sonnel problems exist. No public relations approach has been found to bring the whole welfare picture into graphic focus, to bring its complexities and problems home to the public. Yet, sweeping changes are regarded as neither practicable nor desirable. Before proceeding with any drastic changes in the board-department relationship, it should be encouraged and helped to function properly. Drastic changes could lead to more problems than would be solved. This subcommittee, therefore, offers the following summary of its findings concerning the structure of the board and department of social welfare, together with a plan it recommends to strengthen weaknesses. I. Present organization Over the years, there have been only sporadic liaison and exchange of views between the board of social welfare and the executive and legislative branches. The 15-member board is the legal head of the department of social welfare which carries out policy made by the board. The members are unsalaried. All members of the board are appointed by the Governor for staggered terms; 1 member is from each of the 10 judicial districts and the remaining 5 at large. One member is designated by the Governor to serve at his pleasure as chair man. This organizational pattern-Governor to board to department and on down to the local welfare districts-has raised questions as to whether a more streamlined chain of command should be established. It is believed that the chief weaknesses are not so much the structure as (1) lack of close and continuing liaison with the legislative and executive branches of government; (2) weak public relations; (3) unwieldy size of the board; (4) need for more vigorous and determined leadership among personnel of both board and department; and (5) providing the board with some tools it needs to function properly. It is believed that this can be attained without complicating the situation by further dividing or fragmenting responsibility. II. The following plan is recommended (a) By statute, reduce the membership of the board to nine by eliminating the requirement of appointing one member from each judicial district. (b) This could be effected by terminating the terms of the presently serving 15 members at once. (This is legally permissible.) Or the reduction could be made gradually, as current terms expire. (c) A person of outstanding executive talent and drive, preferably with public relations experience, should fill the position of chairman of the board. (d) Although the board chairmanship should not necessarily be a full-time job, we recommend that this position be reasonably compensated, considering the time required and qualifications needed. Such a plan, it is felt, would be a means of tightening up social welfare legislative-executive relations, putting drive into the board and department and improving public relations. In this way, these objectives could be achieved by strengthening the board and protecting its important function as a balance wheel between private welfare, the State department, and the local districts. The board also should serve as a deterrent to certain types of doctrinaire thinking among career personnel. This plan underscores the major findings of this subcommittee-that vigorous, determined leadership is vital if anything is to be done as a start toward meeting the problems of public welfare today. At best, reorientation and visible results will take considerable time. Without strong and systematic leadership, together with cooperation at all levels, they will not happen at all. ILLINOIS PUBLIC AID COMMISSION, Mr. LEO H. IRWIN, Chief Counsel, Committee on Ways and Means, DEAR MR. IRWIN: In accordance with the invitation extended by Chairman Mills in his February 1 press release, announcing public hearings on H.R. 10032, "The Public Welfare Amendments of 1962," I am submitting herewith, for consideration of the committee and incorporation in the printed record of its hear ings, a statement setting out the position of the Illinois Public Aid Commission on this bill and its recommendations for certain changes which we feel are necessary if the bill is to accomplish its declared objectives. The minimum number of three copies is being furnished with this letter. However, we do desire distribution to the press and the interested public. For that purpose, the additional 60 copies you require will be mimeographed and forwarded to you tomorrow. Will you express to Chairman Mills and the members of the committee our very great appreciation of the opportunity given us to file this statement in lieu of a personal appearance. Most sincerely, PETER W. CAHILL, Executive Secretary. RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING H.R. 10032, THE PUBLIC WELFARE AMENDMENTS OF 1962, SUBMITTED FEBRUARY 13, 1962, BY PETER W. CAHILL, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, ILLINOIS PUBLIC AID COMMISSION Your committee is to be commended for its promptness in calling public hearings on H.R. 10032, the Public Welfare Amendments of 1962 and for urging the submittal of written testimony by persons and organizations unable to appear personally before you. This statement is submitted for your consideration, and for incorporation in the printed record of your hearings, in accordance with that invitation. Nearly one-half million people of the State of Illinois will be directly affected by the results of your deliberations on the bill before you. Countless others will be indirectly affected. We are therefore most grateful for the opportunity you have given us to register with you our position on this bill and to offer our suggestions for changes which we believe are necessary if the bill is to achieve fully the purposes declared in its preamble. The Illinois Public Aid Commission, which I represent, has responsibility for providing in Illinois all of the public aid and social welfare services which would be affected by this bill, with the exception of those services for children which are covered in title V of the Federal act. In Illinois, the latter services are currently discharged by the State department of mental health, this State being one of two atypical States which has not consolidated title V services in the State agency which discharges all other public social welfare functions. The commission is composed of seven representative citizens who are appointed by the Governor and who serve without pay, plus three State officers, serving ex officio-the State treasurer, the auditor of public accounts, and the State director of finance. The commission has responsibility under Illinois law for determining standards and the overall policies under which the Illinois public aid and social welfare programs are carried out in this State by a staff which the writer heads as executive secretary for the commission. Currently the commission is composed of Chairman C. Virgil Martin, Western Springs, president and director of Carson Pirie Scott & Co.; James M. Cleary, Winnetka, lawyer and former advertising executive of the Chicago Tribune; Mrs. Ivan A. Elliott, Sr., Carmi, civil leader; Samuel A. Gilpin, Ottawa, president, Illinois Office Supply Co.; Samuel A. Goldsmith, Chicago, executive vice president, the Jewish Federation of Chicago; Jefferson G. Ish, Jr., vice chairman, board of directors, Supreme Life Insurance Co. of America; William L. Rutherford, Peoria, lawyer; Michael J. Howlett, Chicago, auditor of public accounts; Francis S. Lorenz, Chicago, State treasurer; and James A. Ronan, Chicago, State director of finance. You will observe that this membership provides the State of Illinois with policy guidance and control which is not limited to professional administrative staff or to the philosophical bias of any single profession or vocation. The Commission is already on record as endorsing in principle, the redirection and reforms in Federal policy for the public social welfare services announced for the Kennedy administration by the Honorable Abraham Ribicoff, Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, prior to the introduction of H.R. 10032. This endorsement, together with our specific proposals for changes in the Federal law, are contained in a letter addressed to Secretary Ribicoff under date of January 19, 1962. A copy is appended as an attachment to this statement for incorporation as a part of that statement in the printed record of your committee's hearings on H.R. 10032. It will be clear to the committee from this letter to Secretary Ribicoff that Illinois recognizes as essential to our national strength and well-being continuation of the nationwide system of social welfare services which the States have provided for some 30 years in partnership with the Federal Government. By establishing an instrumentality for aiding the personal victims of the many and profound changes occurring in our society and economy, our State-Federal social welfare services have not only met the humanitarian obligations of a people committed to the supreme importance of the human person. These services have also fostered the continued growth of our free enterprise economy and enabled us to contain within manageable bounds those disruptive forces within and without our country that have elsewhere created severe social and political disorder. Illinois, however, believes, as also indicated in the letter to the Secretary, that these services must now be reorganized and redirected to place greater emphasis on prevention and reduction of dependency and social maladjustment, if they are to become effective instruments for meeting today's conditions. The bill before you makes a substantial beginning toward the reorganization and redirection of these vital public services. We therefore wish to register here our endorsement, in principle, of the bill, in particular the clear emphasis given in the first section of part A to preventive and rehabilitative services by the Federal Department; (2) inclusion in the coverage services which the States may provide to prevent dependency before it occurs and return to de pendency of former recipients; and (3) stimulation of development of these preventive and rehabilitative services by elevating the Federal share of administrative costs for such services from 50 to 75 percent, including the training of personnel employed or preparing for employment in the State and its local agencies administering the public social welfare services. We also welcome and endorse, as a stimulant to imaginative experimentation with new policies and procedures which might improve services and keep them in tune with changing needs and circumstances, the provision made in section 123 of the bill authorizing the waiver of State plan requirements for experimental pilot and demonstration projects where such waiver is likely to promote the objectives of the various programs. We do, however, question certain provisions of the bill which we believe will impede rather than advance the development of a unified and comprehensive program throughout the country, and certain other provisions which we believe introduce new inflexibilities in the Federal law which will hamstring the States in developing realistic as well as socially sound policies and procedures in the light of their particular needs and conditions. The provisions which we question are the following: 1. Overemphasis on children's services vis-a-vis services for adults We recognize the universal appeal of children in need of help if their full potential for development as our future citizens is to be realized, and the particular urgency of this concern in the light of the forces within our society that have led to the increasing incidence of family disorganization (reflected in our ADC program) and children presenting special problems of emotional disturbance or delinquency (reflected in our child welfare program). We believe, however, that the bill before you lays an unfortunate and unjustified foundation for intensifying the development of different philosophies and administrative structures for the children's services instead of fostering the long-overdue consolidation of all the public social services under a single administration at State, Federal, and local levels, thus providing a true family-centered approach embracing the adults as well as the children who may comprise the family grouping, and conserving public funds hitherto wasted on duplicating or overlapping administrative facilities. This unfortunate base for separatism, instead of consolidation and unification, is laid in the bill by providing for mere coordination instead of consolidation of the services for children in the Nation's largest child welfare program-the ADC program-and the child welfare services provided under title V of the Federal Act. This is then given further stress by the optional plan offered the States in the proposed new title XVI for combining into one program aid and services for the aged, the medically indigent aged, the blind, and the disabled, with Federal aid for the medical needs of the blind and the disabled elevated to the payment levels previously authorized for the indigent aged as an inducement to acceptance of the option. While the optional plan for the adult categories is a step toward elimination of categories and the simplification of administration which would follow upon such elimination, the advantages are more than overshadowed by the stimulus toward separatism that may follow upon the separation of the children's services from the services for adults. If a comprehensive and more effective system of public social welfare services is to come into being without further delay, the Federal Government should make a single grant to the States for public aid and social welfare services, including all types of public aid and all types of preventive and rehabilitative services including child welfare. It should be left to the States to decide whether to administer the program as a comprehensive program of aid and social welfare services or categorize the assistance and services by whatever groupings may be feasible under conditions within the State. 2. Gaps in extension of the ADC program We heartily endorse the permanizing of the provision made by Public Law 87-31 broadening the coverage of ADC to include children of the unemployed and children from ADC families placed in foster home facilities under court order because of unsuitable home conditions. We also wish to register here our endorsement of the provision made by H.R. 10032 in section 109 for including both parents in Federal matching and the provision made in section 152 for further extending the foster care placement provision to include children who are placed in institutional care. In the latter case, however, the language should be elaborated to establish safeguards to prevent unwarranted use of institutional care when this does not meet the child's needs and enhance his welfare. This point is called to your particular attention because the bill's provision in this regard has been opposed by some who fear coverage of children in need of institutional care may lead to wholesale building of institutions for custodial care, thus wiping out the gains achieved in child welfare since the first White House Conference of 1912 by the emphasis which has been placed on caring for children in their own homes with their own parents or, where necessary, in substitute homes with foster parents. The ADC amendatory provisions of the bill, however, fail to correct two unfortunate omissions in Public Law 87-31 which must be corrected if the broadened ADC program is to acheive the objective, now possible, of strengthening and keeping together all family groupings which contain minor children. The first of these omissions is failure to cover the parent or parents who have full-time employment but with earnings insufficient to provide minimum necessities for the family group. Failure to include supplementation of insufficient earnings operates as a disincentive to the adults to develop additional earning power and leaves families in this group with no alternative except the uncertainties of aid under the non-federally-aided general assistance program, which in some States is nonexistent. Provision has also not been made for including children between the ages of 18 and 21 if still in school. It is illogical as well as administratively indefensible to leave these youngsters out of the family group otherwise on ADC and expect them to be supported from general assistance, if general assistance is available in the community in which they live. More important than this, however, is that such inclusion is necessary to encourage schooling through and beyond the high school level, now increasingly required as a condition of employment in the advanced technology of modern industry. Significant numbers of today's unemployed are young people as well as older workers who have either failed to complete high school or to equip themselves beyond the high school level with the specialized skills required in the job openings that are now available. We urge your committee to amend H.R. 10032 to correct these two omissions in the coverage of title IV of the Federal act. 3. Impracticality of proposal for “protective payments” The proposal for "protective payments" in the dependent children program contained in section 107 of the bill, whereby under certain carefully circumscribed circumstances the States might make the cash grant to "another person who is interested in or concerned with the welfare of the child," not only is impractical and impossible to operate in any State which is heavily urbanized. It also introduces a new inflexibility which is worse than the current restriction of Federal grants to "money payments" and thus runs counter to the bill's preamble, declared in section 2, in which the public purpose of the bill is stated as providing "a new, constructive approach which recognizes State responsibility for development of realistic and sound public welfare programs and provides the States with more flexibility in developing such programs in the light of their particular needs and conditions.” Instead of this impractical and inflexible proposal, we recommend that all titles be amended to give the States authority to exercise a more effective role of management in appropriate cases of demonstrated inability to handle the cash grant under a State-developed plan, to be submitted to the Secretary for his approval, which would provide safeguards to protect the rights of the vast majority who are able to manage the money payment. 4. Failure to provide income incentives The provisions made in section 106 of the bill requiring the States to take into account "any expenses reasonably attributable to the earning of any such income" is essential if recipients who undertake to earn part of their needs are not to be penalized for their efforts. The provision, however, is by no means an incentive to earning income or to increasing earnings. We recommend, therefore, that the language of the bill be supplemented by additional language which would authorize the States, under plans to be approved by the Secretary, to provide for treatment of income by graduated scaling or other means which might stimulate the development of additional earnings and earning skills by recipients in all categories. 5. Reduction of residence requirement to 1 year We endorse the reduction in residence requirements to a uniform 1 year for all programs, but we do not believe that the minor additional Federal aid for abolition of all residence requirements will either stimulate such action on the part of the States or, more importantly, meet what we believe to be the clear Federal responsibility in a mobile society for meeting the essential needs of people who fall upon misfortune between the time they have left the State of their prior residence and the establishment of a year's residence in the State to which they have moved. On this point the committee's attention is directed to the proposal contained in item 6 on page 7 of our letter of January 19 to Secretary Ribicoff. Under this proposal, the Federal Government would finance 100 percent of the costs, under State administration, of aid given to persons residing in the State for less than 1 year with provision, if there is no problem of violation of civil rights, for resettlement of the person in the State of his origin or elsewhere if an assured and locally confirmed self-support opportunity has been developed there. Mobility of the population of these United States has characterized our country since its founding and has been one of the major factors creating our industrial growth and prosperity. The tempo of this mobility will and must necessarily increase under the impact of the great technological and industrial changes now occurring. Current settlement laws in the several States are carryovers from the period prior to the 1930's when the Federal Government did not participate in the State-local welfare programs. It is understandable why many of the States, especially those which are attracting large numbers of newcomers because of the growth in their job opportunities and the development of their edu-cational institutions and other community facilities, will continue to cling to their settlement laws so long as they must bear the major share of the entire cost of giving public aid to those among the newcomers who may fall upon misfortune before they have fully established their roots in the receiving community. Our proposal here constitute a long-overdue assumption by the Federal Government of its proper share of responsibility for promoting the national welfare by assisting the States in aiding the adjustment of those who move to better their employment and personal opportunities. A 100-percent federally financed but State administered program, under State standards, will distribute this responsibility fairly. May we again express our appreciation of the opportunity you have given us to register with you our position and recommendations on this bill. |