RC Blog

Deal would save GAU but cut 1,200

posted by Cydney Gillis on Monday, March 15 at 7:21pm

After weeks of negotiations on proposals that were far apart, the House and Senate have crafted a compromise bill to save the $339-a-month cash grant and medical coverage that the temporarily disabled receive through the state’s General Assistance-Unemployable program. But 1,200 people are expected to be cut from the GAU rolls on Sept. 1.

Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Seattle), chair of the House Human Services Committee, said earlier today that she had reached an agreement with Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam) on the Security Lifeline Act, legislation that Dickerson originally introduced as House Bill 2782. The bill sought to reform the $188 million program, in part, by renaming it the Disability Lifeline and stepping up the state’s process for determining which recipients are eligible for federal Supplemental Security Income benefits for the disabled.

In the Senate, Hargrove, chair of Human Services & Corrections, amended the bill to turn the $339 monthly grant into a housing voucher, or partial rent payment, with recipients to get only $50 cash per month.

Dickerson declined to provide details of the new bill, saying those would come tomorrow after she and Hargrove meet with the governor to go over the bill’s components. But human services advocates familiar with the new 2782, which should be introduced in the House late Tuesday, say it involves cutting $24 million from the renamed Disability Lifeline program and imposing a 24-month lifetime limit on benefits.

The 24-month limit is retroactive and is expected to immediately cut 1,200 people from the Disability Lifeline rolls as of Sept. 1. Advocates call it a good compromise, however, because the bill would maintain full benefits for the program’s remaining 17,000 recipients.

The governor’s second budget, by comparison, called for reducing GAU grants to $250 a month and imposing a lifetime limit of six months. The two-year limit can be removed in the next legislative session, advocates say.

The compromise bill also includes language to step up transitioning people from GAU to General Assistance-Expected (or Disability Lifeline-Expedited in the future), a category for SSI applicants-in-waiting. Unlike GAU recipients, whose benefits are paid for entirely by the state, GAX recipients receive federal health coverage under the Medicaid program. Once they get SSI, the federal government then reimburses the state for the monthly cash assistance it paid out.

The legislation also incorporates Hargrove’s idea of a creating a new state housing voucher for all new GAU applicants who are homeless and chemically dependent or mentally ill.

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