LRM MDH50 - - HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Testimony on Welfare Refo

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        LRM ID: MDH50
        EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
        OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET
        Washington, D.C. 20503-0001

        Monday, April 12, 1999

        LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL MEMORANDUM

        TO:    Legislative Liaison Officer - See Distribution below
        FROM:     Janet R. Forsgren (for) Assistant Director for Legislative
        Reference
        OMB CONTACT: Melinda D. Haskins
            PHONE: (202)395-3923 FAX: (202)395-6148
        SUBJECT: HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Testimony on Welfare Reform
        Implementation

        DEADLINE:  1 p,m. Tuesday, April 13, 1999
        In accordance with OMB Circular A-19, OMB requests the views of your
        agency on
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        the
        President.  Please advise us if this item will affect direct spending or
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        the
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        COMMENTS: The attached HHS (Golden) testimony will be delivered at a April
        14th
        hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on welfare reform
        implementation.

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        DEADLINE, WE
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LRM ID: MDH50 SUBJECT:   HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES   Testimony on Welfare
Reform
Implementation
RESPONSE TO
LEGISLATIVE REFERRAL
MEMORANDUM

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The following is the response of our agency to your request for views on
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above-captioned subject:

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HHS (GOLDEN) TESTIMONY FOLLOWS ---
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NAME       tribos.doc



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    Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee.                I am pleased to be here

    today to discuss welfare reform, especially as it relates to tribal families.   The Personal

    Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act ofl996 (PRWORA) focuses on

    work and critical supports for work (in particular child care and child support).      It offers

    tribes a range of important new choices in designing welfare, child care and child support

    programs that will provide the maximum opportunities to tribal families.         We have

    sought to work closely with tribes as they implement these provisions in the full spirit of

    government-to-government relationships.




    At the federal, state, tribal and community level, new relationships are being forged.

    Early findings of research conducted by Dr. Eddie Brown with the Washington

    University School of Social Work and funded by the Administration for Children and

    Families indicate that "communication, coordination, and collaboration among tribes,

    between tribes and states and tribes and the federal government has increased."

    Governments are collaborating with businesses, community organizations, transportation

    providers, the media and religious leaders to help move families to work. At the federal

    level, we are focused on helping tribes, states and communities move families to work, be



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     accountable for results, and develop and share information about effective practices.

     Together as partners, we must build upon these early efforts to find effective ways to

     improve the lives of children and families.




     Today, I would like to provide an overview of the changes made by welfare reform, child

     support and child care as they affect tribes and discuss the work we are doing to ensure

     that welfare reform is successful for tribes and tribal families.   While it is too early in the

     implementation of these programs to provide information on outcomes and results for

     tribal families, I would also like to use this opportunity to share some promising activities

     we are hearing about.




     Statutory Changes




     As I indicated, PRWORA made a number of significant changes that directly affect tribes

     and tribal families.




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    First, under welfare reform the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)

    program replaces the former Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program

    and provides States and tribes with unprecedented flexibility to design welfare programs

    to meet the particular needs of families in moving to work and self-sufficiency.   Tribal

    governments, at their option, may receive direct federal funding to independently design,

    administer, and operate the TANF program or may choose to allow States to continue

    providing these services to tribal families.




    In addition to the creation of T ANF under this reform legislation, the former Tribal

    JOBS program was replaced with the Native Employment Works (NEW) program.

    The NEW program provides funding for Tribes and inter-tribal consortia to design and

    administer tribal work activities that meet the unique employment and training needs of

    their populations while allowing states to provide all the other T ANF services.




    States and tribes that administer their own T ANF or NEW programs have the flexibility

    to design their programs, define who will be eligible, establish what benefits and services

    will be available, and develop their own strategies for achieving program goals, including




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how to help recipients become self-sufficient.    Further, PRWORA provided tribes with

expanded child care funding and broader authority to administer the child support

program.    Therefore, tribes can enter into new partnerships with states to        ensure that

tribal families receive the support services necessary to become self-sufficient.




How Statutory Changes are Affecting Tribal Programs




TRIBAL ADMINISTERED TANF AND NEW PROGRAMS




The new law specifically allows tribes to administer the T ANF program and in such cases

federal T ANF funds are allocated directly to the tribe.   While the law requires that tribes

meet certain goals in these programs, it also allows them to negotiate applicable work

participation rates with the Secretary, taking into account the limited resources and

employment opportunities available in the tribal community.




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Since the President signed PRWORA in 1996, we have provided considerable assistance

to the tribes and have approved 19 tribal TANF programs.         These TANF programs

involve 62 Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Villages, and operate in 12 states.      The

programs are serving approximately 3,500 families, or over 13,500 individuals.       There

are an additional seven plans pending which would involve an additional 78 tribes and

villages and affect over 35,000 more people.




Supported by HHS policy, all 12 states in which tribes are operating their own T ANF

program are providing some form of       funding assistance to the tribes, similar to the

maintenance of effort dollars supporting State programs.       Nine states are providing

matching funds (Oregon, Arizona, California, Wyoming, Washington, Alaska, Idaho,

Minnesota and Montana).      The remaining three states are providing other resources such

as computers, staff training, and connection to their state reporting systems.    In addition,

several states have out-stationed state employees to these tribal T ANF programs to assist

in eligibility assessments of TANF applicants for other state services.




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Tribes are afforded even greater flexibility than states in designing their programs and like

states are making varied choices to meet their own unique circumstances.        Time limits

on benefit receipt vary:   17 plans allow for 60 months of benefits, with the remaining

two providing 84 months.      Under the work requirements, participation rates and the

number of hours of work required per week also vary from plan to plan.          Four tribes

adopted th~ same participation rates the law requires of states (25 percent in the first year,

increasing to 50 percent by the fifth year for all families and 75 percent in the first year,

increasing to 90 percent in the third year for two-parent families).    These tribes also

adopted the same minimum work requirements States are subject to meet.           The

remaining tribes exercised their option to negotiate different rates of participation and

work hours and adopted a fairly wide range of rates.




Tribes have developed a variety of service strategies that respond to the unique

circumstances of each community.       One tribe used casino revenues to build an

"Independent Life Skills Center," to house the Tribal TANF program.          This center also

provides classrooms, a computer learning lab, a secure records facility, office space, and a

children's play area for use by TANF recipients.     Another tribe, with joint funding

provided by the TANF program and the Bureau of Indian Mfairs, provides a "One-Stop"

and a "point of contact" service center for applicants requesting assistance and maintains a




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toll free 24-hour voice mail service which can be utilized by TANF recipients and service

providers alike in serving recipients living in remote areas.




Under the NEW program, the statute restricts eligibility to tribes and Alaska Native

organizations that were operating JOBS programs in FY 1995.           Currently, all 78

eligible tribal grantees are operating NEW programs.       Total funding for these programs

is $7.6 million per year with a significant variation in the size of the individual grants

(ranging from just over $5,000 to $1.7 million).




STATE ADMINISTERED TANF PROGRAMS




In the remaining areas of the country, tribal families are served by state TANF programs.

 In these areas, tribal communities and tribal members are subject to the same

responsibilities and eligible for the same opportunities that a state elects for its population

at large.   As we learn more about the effect these service design choices are having on

tribal families, we certainly will share this information with the Committee.     This type of

outcome data is particularly important in light of the unique challenges to self-sufficiency


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faced by tribal families related to high unemployment and lack of transportation and child

care assistance.




As a start in gathering this critical data, in FY 1997, ACF approved a five-year research

and evaluation project entitled "Welfare to Work:    Monitoring the Impact of Welfare

Reform on American Indian Families with Children."        The overall purposes of this

longitudinal study are to monitor and document the implementation, and assess the

impact, of welfare reform on American Indian families and reservations in Arizona

resulting from the state and tribal responses to TANF.     Extensive demographic,

contextual, socio-economic and case-level data will be compiled from a variety of sources,

including administrative records, tribal documents, interviews and site visits.




One of the preliminary findings of the study is that many tribes while interested in

self-administration of the program, are unsure about the best strategy to follow.   They

are interested in learning form the experiences of other tribes in order to examine their

options and make informed choices.




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On another front, a component of HHS's evaluation of the Department of Labor's

Welfare to Work Grant program will examine what activities and services tribes provide,

and how various tribal programs are coordinated at the localleve!.




CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND CHILD CARE




Child support enforcement is an essential part of welfare reform efforts. The child support

program locates non-custodial parents, establishes paternity, establishes and enforces

support orders, and collects child support payments from those who are legally obligated

to pay.    Payment of child support can help a family to leave welfare or combined with

other income, reduce the need for single parent families and their children rely on welfare

in the first place.




Welfare reform enables tribes to operate their own child support enforcement programs

for the first time.   PRWORA authorizes direct funding of tribal child support programs,

and with respect to tribes that do not seek this opportunity, includes improvements to

facilitate tribal-state agreements that provide for cooperative delivery of child support




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     services in Indian country.   This added flexibility provides significant opportunities for

     tribes and for Indian children and families:     tribal governments can choose to plan and

     implement child support programs that meet the unique needs of tribal communities and

     improve the delivery of child support services in Indian country.




     As I will discuss later in my testimony, we are reviewing the results of an extensive

     consultation process which will lead to regulations that implement direct tribal child

     support funding.    In the meanwhile, although tribes are not yet operating programs

     under the broad direct funding approach the law now allows, we are seeing some

     promising results from early state-tribal cooperative agreements and tribal demonstration

     grants.


     _   Cooperative Agreements.      Tribes such as the Navajo Nation and the

         Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe are entering cooperative agreements with their states,

         enabling them to carry out tribal child support enforcement and receive funding and

         other support through the states' programs.      As a result of their cooperative

         agreements with the State of New Mexico and Arizona, the Navajo Nation has seen a

         big shift in child support collections.    The Navajo Nation began child support

         enforcement in New Mexico in 1994.          Before then, there had been almost no child

         support collection on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico.         In 1998, there was

         $500,000 in child support collections under the tribe's child support program ill New

         Mexico.




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   Tribal Demonstrations.      Some tribes are designing child support programs with the

    support of our planning and demonstration grants-"Section 1115" grants, Special

    Improvement Project grants, and tribal planning grants.     Currently, the Chickasaw

    Nation, Colville Confederated Tribes, Puyallup Tribe, Lac du Flambeau Band of

    Chippewa, Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes, and the State of

    Wisconsin and Menominee Tribe receive this discretionary grant funding.        We are

    learning from these projects, sharing information, and identifying issues and technical

    assistance needs, to help ensure that tribes are able to operate successful child support

    programs.    Other tribes will benefit from the knowledge gained from these special

    grant programs.




The third programmatic area I will focus on today is child care.     Child care is' extremely

important to the well-being of our Nation's children and to their parents' ability to work

and maintain employment. and thus a vital supportive service to welfare reform efforts.

The Clinton Administration is dedicated to providing support and resources to ensure

healthy, safe, affordable child care settings that are so desperately needed to help parents

work and help children develop to their full potential and become ready for schoo!.




The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) as amended by PRWORA,

assists low-income families and those transitioning off welfare to obtain child care so they

can work or attend training/education.    PRWORA amended the CCDBG to bring

together, for the first time, four federal child care subsidy programs thereby allowing



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states and tribes to design a comprehensive, integrated service delivery system to meet the

needs of low-income families.




Specifically, the law requires a one to two percent tribal set-aside of the aggregate funding

and allows tribes or tribal organizations to use program funds for construction or

renovation purposes as long as it will not result in a decrease in the level of child care

services.




The Secretary has allocated two percent of     CCDBG funds for tribes, doubling the

amount of child care funds made available to the tribes since FY 1996.      In FY 1999

tribes received $63 million, compared to the $28 million received in FY 1996.        In FY

1999, 254 tribal grantees, representing approximately 500 Federally recognized Indian

Tribes and Alaska Native Villages, were awarded child care grants.




Tribes receive CCDBG funding either directly or through consortia arrangements.

According to preliminary 1997 data, 18,755 children were served by tribal childcare

grantees.   The majority of these children have working parents (77 percent) or a

parent(s) in training or educational programs (19 percent).     The remaining 4 percent

were in protective services.   Their income levels vary with 63 percent at or below the

poverty level; 26 percent above poverty but below 150 percent of poverty; 8 percent

above 150 percent; and 3 percent above 200 percent of the poverty level.




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I would point out that our efforts to increase the supply and availability of child care are

ongomg.     The President has unveiled a comprehensive package of child care proposals

that includes significant increases in child care funding to help working families.     Beyond

the tax credits and school-age child care funding in the Departments of Treasury and

Education, $10.5 billion in additional funding, over 5 years, is targeted for HHS child

care programs:


_   A five year $7.5 billion increase in the subsidy funding for child care which, when

    combined with funds from welfare reform, will increase the number of children

    receiving child care assistance by more than 1 million to a total of 2.4 million.    The

    tribal set-aside provided under law will ensure that this increase in funding serves to

    benefit State and tribal child care programs alike.




_   An Early Learning Fund      proposed at $3 billion over five years    which will, for the

    first time, specifically devote funding to communities to enhance the quality and

    availability of care, with a focus on promoting school readiness for children through

    age five.




I'd like to now turn to ACF's outreach, consultation, and technical assistance efforts to

work with tribes on these historic legislative changes


Outreach, Consultation, and Technical Assistance




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In increasing the flexibility available to states and Tribes to design their own welfare

reform programs, PWRORA changed the Federal role from one of policy approval to

one that focuses on hands-on support through outreach, technical assistance, and the

dissemination of promising practices, as well as accountability, research, and evaluation.

In this concluding section, I would like to highlight what we have learned and

accomplished so far through consultation, outreach, and technical assistance with our

tribal partners and offer a few notes about the next steps that lie ahead.




Our goals, in keeping with this new role and with the gove'mment-to-govemment

relationship that is central to our work with tribes, are to consult broadly and to provide

information that can assist    tribes in making the wide range of choices that they face

about the most effective ways to assist tribal members in becoming self-sufficient.    To

help inform these decisions, we have been working with our tribal partners to provide

information about the statute, about policy choices, and about       promising practices and

service delivery strategies.   We have also worked to bring people together so that they

can share their own expertise, talk about problems and potential solutions, and then

develop strategies.




Outreach and Consultation.




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In the development of the Tribal TANF Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM),

which was published on July 22,1998, we sought to undertake a broad consultation

strategy prior to drafting the proposed rules.      To better inform our policy-making

efforts, we held dozens of conferences, consultations and meetings with representatives of

tribal, state and local governments, as well as soliciting input through a letter.   An

extended comment period (through November 20, 1998) was provided on the proposed

rule at the request of commenters and as a result a considerable number of comments

were received from Tribes as well as the National Congress of American Indians.           We

expect to publish the final rule this fall.




We continue to look for ways to strengthen and improve our consultation process.          As

we work on development of regulations implementing the tribal child support program,

we further intensified our outreach efforts.     Six consultations were held in 1998 to obtain

tribal input in developing the regulations in Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Minnesota,

Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.          Each consultation included an overview of the

national CSE program, followed by tribal input on the tribal program and regulations.

In addition, we established a toll-free "800" number for comments and questions, and we

continue to consult with a resource group of interested and knowledgeable tribal

representatives.   The input we have received is extremely valuable in helping to inform

our rulemaking efforts currently underway.       We anticipate publication of the regulations

later this year.



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We are committed to continuing and improving our consultation with tribes as welfare

reform evolves.   In addition to our work within ACF, we are coordinating with the

broader tribal consultation strategy conducted by HHS, which has included listening

sessions nationwide as well as the scheduled appointment of a staff specialist   in the

Office of the Secretary who will focus exclusively on tribal affairs.




Technical Assistance and Information Dissemination


In addition, we have been involved in providing technical assistance on a number of

fronts:




    With respect to TANF, we have sponsored five Promising Practices National

    Conferences and there was tribal representation at each.     At the Phoenix conference,

    a representative from the Center for American Indian Studies presented on the

    "Reaching All Families" plenary panel as well as in the "Low Job Skills" workshop,

    where tribal issues were discussed.



_   To build on this work, later in April, we are planning a 2-day workshop in Denver to

    bring together Region VIII States, Tribes and Tribal Community Colleges.         This

    workshop is being designed to share information and best practices, strengthen the


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     Tribes' role in welfare reform, improve StatefTribal working relationships and increase

     collaboration/networking between and among States, Tribes, and Tribal Community

     Colleges.




_    The Administration for Native Americans within ACF has provided resources to

     support technical assistance, as well.    For example, ANA provided $1.2 million for

     five grants to support efforts to develop and disseminate information on TANF,

     including convening workshops and meetings with tribes to inform them about

     TANF.       Additional collaborative work among ACF programs is planned for the

     future including comprehensive strategic planning conferences addressing social

     services and economic development.




_    The Office of Child Support Enforcement issued briefing packages on the program

    , and legislative changes to ensure that tribes could be fully engaged in consultation

     meetings.    The office also published and sent to all federally recognized tribes a

     publication, "Strengthening the Circle:     Child Support for Native American

     Children."    This publication describes the new opportunities for tribal CSE programs

     and intergovernmental partnerships to meet the needs of tribal children and families.




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    In Phase II of its contract with the Native American Management Services, Inc.,

    OCSE and NAMS are designing technical assistance plans for tribal child support

    demonstration grantees.     At an initial meeting with grantees held recently, tribal

    participants identified problems and areas of need both specific to their tribes as well

    as problems and areas of need shared by tribes in general.        This information will be

    used to develop technical assistance materials for tribes under cooperative agreements

    with States and for tribes planning on administering their own child support

    programs.




_   With respect to child care, in January 1998, we awarded a three-year contract to

    establish and operate a Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center (TriTAC).

    TriTAC assists tribal grantees in child care capacity building efforts through the

    following major activities:a tribal child care home page; a toll-free information and

    referral line; a software package to assist with program reporting; a newsletter; and an

    annual tribal conference.        A database of effective program strategies is also being

    developed.




    In conjunction with TriTAC, we are currently making plans to hold several           training

    sessions across the country for tribal child care grantees.    The purpose of this special

    training is to focus on one or two topic areas that have been identified by tribal




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   grantees, but not covered in depth at the National American Indian/Alaska Native

   Child Care Conference, or at ACF regional meetings.




Again, we look forward to building on these technical assistance strategies, and we will

seek to be responsive as welfare reform evolves and the needs of tribes change over time.




CONCLUSION




Our goal in welfare reform is enabling families to move to work and to succeed at work

over the long haul.     To accomplish this goal, we are eager to continue working with our

tribal and State partners to support their design of T ANF, child care, and child support

programs that will make the most difference to families.      We look forward to building

on the extraordinary creativity and commitment that tribal leaders have already

demonstrated and on the       positive first steps that we have already   taken together   to

share information, to consult, and to provide technical assistance and support in the spirit

of the government-to-government relationship with tribes.We know that in addition to

working internally to coordinate our efforts with the tribes, we also must work with our




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other Federal partners and the Congress to address the serious economic and social

problems faced by tribes.   We are committed to     building on these early steps and

working together to see increasing numbers of tribal members improve their lives and

become self-sufficient.




Thank you Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement.       I would be pleased to

respond to any questions you or members of the committee may have.




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