Real Change News | Bill to save state disability program goes to governor

March 24, 2010
Vol: 17 No: 13

News

Bill to save state disability program goes to governor

by: Cydney Gillis , Staff Reporter

House, Senate compromise on GAU

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The state House and Senate have passed a compromise bill to the governor that would save the state’s General Assistance-Unemployable program – minus a potential cut of 3,000 to 4,000 recipients.

That’s how many people human services advocates say could be cut Sept. 1 from the program under the final version of House Bill 2782, a bill sponsored by Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Seattle) that reforms GAU and renames it the Disability Lifeline.

The program, a state version of federal disability relief, provides medical coverage and a monthly grant of $339 to people who are certified to be incapacitated for at least 90 days and cannot work.

The bill’s passage comes as legislators enter a second week of a special session in which they still cannot agree on what taxes to raise to help close the state’s $2.8 billion budget gap. If Gov. Christine Gregoire signs the legislation, it will maintain services for roughly 15,000 Disability Lifeline recipients, many of whom are homeless. In her first, all-cuts budget, the governor had originally called for completely eliminating GAU, in part because the $188 million safety-net program is paid for entirely by the state and receives no federal funding.

The final national health care reform legislation passed this week by the U.S. House, however, expands federal Medicaid funding, which is expected to pay for up to half of the program’s medical services in the future, along with providing funding for the state’s Basic Health Plan for low-income households.

In her original bill, Dickerson called for the Department of Social and Health Services to step up its assessment of GAU recipients’ eligibility for federal Supplemental Security Income disability benefits. When they are, the state places them in a separate, SSI-in-waiting category currently called General Assistance-Expedited. Once SSI is approved, the federal government then reimburses the state for all cash grants it paid out to a GAX recipient, reducing the state’s cost.

In the Senate, Hargrove amended the bill to turn GAU’s $339 monthly grant into a housing voucher, or partial rent payment, with recipients to receive just $50 a month. The Senate’s operating budget also set a lifetime benefit limit of 12 months – six months more than the cap the governor called for in her second budget, in which she sought to reduce GAU grants to $250.

Dickerson and Hargrove originally reached an agreement that called for a temporary cap of 24 months. But human services advocates say the governor took a hard line and insisted on a 12-month limit in a three-year period.

The final compromise bill sets the benefit limit at 24 months in a five-year period – or, in certain circumstances, 18 months in a three-year period. That’s still less restrictive, says Tony Lee, advocacy director of Solid Ground, a Seattle human services and housing provider. It’s also temporary: The 24-month cap expires in three years, in mid-2013.

In the meantime, Lee estimates that 3,000 to 4,000 people who have already been on GAU for 24 months could be cut from the program on Sept. 1. But he says that a provision Dickerson built into the bill should lower those numbers.

The legislation requires DSHS to review the cases of those facing the cutoff and, where possible, move them to General Assistance-Expedited category, which is not subject to a time limit under the bill. “All the people that might come up to the limit must, under the bill, be reviewed for SSI eligibility,” Dickerson says, so “we don’t really know how many people will be cut.”

“If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t have had a 24-month limitation, but it’s what we had to do to compromise,” she says. “It’s been a long, hard road and there were times that I feared we might not get to a position that the governor wouldn’t veto and take drastic administrative action to cut the program.”

“I think we’ve come up with a compromise solution,” she says, “that has some real benefits for people and real benefits for the state.”

Among other changes, the bill calls for DSHS to create an Early SSI Transition Project in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, gives recipients priority for drug and alcohol treatment and to get on the Basic Health Plan when they exit Disability Lifeline, expands the state’s Food Stamp Employment and Training Program, and supports the creation of a one-stop website that people can use at libraries or other public places to apply for federal, state and local benefits.

A state housing voucher program put forward by Hargrove also remains part of the package. Under that provision, if a housing program is available in an area, a homeless person who is mentally ill or addicted would get a rental payment voucher and $50 a month.

“It’s still not great,” Lee says of the final bill. But in the current economic climate, he says, “it’s the best we’re going to get.”
©Olympia Newswire: http://www.olympianews.org.

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