one of the most
crucial elements to escaping poverty, greater access to family
planning counseling and to a broad range of family planning
methods must be available. To meet this need the Department of
Health and Environmental Control should continue its efforts to
obtain additional outreach workers, social workers, and health
educators and should vigorously pursue its federal waiver extending
Medicaid family planning service eligibility up to twenty-four
months after childbirth. Funding for these programs should be
phased in over a five-year period.
SECTION 6. To further strengthen the family unit and promote
responsible parenting, the concept of family planning must be
expanded beyond methods of contraception to include more
education about reproductive health, abstinence, pregnancy spacing,
sexually transmitted diseases with an emphasis on AIDS education,
and the responsibility of males for pregnancy avoidance and
postponement. The Department of Health and Environmental
Control shall define a set of clinical, educational, and method
oriented family planning services for males and females. The
department shall assist and encourage state agencies and private
sector health care professionals to provide this expanded
information to their clients and shall promote a coordinated
public-private effort to address this issue.
PART V
Time Effective
SECTION 3. This joint resolution takes effect upon approval by
the Governor.
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