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Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
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Collection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,
1966-74: Press Unit
Folder Title: [Welfare] - Management Study -
Alameda County Welfare Department,
11/11/1971 (1 of 4)
Box: P39
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Management Study
Alameda County Welfare Department
A Contract Consulting Service of:
California Taxpayers' Association
718 Eleventh and L Building
Sacramento, California 95814
ALAMEDA COUNTY WELFARE
TASK FORCE
MANAGEMENT STUDY
ALAMEDA COUNTY WELFARE DEPARTMENT
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
FOR
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
COUNTY OF ALAMEDA
Honorable Robert E. Hannon
Supervisor, District 2
Chairman
Honorable John D. Murphy
Honorable Joesph P. Bort
Supervisor, District 1
Supervisor, District 4
Honorable Fred F. Cooper
Honorable Emanuel P. Razeto
Supervisor, District 3
Supervisor, District 5
Mr. Earl R. Strathman
County Administrator
ALAMEDA COUNTY WELFARE TASK FORCE STUDY COMMITTEE
Mr. Leon K. Rimov, Albany - Chairman
Member
Representing
Rev. T. J. Alam
City of Fremont
Mrs. Arnold V. Baranco
City of Oakland
Mrs. Beatrice Bedoya
At Large
Mr. Edward J. Collins
Labor
Mr. Enrico Del' Osso
Welfare Commission
Mr. John P. Engstrom
City of Emeryville
Mrs. Burrell H. Grigsby
City of Newark
Mr. Richard S. Haas
City of Berkeley
Mr. Charles M. Heath
Council of Social Planning
Mrs. Charles Henderson
State Legislative Delegation
Mr. George H. Horton
City of Oakland
Mr. Charles C. Kehrlein
Metropolitan Oakland Conference
Mr. Laurence D. Kelly
City of Piedmont
Mr. Burton W. Lewis
At Large
Mr. Robert J. Minton
City of Alameda
Mr. Tom Neveau
City of Hayward
Mr. George Oren
City of San Leandro
Mrs. Frances Rousseau
City of Union City
Mr. Joseph E. Schwab
City of Pleasanton
Mrs. Carl Schweickert
City of Livermore
TASK FORCE STAFF
Arlen K. Bean
Richard P. Simpson
California Taxpayers' Association
TASK FORCE SUBCOMMITTEES
Administration Subcommittee
Mr. John P. Engstrom, Mr. Charles C. Kehrlein, Mr. Burton W. Lewis, Mr. Tom
Neveau, Mr. George Oren.
Eligibility Subcommittee
Rev. T. J. Alam, Mr. Enrico Del'Osso, Mrs. Burrell H. Grigsby, Mr. Laurence
D. Kelly, Mrs. Frances Rousseau.
Program Subcommittee
Mr. Edward J. Collins, Mr. Richard S. Haas, Mr. Charles M. Heath, Mr. George
H. Horton, Mr. Leon K. Rimov.
Social Services Subcommittee
Mrs. Arnold V. Baranco, Mrs. Beatrice Bedoya, Mrs. Charles Henderson, Mr.
Robert J. Minton, Mrs. Carl Schweickert, Mr. Joseph E. Schwab.
200
CALIFORNIA TAXPAYERS' ASSOCIATION
ELEVENTH AND L BUILDING
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 95814
916 / 443-8163
STATE-WIDE. NONPOLITICAL
August 31, 1971
Alameda County Welfare Task Force
Oakland, California
Attention: Leon K. Rimov, Chairman
Subject: Management Study,
Alameda County Welfare
Department
Ladies and Gentlemen:
In accordance with a resolution of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors
dated October 27, 1970, and a subsequent agreement between the county and
California Taxpayers' Association dated December 8, 1970, submitted herewith
is a report of findings and recommendations relative to management practices
and other matters in the Alameda County Welfare Department.
As directed and reviewed by you in your several months of study, the report
which follows is in response to the charges to the Task Force by the Board of
Supervisors in their October 27 resolution.
It has been a pleasure to serve the Task Force. The people of Alameda County
owe you a debt of gratitude for the many long hours you devoted to review of
these problems. You have been an active, interested study group, reflecting
a wide spectrum of political and social viewpoints, but with one common con-
cern: the quality of management in the Alameda County Welfare Department.
We would also like to report to the Task Force and the Board of Supervisors
that we, as study staff, enjoyed a spirit of cooperation from Alameda County
Welfare Department staff at all levels that is without parallel in our ex-
perience with studies such as this. While conclusions or judgments in this
report are the exclusive responsibility of the Task Force and staff, it should
be obvious that an effort of this magnitude could not have been accomplished
without substantial assistance from within the Department. The Board of Super-
visors should also know that the staff of the County Administrator, County
Auditor, District Attorney, and Probation Department were also quite helpful
in various ways during this study.
Alameda County Welfare Task Force
August 31, 1971
Page 2
Specific mention should be made of the invaluable contributions of Miss Linda
Furst, a former eligibility supervisor with the Department, who was of particu-
lar assistance in providing informational material on eligibility, absent
parent, and fraud processes in the Department.
As the size of this document suggests, its very production has been no small
endeavor. At one time or another, this work involved most of the clerical
and publications staff at Cal-Tax offices in Sacramento. Mrs. Joan Strande
transcribed all working drafts and most of the final draft of this report,
and was assisted in final stages by Mrs. Lee Applegate and Miss Jane Snodgrass.
Reproduction and assembly was very capably handled under the direction of
Carl Hirai, who was assisted by Mrs. Adeline Nicholas and Miss Ruth Okawa.
Very truly yours,
anem k Rean
ARLEN K. BEAN
Director of Research
RPSimpson
RICHARD P. SIMPSON
Regional Director Local Affairs
AKB:RPS:la
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
i
List of Recommendations
ix
I.
Administration of Eligibility and Income Maintenance
1
II.
Medical Eligibility
60
III.
Overpayments and Caseload Validations
72
IV.
Social Services
89
V.
Training
125
VI.
Fraud Control
147
VII.
Securing Support From Absent Parents
161
VIII.
The Planning Process
175
IX.
The Organization Plan
191
X.
Work Incentive Program/Employment Rehabilitation Service
244
APPENDICES
A.
Intake Application Process For AFDC
B.
Typical Examples of Eligibility Errors Found in Sample of 100 Adult
Cash Grant Cases
C.
Social Service in Alameda County: A Research Report
D.
New ACWD Procedure Re: Absent Parents
E.
Eligibility Technician Questionnaire
INTRODUCTION
One of the most vexatious ironies that emerges from the American
public welfare experience of the 1960's is that almost every major change
that was launched to make the system more effective and efficient or cause it
to wither away only ended P costing more money. The hope of counseling
people out of poverty in 1962, as modified by the separation of eligibility
and social service functions in 1967, has been replaced in 1971 with the
prospect of federalization of welfare under The Family Assistance Plan. It
remains to be seen whether FAP will be any more successful in an incidental
reduction of administrative costs, eligibility complexities, mismanagement,
fraud, and other factors that go to make up the "welfare problem." We say
"incidental" here because FAP is not seriously promoted as a device to reduce
administrative costs. In light of the failure of previous major policy changes,
it is well that our current national economic problems now give us an added
year to review FAP and project some of its effects in the important area of
program management.
Welfare is not self-liquidating. We do not see how it can ever
be. Its liquidation depends upon important events outside the welfare system
in the economy and the employment market. Public welfare is likely to be
with us for some time to come, and - unfortunately - will probably grow (in
spite of the current drop, or stabilization, of caseloads). Thus, if it is
important now to consider internal organization and management of welfare,
it will be even more important in the future.
It is part of the liturgy leading to almost every major change in
welfare policy to speak of the absurdity and complexity of the welfare system
and to "view with alarm" its tragic effects upon recipients, workers, and
taxpayers, and to call for radical "reform." It now seems to us, after the
fairly rare experience of almost a year "inside" a major urban welfare depart-
ment that the semantically inflated language of welfare reform is hardly
relevant to the real world of welfare management.
The focus of reform must be upon improving the integrity of the
situation in which the client and the system come together. "Reform" must
be capable of translation so that it makes sense to an AFDC recipient and a
22-year old eligibility technician in the confines of a welfare department
interview room or in a home call. In welfare management terms, this is the
terrible, simple, final test of all welfare legislation and regulation and
all of the organizational support systems -- from the welfare director on down.
The new focus of "reform" is now upon shifting the jurisdiction
for operation of the welfare program. What this means presently is trans-
ferring a management mess from one level of government to another. With all
that is said critically about welfare management in this report, we must
nevertheless acknowledge that the real welfare expertise -- at least in
i
California -- is at the county level. In light of the internal disruptions
that can occur from mere regulation change, it is mind-boggling to consider
the almost inevitable consequences of transferring welfare from the profes-
sionals in our cities, counties, and states to relative amateurs at the
federal level. It may be well for Californians - particularly in light of
our national share of income tax dollars exported for federal programs --
to look very closely at the federal proposal in its implications for ad-
ministrative costs.
Shipping welfare off to Washington is not, in itself, a panacea
to management problems. By the same token, there is no reason to believe
that the federal government could not improve welfare management processes --
it sometimes takes a major shakeup to achieve the flexibility needed for
change. (It really would not require a federalization of welfare to
facilitate -- federally -- improvements in welfare management). There is
also no reason to assume that management processes cannot be improved at
the county level, within existing law and regulation, and that has been our
perspective in this study of Alameda County Welfare. Whoever handles welfare,
it must be understood that there can be no escape, finally, from the respon-
sibility for effective management. Once this is understood and acted upon,
we think it is possible to be hopeful not only about welfare's manageability,
but perhaps even about its neutralization as a devisive force in American
society and as a favored weapon of political demagoguery.
This Task Force was commissioned with the charge to answer eight
questions. As important as the questions may be, it was not possible for
the Task Force to organize its inquiry in a manner that would lead to a
direct response to them. Yet, we think generalized answers to them did evolve
from the examination we made of the management and administrative processes
by which the welfare programs are delivered and controlled. All of the
questions were studied in the context of how they interfered with some of the
administrative processes we found essential in controlling the grants.
The critical point in question one,* * for example, does not turn on
a problem of conformity SO much as it does on a need for more clarification
of existing regulations. Our discussion of policy and procedure manuals in
Chapter I of the report, and our chapter on fraud control, discuss some of
the implications of this finding. It is our opinion that the regulations
which come from the state are loosely written, ambiguous and without a
great deal of local interpretation, are not suitable for use by the line or-
ganization.
The regulations appear to us to be poorly researched and often
contradictory to other regulations still in effect or to other judicial
decisions. The regulations come to the county in an unmanageable, over-
whelming number and many of them are rescinded or modified almost as soon
as they are received. Many are of an emergency nature and should have been
put into effect months before. It took almost three months to clarify one
important regulation dealing with the way stepfather income was to be counted.
We were told that over twenty requests were submitted to the state for clari-
*See Page vii for list of questions.
ii
fication which finally resulted in a basically different regulation being
prepared than what was originally issued.
In our discussion of assistance planning on Page 53, we discuss
the state's response in the development of one regulatory budget procedure
which we consider absolutely essential to the proper control of grants.
Since that piece of the report was written, the state has announced a pilot
project in Stanislaus County of assistance planning. That is the latest of
about five other similar pilot projects which have been running for a number
of years. There is still not an approved budget procedure after 13 years.
The Task Force contends that reliable grant administration is
impossible without strong, thorough, eligibility investigations. Yet, the state
has accused the county of overinvestigating (see Page 21). In our chapter
on fraud control we cite the pertinent regulation covering investigation. We
challenge anyone to give a precise interpretation to that investigative
policy and to say what can or cannot be done under it, or to say when a
county is or is not in conformity with its intent. An entire study could be
devoted to this one question. We believe the selective examples we have dis-
cussed related to investigations and screeners are highly representative of
the overall problem we find with existing regulations. The ones we mention
in the study are only those which had a direct bearing on one of the critical
administrative processes that relate to management.
As a summary answer to questions one and two, we believe it is
impossible to assess whether counties are in conformance with state regula-
tions because the regulations themselves are so indefinite that they cannot
be precisely interpreted. In reviewing some of the work which a special
Task Force at the state level has done on the same question, we felt they
reached the same conclusion. That is one of the main reasons we find for so
many administrative matters having to be resolved by the courts. That is
a tragic waste of our judicial system.
The best management is the one that can interpret and adapt to
regulations with a minimal amount of organizational upheaval and, at the same
time, assure that the proper amount of aid goes to those who properly de-
serve it and to no others. That is no mean task. To do that a county might
have to break strict conformity with the ill-defined philosophical intent of
some state regulations but that is not the same as being out of conformity,
except as a court may rule.
That is why we recommended, for instance, that the county adopt
a form of assistance planning in defiance to what the state has said about
not approving assistance planning. To the extent that state regulations
interfere with having strong fiscal controls, it is our opinion that the best
management may be one which is not in strict conformance with the state. The
Task Force is quite satisfied by now that the critical aspects of good administra-
tive practice cannot be developed by regulations regardless of how detailed
they become or how many of them are published. Regardless of how much improve-
ment is made in the preparation of state regulations, they can never be con-
sidered a substitute for inadequate management. If the improvements discussed
in this study are made, it will be because of manager ent not state or
federal regulations.
iii
Question three in the charge asked whether social workers were
representing the county or serving the clients through extra legal means.
To answer this, one has to first ask whether there are any social services
which can be performed under the broad amorphous social services mandate,
which are illegal. Our answer is that the present definition of social
services is so general and vague that almost any conceivable service can be
provided. One may disapprove of some of them, but that does not make them
illegal.
Except for about three specific services relating to WIN re-
ferrals, child protection, and money management cases, the whole state and
federal social service mandate cannot be specifically interpreted. All we
can read into it is a philosophical wish to provide any service that may
assist in the psychological or material well-being of the recipient. In
short, social service programs are what counties choose to make them. Again,
many services may be irrelevant, but it would be hard to find any which are
illegal.
The piece of research the Task Force subcontracted on social ser-
vices to the Scientific Analysis Corporation fell far short of our expecta-
tions. We honestly admit that the design of the research project the staff
accepted was weak and superficial and did not lead to findings which would
give clear directions in formulating a social service program appropriate
for this county. In framing the recommendations we did make about social
services we drew as heavily upon one pilot experiment in the Family Services
Division as we did the work of Scientific Analysis Corporation because it
was conceptually a much better project than ours.
Our general conclusion we reached is that social services can
and must be specified and quantified as a preliminary step to managing them
and making intelligent determinations on the range of services which should
be provided within a welfare agency. We believe the department's own re-
search will lead eventually to a more limited group of services than is now
being provided.
The important issue involved in question three does not relate
so much to the legality of the social services performed as it does to the
benefit they have to the recipients. The only significant finding in the
Scientific Analysis Corporation study was that the perception of social
services between the clien+ the agency are as different now, after separa-
tion, as they were before In light of the understanding we have now of
social services, we realize that was to be expected and we should have
accepted it as an assumption instead of a fundamental premise for further
research. In any case, the knowledge that clients perceive social services
differently than social workers is not useful in determining the set of
social services which should be provided in this department, which is the
real problem to be confronted.
iv
As admirable and idealistic as present social service concepts
and goals are, the Task Force challenges the assumptions about the value of
traditional casework as a way of alleviating poverty. We do so because we
find so little evidence of its effectiveness or success.
A new strategy for social services must come from a realistic
and studied appraisal of community needs. County departments must also make
an honest reassessment of the service needs which can be met within a welfare
department, recognizing the organizational limitations they have and the real
qualifications of the social service practitioners. The department's office
for resource development is not admirably equipped to do this now and the
basic organization structure of the department as yet fails to reflect the
administrative adjustments that should have been made as a consequence of
separating social services from Income Maintenance some time ago. Social
services are now in a position for the first time to be evaluated independ-
ently from Income Maintenance.
So far as question three may have applied to eligibility workers,
we find again that the major problems do not involve workers acting illegally
but acting without proper training, inadequate supervision, poor or confused
investigative requirements, and without explicit performance standards on
home calls, renewals or field work, which are the substantive parts of the
eligibility job.
We have suggested that it will be far more productive for Manage-
ment to attack these problems than it will questions of legality in eligibility.
Administrative regulations are terribly vague and in a depart-
ment this large it should be assumed that there will be tendencies to apply
all shades of interpretation to regulations which are not clear and specific.
This is a reality of welfare and it is Management's job to insure that its
interpretation is the one applied by the only means it can. That is to say,
by supervision, its reporting systems, validation process, performance standards
and its training programs. These are the aspects of Management we have
addressed ourselves to in this study.
Our response to question four is that with possibly three or four exceptions,
every one of the 66 recommendations in the study can be adopted without
federal or state approval. Most of the recommendations go to the Income Main-
tenance side of welfare and each will directly or indirectly help reduce
costs because it will improve the reliability and the effectiveness of the
administrative process by which all money grants are controlled. We be-
lieve our recommendations will help to reduce the number of overpayments,
underpayments, and incorrect eligibility determinations which were the kind of
mistakes which lead to the creation of this study in the first place. In
addition, we believe it will lead to better accountability at all levels of
the organization. The measures of Management performance in a welfare depart-
ment are quite evident, we think, and we have tried to suggest what several
of them are.
V
Cost reductions inside welfare departments can almost be guaranteed
when the ratio of denials to applications is as high as possible, when re-
newals are done promptly, when there is considerable field contact between
the client and the agency, when the maximum number of home calls are made,
and when thoroughly documented eligibility investigations are done. These
are the only effective means available to a county in controlling caseload
growth and the federal and state governments have very little to do with any
of it.
It is the Task Force's finding that the incidence of both legal
abuses and fraud, which were the subject of questions five and six, are again
the direct consequence of how well the administrative functions mentioned
above are performed. By our definition, a legal abuse is an incorrect
eligibility determination. A fraudulent act is an incorrect eligibility
determination deliberately caused by the recipient. The Task Force is per-
suaded that it is futile and wasteful to try to do much about either type
of mistake after they occur as far as the financial recovery is concerned.
The only hope of minimizing the incidence of legal abuses or fraud is again
by doing good intake and ongoing eligibility work at all times.
Question seven - The logic behind our recommendations on organ-
ization was to first, create a structure that would fully and completely
separate social services from what is now, without any question, the princi-
pal concern of welfare departments -- Income Maintenance. Secondly, we have
tried to propose an organization plan that causes Management Services to be
pulled up out of the line organization and places them as close to the
Director as possible. We have created a new Department of Management and
specified a much stronger planning capability as one of its principal functions.
We proposed this new department hoping it will work to increase the reach and
broaden the scope and power of Management generally. To implement the plan
and create some of the staffing changes and additions which are called for
will require a great measure of cooperation and understanding among the
Board of Supervisors, the County Administrator and the Civil Service Commission.
As long and as heavy as it is, this study is still a very general report. We
have identified many problems, but to implement any of the recommendations,
much further analysis must be done.
We hope that readers of the study can find their own answers to
question eight through a reading of the report because it is one question
that we avoided. We have written the study with a concern mainly as to what
must be done to create a responsible, effective Management in the welfare
department. We did not try to fix responsibility between different levels
of government except as they interfered with the management recommendations
that were the focus of our study.
If there is one message from this Task Force to take to the federal
government, however, it is to simplify the eligibility process. The whole idea
of making individualized grant determinations is the central administrative
eligibility problem in local welfare departments today. In spite of the
vi
enormous administrative costs associated with personally tailored grants,
they are still terribly inequitable and unfair to the recipients they are
supposed to help the most. Moreover, they have made efficient administration
an absolute impossibility. The best any welfare department can do is make
the best of what is really an intolerable grant concept. The notion that
individualized grants are necessary in order to meet unique needs of individual
recipients is probably the classic and most tragic example of where a high
sounding philosophical piece of social service planning went wrong.
This year's welfare reform legislation in California implies the
adoption of flat grants which have always been mentioned in conjunction
with grant simplification proposals. The Task Force agrees it is an improve-
ment to eliminate the maximum participation base in the computation of grants,
but welfare departments will still have to contend with all the special need
categories and the personalized grant that has always been so subjective and
the main source of eligibility problems. As we read this year's reform
legislation we can only conclude that our description of the eligibility
process in Appendix A would have to be expanded if it took into account all
the effects of SB 796
The adoption of a single adult category, which was included in
some of the early legislation, would have been of great value, but that was
eliminated. It is not surprising, however, to see the eligibility process
remain basically unchanged because the states are really quite powerless to
do very much about the basic restructuring of welfare that will make bona fide
grant simplification possible.
That comment brings us directly to the colossal impasse that has
prevented meaningful welfare reform for the last thirty years and libraries
are full of treatises about intergovernmental cooperation in the field of
welfare. As it drafts these concluding pages to the report, the Task Force
staff takes some small satisfaction in the knowledge that they only made this
one reference to governmental buck passing.
In addition to these introductory comments, the list of recommenda-
tions which follows is partially intended to serve as a summary of this
report.
These are the nine points which comprised the charge from the Board of
Supervisors to the Task Force:
1. Are there any areas where county procedures manuals are
not in conformity with state-federal laws and regulations?
2. What state regulations can be changed (coordinate with
current study at state level)?
vii
3. Are social workers representing the county and the law
or -- as charged -- attempting to serve clients through
extra-legal means? If the latter is true, what actions
are required to correct the situation?
4. In general, where are there any options available to the
county to reduce costs that are not prohibited by state
or federal law and regulations?
5. What recommendations should be made to eliminate "legal
abuses"?
6. What actions, if any, can be taken to reduce incidence
of fraud?
7. What organization changes should be made to make operation
more efficient?
8. Where does responsibility lie: To what degree? (a) Federal,
(b) State, (c) County Administration?
9. In the public's interest, the Task Force may investigate
any areas of welfare administration not covered in the
above eight (8) points.
viii
LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS
Recommendation
Subject
Page
Section I
Administration of Eligibility
and
Income Maintenance
1
The procedure for case transfers should be
7
revised.
2
There should be a determination by manage-
12
ment of standard components of case work;
there should be policy to insure department-
wide uniformity in case documentation and format.
3
All printed forms used in connection with
13
eligibility procedures should be approved by
the Assistant Director for Income Maintenance
for use throughout the agency.
4
Every recertification of eligibility should
16
be made with the benefit of a home call.
5
An income maintenance production report
16
presently in use in Family Services Division
should be adopted for department-wide use.
6
Eligibility investigations used in the depart-
22
ment before 1966 and as outlined in this report
should be reinstated.
7
A strong need for procedure and policy manuals
31
within the department must be preceded by a
greater standardization of common work tasks.
8
Handbooks and guideline information for use by
32
eligibility and clerical personnel should be
developed as suggested in this report.
9
There should be a study of departmental minimum
34
and maximum guidelines for child care and trans-
portation allowances.
10
The position of screeners should be restored
35
to the reception processes at branch offices.
ix
Recommendation
Subject
Page
11
Individual machine prepared grant budgets
46
should be discontinued and the county should
revert to a manual system of budget preparation
for all cases.
12
The county should reassess its automated budget
47
applications in light of experience in order to
determine whether they are a realistic data
processing application.
13
Future attempts at computer budgeting of welfare
49
grants should be only after an augmentation of
systems and programming staff to work exclusively
on the planning and development of new applica-
tions independent from any responsibility for
day-to-day maintenance of existing applications.
14
Each welfare application established as a data
50
processing objective should be allocated a time
table and a specific budget allocation.
15
In light of uncertainty regarding adoption of
57
statewide plans for assistance planning methods,
it is proposed that the county adopt a form of
assistance planning compatible with data
processing equipment and present budget procedure
regardless of State approval.
Section II
Medical Assistance
16
All Medi-Cal eligibility units should be
69
centralized in one division and given complete
responsibility for certifying both cash grants
and the Medi-Cal portion of the eligibility on
all cases which originate at the hospital.
Section III
Overpayments and Caseload
Validations
17
The county should not implement a conventional
78
validation program for AFDC.
18
In lieu of a conventional validations unit for
78
AFDC, the county should employ a two or three man
team of internal auditors assigned to the
Assistant Director for Management.
X
Recommendation
Subject
Page
19
In the event that the county should follow
84
an ongoing AFDC validation program over our
previous recommendation, it is recommended that
it be much more limited than that which is
currently done in the adult aid programs.
20
Providing a federal waiver can be obtained it
84
is recommended the county adopt AFDC statistical
sampling techniques developed by the State
Department of Finance.
21
The employee-recipient caseload should be trans-
88
ferred to one of the division offices and the
Assistant Welfare Director/Programs and the
validations section should be released from any
direct responsibility for employee cases.
Section IV
Social Services
22
It is imperative that further in depth research
102-103
in social services be conducted within the Alameda
County Welfare Department leading to a reorganiza-
tion of the social service delivery system. The
research and the reorganization should be directed
toward the following objectives:
a. The elimination of duplication and the
improved coordination in the provision of
social services by public and private agencies
in Alameda County;
b. The development of a department-wide
system of accounting for client requests
and social work responses;
C. The development of flexibility in deploying
service staff where needed, as the need is
reflected by information from the line;
d. The classification of service skills by
units for faster, more effective utilization
of staff;
e. The completion of an initial services assess-
ment within five days of application for aid;
f. The development of a continuous flow of informa-
tion about community social service needs and resources;
xi
Recommendation
Subject
Page
g. The revision of the training program to
meet these objectives, to recognize training
as a management function, and as a reflection
of and response to realistic client needs and
worker problems.
23
It is recommended that the Board of Supervisors
104
appoint a committee chaired by the County Ad-
ministrator and consisting of the Directors of
Welfare, Public Health, Mental Health, the Chief
Probation Officer, Sheriff, County Superintendent
of Schools, and the Hospital Administrator for the
purpose of conducting an inventory and assessment
of health, educational, and welfare service
programs provided by the county and that the County
Administrator be charged with making a report to the
Board by December 31, 1971 with recommendations as to
these services which should be consolidated, reassigned,
eliminated, expanded, or contracted for privately.
24
It is recommended that the 60-to-1 caseload standard
113
for the assignment of cases to service workers be
abandoned and that the department move toward a
system of service case management based on severity
of case problems presented and realistic estimation
of worker performance.
25
It is recommended that the department update its
122
community resources manual on a continuous basis
that utilizes resource information and evaluation
from branch office workers which is in turn based
on field observations and follow-through on re-
ferrals, and that this activity should be super-
vised by the Community Services Coordinator.
26
It is recommended that the department assign
122
the direction of the Community Resources Coordin-
ator to the proposed Assistant Director for Social
Services.
27
If the department does not act affirmatively on the
122
basis of its own analysis of the Community Resources
function and on the basis of the above proposals, it
is recommended that the position, as now constituted,
be abolished.
xii
Re comme ndation
Subject
Page
Section V
Training
28
Regardless of the budget limits or number of
129
personnel appropriate for training, much
greater priority should be placed on the
training of eligibility technicians. It is
still the greatest training need of the depart-
ment. We recommend that fully three-fourths
of this total budget be concentrated on training
eligibility workers.
29
Unless new positions are added to augment the
129
eligibility technician training section we
recommend they be transferred from the social
services unit.
30
Training plans for social services should be
130
suspended except for needs capable of being
justified on an agency-wide basis approved by
the Welfare Director.
31
We further recommend this remain the policy of
130
the agency until there is a definite indication
that the proficiency of the eligibility worker
has improved, measured by such factors as the
clearance of pending applications, number of
overdue renewals and significant drops in over- -
payments and administrative errors.
32
The Training Division should be abolished as a
133
unified division under a division chief and
should be broken into two sections each directed
by a Grade II Supervisor. One Supervisor should
report to the Assistant Director for Income
Maintenance and the other should be accountable
to an Assistant Director of Social Services.
33
The position of Division Chief in charge of train-
133
ing should be abolished.
34
A Master's Degree in Social Work should not be
133
required of the person in charge of training
eligibility technicians; eligibility and social
services are vastly different functions, calling
for entirely different training and skills.
35
Since the pressures associated with mass hirings
137
are now diminished, training emphasis should be
shifted from the classroom to on-the-job training.
xiii
Recommendation
Subject
Page
36
Intial classroom orientation should be reduced
137
to one week or just enough time to meet state
requirements.
37
Revised testing methods should be used as a part
138
of the initial employee evaluation and induction
process.
38
A grading system should be devised by which new
139
employees can be progressively evaluated as they
move through the training process.
39
At least 35% of this year's training budget should
140
be devoted to intensive work with Grade I
Eligibility Supervisors.
40
The recent reclassification order relating to
146
eligibility training specialists should be
rescinded and the positions restored to their
former level in light of their importance to
the agency.
Section VI
Fraud Control
41
Insofar as it is necessary to do an accounting-
152
type investigation for working out adjustments
in state and federal subventions, it is recommended
the depar tment be allowed to average the losses
in fraud cases.
42
A trial attorney from the District Attorney's staff
154
should be appointed to meet regularly with SIU staff
regarding cases on which the first phase of possible
fraud has been investigated in the interest of
clearing out those cases with factors that will
likely interfere with formal prosecution.
43
There should be a distinction between the kind of
157
investigation conducted after probable fraud has
been established and that done before probable
fraud is established.
44
Section 1917, Financial Code, should be amended to
157
allow banks and lending institutions to release in-
formation relative to assets and accounts to welfare
investigators as they are required to do for all other
law enforcement agencies.
xiv
Recommendation
Subject
Page
45
Language in Section 11478, Welfare and Insti-
158
tutions Code, should be clarified to remove
any ambiguity about interagency cooperation
in fraud cases.
Section VII
Securing Support from Absent Parents
46
It is recommended that a formal evaluation of the
168-69
new child support procedure be jointly accom-
plished by appropriate staff from the Welfare
Department and Family Support Division prior to
the deadline for departmental submission of
1972-73 budget requests and that this evaluation
be directed toward:
1) Cost-benefit ratios of the new procedure;
2) Comparison of Alameda County performance in
absent parent contributions with that of
other counties in this area;
3) Recommendations for change or improvement
in these procedures.
47
It is recommended that legislation be sought
173
requiring submission to the Office of the
Attorney General by District Attorneys of a
recurring uniform statistical report summar-
izing case and collections activity in the
area of child support.
Section VIII
The Planning Process
XV
Recommendation
Subject
Page
Section IX
The Organization Plan
48
It is recommended that the existing management
200
staff within the department be consolidated within
a unit designated as Management Division and that
these departmental staff be concentrated behind
a new position to be designated Assistant
Director for Management.
49
The Special Investigations Unit, an agency-wide
201
function, should be transferred from Family
Services Division to Management Division.
50
The Appeals and Complaints Unit should also be
202
transferred to the proposed Management Division.
51
It is recommended that the Assistant Director for
203
Administrative Services be redesignated as
Assistant Director for Fiscal and Office Services,
that his division retain its existing systems and
procedures and fiscal sections, and that consoli-
dation be given to creating a general services
section for supervision of office clerical
procedures.
52
The Management Division should include a manage -
205
ment analysis section which should include as its
initial staff a minimum of three well-qualified,
experienced, management analysts.
53
As one example of early research for the Management
206
Analysis Unit, we recommend the county consider
the separation of eligibility and social service
functions in General Assistance.
54
As another example of subject matter for early
208
review by the Management Analysis Unit, we
recommend that the issue of a workload standard
for eligibility workers be studied and resolved.
55
It is recommended that a permanent standard for
213
AFDC continuing eligibility cases not be set until
after the department has installed and acquired
some experience with uniform, department-wide
production standards for the eligibility worker.
xvi
Recommendation
Subject
Page
56
It is recommended that the supervisors stop
215
deliberating with the department and the union
regarding the overall size of the caseload in any
of the Ct tegorical aids until it is satisfied
that the component sub-functions of the eligibility
process are working better. The budget increases
requested for dropping caseloads should be, instead,
allocated to simplifying the budget system, creating
uniform work procedures, upgrading training, and
classifying caseloads differently.
57
It is recommended that a formal system of annual
219
employee performance evaluation involving super-
visor-employee discussion and written reports be
developed, installed, and applied to each ACWD
employee up to and including the classification of
Chief Assistant Director.
58
It is recommended that the Welfare Director rescind
224
his departmental memorandum of April 1, 1971
relative to the "Office of the Director."
59
It is recommended that the Grade II Supervisory
226
level in the social service and eligibility
technician series be reviewed by the Alameda County
Civil Service Commission with a view to 1) eliminat-
ing all distinctions between the social service and
eligibility series not prohibited by law or regulation,
2) and that this common Grade II Supervisory class
require education and experience in supervision and
management, as a primary qualification, and 3) that
future recruitment for such positions be not only on
a promotional basis but open to applications from
outside the department and the county.
60
It is recommended that the Division Chief (Welfare)
227
class specification be broadened to require
education and experience in supervision and
management, and that the present emphasis on
promotion up through the social services series
be eliminated, or
It is recommended that two kinds of Division
Chief (Welfare) be created - one for Income
Maintenance that emphasizes management skills,
and one for social services which, in addition
to management skills, may also require a Master's
Degree in social work.
xvii
Recommendation
Subject
Page
61
The Alameda County Welfare Department should
242-43
separate services and income maintenance
functions through the Assistant Director level
with the Chief Assistant Director assuming
responsibility for program liaison;
The number of Division Chiefs should be reduced
from nine to six, and the revised Division Chief
structure should reflect a revised division of
labor between income maintenance and services;
Income mintenance functions should be consolidated
within the larger office facilities with social
services provided primarily from smaller satellite
offices;
A fourth position at the Assistant Director level
should be added for the purposes of directing and
coordinating department-wide management and
quality control functions.
Section X
WIN
62
It is recommended to the Alameda County Board of
272
Supervisors that the functions and duties of the
Employment Rehabilitation Section - WIN
Coordination, ETS, and General Assistance
Employment Review - be decentralized to social
service staff at branch office locations, and
that the existing ERS unit be eliminated.
63
It is recommended to the Alameda County Board of
272
Supervisors that the Systems and Procedures
Unit of the Alameda County Welfare Department
review, determine, and recommend the central
clerical, accounting, and statistical controls
that would have to be retained for WIN, ETS, and
General Assistance employment functions and that
such controls and minimum essential clerical staff
be assigned to the Fiscal Section.
64
It is recommended to the Alameda County Board of
273-74
Supervisors that funds for educational training
services be reduced from $100,000 to $25,000.
This is based on expenditure activity in the
current year, which will probably not exceed
$15,000 of the $100,000 budgeted. The Board could,
xviii
Recommendation
Subject
Page
of course, leave the ETS budget at its current
level, but this would not in itself create demand
for services or alter the expenditure pattern.
$25,000 should be more than adequate for 1971-72.
65
It is recommended that the WIN program and WIN
274
enrollees be transferred completely to the Depart-
ment of Human Resources Development and that all
WIN enrollees within an active training plan be
removed from welfare rolls entirely and that the
related grant and training allowances be administered
entirely through the Department of Human Resources
Development.
66
The mission of the WIN program should be sharply
276
redirected from its emphasis on treatment of
personal barriers and institutional training to
job development and on-the-job training.
xix
SECTION I
ADMINISTRATION OF ELIGIBILITY
AND
INCOME MAINTENANCE
THE ADMINISTRATION OF ELIGIBILITY AND INCOME MAINTENANCE
INTRODUCTION
A great amount of the staff's effort in preparing this report was
focused on the department's administration of eligibility and Income
Maintenance. With the separation of services, Income Maintenance has become
the important side of social welfare today. In comparison to social services
the other major departmental program, eligibility and grant administration is
larger, more costly, complex, and far more vulnerable to any sort of admini- -
strative weakness. The vast network of systems and other support functions
within the agency relate almost entirely to the administration and control of
recipient grants.
From the standpoint of doing administrative analysis the one helpful
aspect of studying eligibility and grant administration is in fact that
there are some rather clear and objective criteria by which management
performance can be assessed. They must exist in any program with fiscal
dimensions. As simple as some of them seem now, the staff frankly admits
that a perspective on what these criteria should be was reached at a rather
late stage in our study. We are inclined to see eligibility and Income
Maintenance as a process, with many specialized functions. Controls, checks
and information flow from each one of them and together comprise an
-1-
administrative process.
Regardless of circumstances that may interfere with it, the
administrative process of any welfare department centers finally on certain
definite criteria such as the status of keeping renewals current, the
promptness of action on applications, the status of overpayments, the
number of administrative errors, the ratio of applications to denials, and
the frequency of client contact.
This large section of the report is largely a discussion of how
we believe the department can improve its accomplishment in these important
areas.
This review of the eligibility process was written from the point
of view that these are the critical and identifiable parts of the managerial
responsibility. Such things as the incidence of fraud, ineligible cases and
overpayments, etc. which attract so much attention are only the tag end
expressions of how well these other internal sub-functions of the eligibility
process are controlled.
We also present this section believing that even without sweeping
reforms in welfare at the State or Federal level much can be done in local
departments to check growth, improve efficiency and add a measure of
administrative control that is not present now. To the best of its ability
the staff has attempted to present problems and issues in the department that
are immediate, fiscally important, and yield in some degree to effective
administrative action now.
A serious reader of the report and the Committee may notice the
-2-
absence of any sociological, or philosophical discussion or even the general-
ized indictment of the welfare system that typically uses up the first 40
pages in this type of study. As staff we felt that the composition of the
Committee was too diverse to try synthesizing a philosophy of welfare
acceptable to the whole Task Force. We simply accepted the fact that the
present system is archaic, is based on unobtainable goals, and administratively
speaking there is almost a nightmarish quality about it. How long the welfare
system continues in its present form will prove to be a great test of both
our political and economic institutions.
There is also an absence of statistics dealing with sheer growth
in recipient caseloads or welfare budgets except as we considered it necessary
to illustrate or back up relevant specifics.
This kind of data and the meaning of it is well understood by the
Board of Supervisors, the County Administrative Officer, the Task Force,
and, we believe, the public at large. The staff believes it is enough to
know that by the way we counted about one in every six persons or 170,000
people in Alameda County connected by one aid program or another to the
Welfare Department. About one-half of this is represented in the caseloads
related to the AFDC program. In our discussion of eligibility and grant
maintenance we have given special attention to AFDC because it is the largest
aid program, the most complex and contradictory, and the most difficult to
administer. It also receives the most public attention.
Any management study is based on observations of an agency's
operation over a fairly short period. As it happened, this study started
as the department was in the final stages of completing the separation
of grant and Income Maintenance from its social service caseloads.
-3-
This was a federally mandated requirement that had commenced almost exactly
a year earlier. In evaluating the critical aspects of this report it must
be said that implementing the separation plan placed great strain on every
administrative mechanism within the organization. It involved mass hirings,
the training of a whole new class of employees, and forced new patterns of
supervision to be developed, to mention a few. It was a time of immense
administrative change from which the organization has still not recovered.
The structural changes we suggest in the administrative section of the report
are an effort to reason out a pattern of organization that better accommodates
both the intent and effects of separation.
In selecting the particular issues and administrative problems
that we brought into the final report we were constantly mindful of the fact
that we were reviewing an organization that was still in an unsettled
condition. As the professionals serving the Committee and doing the analytical
work behind this study we have tried to focus on problems that are inherent
to the organization and have been present for a long time.
The most conspicuous and fundamental reality of public welfare
departments today is that they are administering programs undergoing constant
change. Considering the vast reforms that are so desperately needed in all
of the public welfare programs we believe that continued change will remain
as the basic fact of life in welfare departments for years to come and local
departments must be built to accommodate change as efficiently and economically
as possible. Regardless of how difficult it is to deal with, this report is
written from the premise that change and its accompanying upheavals cannot
absolve management of poor performance providing it has the proper resources
at its disposal.
-4-
The central theme of this study which runs throughout the entire
report is that unless this department develops a far better planning component,
a different organization structure, sets clearer goals, and enforces more
explicit performance standards in both its social service and Income Main-
tenance programs, change of any kind cannot be accommodated efficiently and
will always do great and unnecessary violence to the organization. We believe
we can also demonstrate that these internal weaknesses have enormous fiscal
consequences.
As tedious and difficult as it is to read Appendix A, entitled The
Intake Process, it should be studied as a preface to the study. It is the
staff's attempt to describe as simply as possible the staggering complexity
and the subjective nature of the process by which a recipient's grant is
determined.
We do not present the recommendations in this section thinking
they will make the welfare system more rational. They do not, but we believe
they will help secure more control, accountability, and reliability within
the present mindless system and that, we regard, is the ultimate responsi-
bility of a local welfare director today. The recommendations we distilled
from our efforts over the past six months are not dramatic but good manage-
ment usually is not. It is a process of applying firm, steady pressure in
making the organization yield to clearly set management goals in those areas
where management has latitude for direct action. This management has
difficulty in doing that.
CASE TRANSFERS
Several of the following recommendations in this section were
framed around the assumption that the reliability of the Income Maintenance
-5-
function is almost directly proportional to the frequency of contact between
the agency and the recipient. Ideally, it would be a personal encounter
between the eligibility worker and the client in a situation where an
address can be checked, children seen and identified, etc. More typically
contact is represented through office visits, telephone calls, or something
sent through the mail. We also find some places in the organization where
contact can be broken through procedural failures. One of these is through
the procedures by which cases are transferred between workers or between one
division and another.
To appreciate the significance and use of the case transfer
procedure one must first understand that recipients move frequently. Each
time they do the case transfer process is used. Likewise, each time a worker
is transferred or quits, contact with 120 - 200 people is temporarily broken.
It is also important to accept the fact that, as a system, welfare does not
involve people so much as it does an immense flow of paper representing people.
This is not necessarily bad providing the paper flows properly and it has
certain vital stuff written on it.
In any event hundreds of cases are transferred daily and it is all
handled through a seemingly minor and obscure set of administrative procedures
which do not work very well. The following is a brief description of some of
the things which can occur in the course of case transfer.
When a recipient moves, often his case is transferred
to another office serving the district he lives in. The
case might sit on a transfer desk for awhile; with neither
offices taking responsibility. A case might be transferred
when it moves from intake to district; again it might reside
on a transfer desk unassigned due to staff being unavailable.
There is a problem regarding the assumption of responsibility
while the case is unassigned. Usually the recipient will be
calling his previous worker who informs him that the case is
-6-
no longer there. If the recipient calls central indexing,
they will inform him that his case is still out to the
previous worker who will deny having the case. Even after
the case is assigned to a new eligibility worker the
recipient may still not be able to determine to whom he
may report changes. The eligibility worker upon the
receipt of a new case should immediately notify the
recipient by letter that he is the new worker as well as
changing the worker number on the interpreted 0-20 which
will then clear index's record of the old worker number.
As this is not done uniformly, the recipient usually does
not meet his eligibility worker until a renewal is taken.
As so many renewals are delinquent any information received
by the eligibility worker frequently affects prior eligi-
bility. Some instances are even more drastic, with the
eligibility worker discovering the eligible children absent
from the home for months or an adult with earnings that
would have created ineligibility.
Whenever a client can show that he was unable to contact the depart-
ment in regard to his case it severely jeopardizes the department's ability
to collect overpayments, prosecute for fraud, or readjust administrative
errors. Naturally, few clients can be expected to take initiative in
following their case through the agency to report additional income or any
other change, particularly if they think the change will adversely affect
their grant. It is incumbent upon the department, therefore, to install a
procedure that minimizes the possibility of this happening. 1. THE PROCEDURE
WE RECOMMEND BELOW IS A ROUGH OUTLINE OF SOME OF THE STEPS WHICH WOULD BE
INVOLVED IN AN IMPROVED CASE TRANSFER PROCEDURE.
1. When a case is to be transferred, as it is leaving
the unit, the unit clerk would notify the recipient
by form letter saying:
a. your case is now assigned to
office. If
you have changes to report please contact them
providing telephone number and new address;
b. your case is now assigned to a district unit. You
-7-
will be immediately notified to whom you
will report.
2. When a case is received at any transfer desk the client
should be immediately informed to whom the case will be
assigned. The agency does have form letters available,
but use of them is erratic. The control clerk, as soon
as she sends out the letter, can also immediately update
her index cards.
3. If the case cannot be assigned immediately because of
lack of staff positions, each office must appoint a
responsible person to work on these cases. What is
important is that the recipient has a name to call,
probably that of a control clerk who will transfer
calls to the worker on call. The recipient again
should receive a letter, this time stating that the
case is unassigned but to report to
.
4. When a case is received by a unit, the letter informing
the recipient of his new worker is in transit. It is
now mandatory that the eligibility worker immediately
convert the case to his number, by updating either of
the two basic control documents.
If a case is not accepted into the receiving unit and has to be
returned to the sending unit the recipient must be notified also. This
situation occurs frequently and the fact that it does is only indicative of
an even larger problem. After a case makes its way through the sluggish
transfer procedure the chances are very high that it will be sent back
-8-
through the same procedure again. When a case arrives into the new unit it
is "read in" or checked to see if it is delinquent or if there are errors in
it which the new unit cannot correct. Procedure allows for any case with
more than two errors to be returned to the unit of origin. The former eligi- -
bility supervisor who consulted with us on this section of the report
estimated that in her unit as many as 60-75% of the cases could have been
transferred back to the sending unit.
We find no easy answer to this problem except for management to
insist on having transfer cases reviewed more closely by the transferring
unit. Under present conditions that may require special case readers but
the basic problem is only a reflection of the fact that the cases are in
generally a very poor condition. It is one quick, qualitative test, we think,
of the whole eligibility process. It is an example, again, of how dependent
one process is upon another. Even if the present transfer procedure was more
responsive it could be broken down by having to accommodate the movement of
cases twice.
The recommendation related to case documentation is directed at a
closely associated problem. It involves not only transfer cases but every
instance where a case is read for any purpose. It was what we alluded to
above when we said that since the system runs by paper it is highly important
to have certain things on the paper.
CASE DOCUMENTATION AND STANDARDIZATION
Since the opportunity to see clients is so infrequent it is very
important for the organization to insure that something useful occurs in
the course of a client contact. Seeing the ramifications which result from
the tremendous movement of cases between worker, units, and divisions the
-9-
Task Force is compelled to be sharply critical of the department's success
in developing standardized case formats and documenting and verifying
essential case information. Except for the form requirement there is not
enough uniformity in the case records to make one entirely sure that two
cases originate in the same agency. The implications of this are most
serious to every facet of eligibility, including validations, supervisory
review, and above all, worker efficiency. We come to think of the cases
and the way they are set up and documented as the heart of the whole
eligibility process. The Committee can only comment that the condition of
the cases is about the best reason we found for keeping cases confidential.
Until cases are standardized to a much greater extent it is
difficult to understand how workers can be trained effectively. Standard-
izing the contents and enforcing uniform documentation would do as much to
improve worker output, minimize errors, and facilitate meaningful supervisory
review as any recommendation in the study. The ability to progressively
build a case by adding successive pieces of absolute documentation and
explanatory material should be one of the prime tests of an eligibility
worker's performance. There is not the remotest possibility of applying
this measure of performance until management insists on an agency-wide case
format and standardized documentation and teaches the worker how to do it.
We treat the problems of forms next but the important thing in
building a case is not the form but the documentation and verification that
is accepted in filling out the form. It is to the department's credit that
they have recently taken steps to require uniform recordation of initial
eligibility and renewal contacts. This helps with format but the docu-
mentation is still soft.
-10-
In the two pieces of recordation the department has tried to
standardize they have gone over to forms completely. The advantages of
narrative records over forms is a technical and arguable subject but there
is no narrative left in the department's case records now. We would have
liked to see enough narrative to at least provide a concise, simple
explanation of why the case is eligible and some of the unusual characteristics
of the case, if any. We think it would be far easier for a person looking
at the case for the first time to get an understanding of it if some narrative
was present.
Case documentation did deteriorate during the course of separation
last year but in looking at some older cases before separation we cannot say
that this has not been a problem which has not been with the agency for a
long time. If documentation has not been stressed over the last year it is
quite understandable why workers are unclear now on how to verify their
cases and there is no special instruction or worker manual to compensate for
the lack of training on this important phase of eligibility. Good working
procedural manuals are also needed but we treat this subject separately. From
our questionnaire of eligibility workers we noted that documentation was
mentioned about as frequently as any training problem.* Even the documentation
of income is not a uniformly entrenched procedure and there is not a
standardized form to record and verify income and this is the most sensitive
and changeable part of any caseload. Perhaps 20 to 25% of the AFDC case-
load has earned income which directly affect the grants. Good control in
some cases cannot occur without well verified income records.
*See Appendix D.
-11-
The Task Force cannot recommend the minute contents of a case file
but we are pretty confident about the essential points that must be covered
in documenting and constructing cases. 2. OUR RECOMMENDATION IS, THEREFORE,
THAT AT LEAST THE FOLLOWING POINTS BE DESIGNATED BY MANAGEMENT AS COMMON CASE
ELEMENTS AND POLICY BE SET WHICH WILL INSURE DEPARTMENTWIDE UNIFORMITY IN
CASE DOCUMENTATION AND FORMAT.
1. Further implementation of summary documents as set
forth by the department.
(a) Vital statistics, i.e., birth certificates,
marriage license, etc.;
(b) Income verification: standardized income
instruction as to "Date of contact,
place of contact," as specified in Appendix
A, p. 16;
(c) Information obtained;
(d) Verification seen;
(e) Action to be taken;
(f) Persons involved;
(g) Explanations given and understood.
2. Narrative statement at time of intake outlining the
reason for application for and granting of financial
assistance.
3. Renewal summary: renewal outline in addition to the
completed re-certification form. Form 201.
FORMS
It is common in studies like this to look at forms closely. We
did not. We present the few summary comments we make on forms more as
-12-
passing observations than as studied recommendations. We make one exception.
3. WE ARE RECOMMENDING THE DEPARTMENT DISALLOW THE USE OR EVEN THE PRINTING
OF ANY FORM USED IN ELIGIBILITY THAT IS NOT APPROVED BY THE ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR FOR INCOME MAINTENANCE FOR USE THROUGHOUT THE AGENCY. It is one
way of interrupting the present tendency we find to have forms created from
within divisions which no one else understands or uses. As we have tried
to imply in our discussion of case transfers there is no such thing as a
division case. Yet, we found a number of forms that were created solely
around the special needs or interests of one division chief. Most manage-
ment information forms are also individually developed by division personnel.
The recommendation would apply to management information forms as well. Our
other reason for this recommendation is that it may eliminate one problem in
getting standardization in case formats.
To complete an initial intake application in AFDC as many as 10 to
15 forms may be required or as many as 20 in a complex case. It is ironic
with all this paper that the verification of data is not absolutely tied down.
It only illustrates, we think, that proper training and instruction has not
been given in the use of the forms.
As an experiment, one of the Committee staff tried to complete the
basic 201 Form which is the recipient's affirmation or reaffirmation of
eligibility. It is the single most important form used. We could not
complete the form without assistance. It is true that the client usually
has help from the intake worker but our experience with the form does suggest
something about how difficult the specialized terminology is. We are sure
the average recipient could not complete the form without assistance. At
an early juncture of the study the staff spent some time in trying to revise
-13-
the 201 Form. (We think we made a more acceptable form out of it, but since
then the State has changed the form so it has not been submitted). The
following are a few observations we made on the forms from the sample of
cases we reviewed for the purpose of looking at documentation and standard-
ization. The listing is made without any consideration of costs in relation
to benefits.
1. It would help Spanish speaking recipients if they
could be given forms in their native language.
2. All forms that must be completed in duplicate or
triplicate should be carbonized.
3. Form ABCDM 200, Application for Public Social
Services should be reduced in size and content, and
possibly be recorded on stiffer, more formalized
paper. (State form).
4. Form CA 201 should be revised, or Form CA 201 should
be combined with CA 283 and CA 284, or Forms CA 283 and CA
284 should e combined (Verification of Real and
Personal Property). The verification on the 201 may well
duplicate verification on the 283 and 284. (State form).
5. Form CA 243 should be used for determining incapacity, be
updated or eliminated. In its present form, doctors
will not use it and the county has to use its own
forms to verify this type of deprivation. (State form).
6. The county, pending the revision of the CA 243,
should revise the present statement of employability to
-14-
make it more appropriate for AFDC
7. The county should review the validity and necessity
of Form 3-44, Applicant's Statement. It is ignored
by applicants and is a duplication of the CA 201
and Notice of Action letters.
8. The county should revise the Vital Statistics Form 0-122
so that it is appropriate for recording identification.
9. The county should devise a form for earned income so
that verification of earned income can be easily recorded
and retained in the case.
10. The AFDC worksheet, CA 243 should be revised, so that
there is more room for explanation and verification.
(State form).
HOME CALLS
After initial eligibility is established and a case is moved into
a continuing caseload the main concern is keeping abreast of any changes
that would alter the amount of the grant. In AFDC this can be many things
such as a minor reaching age, dropping out of school, or some member leaving
the family to live elsewhere. In income cases the biggest variable would
probably be some change in income. One does not need to know anything more
about the continuing eligibility function to understand the importance of
seeing the family as often as possible in a situation where all the original
eligibility factors can be reconfirmed by direct observation.
Our review of overpayments shows that the overwhelming majority of
overpayments resulted from some change in the recipient's condition that was
not reported until it was discovered through some sort of agency contact.
-15-
Present law requires eligibility to be reaffirmed only twice a year in AFDC-FG
cases without income and once every quarter in AFDC-U cases. As we have
already said, the recertification of eligibility can be taken over the phone,
by an office visit, or by a home call. Now, clearly, there is a great
difference in the type of recertification depending on the type of contact
made. The eligibility technicians answering our questionnaire estimated
that only about 30% of their renewals were made with the benefit of a home
call. We have no other agency data to confirm this estimate although it
does seem slightly lower with some unit reports which we found in one division.
The department does not have any firm standards on home calls so
it is not surprising to find the divisions without this data in their
production records. Our view of eligibility is that it is just as vital
to management to know how renewals are being done as it is to know how many
are being done. One reason for dropping caseload size is to permit more
home calls. All we said about reducing caseloads without first setting an
agency standard on renewals would apply to home calls as well.
4. THE TASK FORCE FEELS so STRONGLY ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF HOME
CALLS THAT IT IS RECOMMENDING EVERY RECERTIFICATION OF ELIGIBILITY BE MADE
WITH THE BENEFIT OF A HOME CALL. To install and enforce this requirement
it will first be necessary to establish a uniform reporting system used by
all divisions for all aid categories which will account for the worker's
time between the field and the office. This department simply cannot
control eligibility without this type of management data.
5. IN THE FAMILY SERVICES DIVISION THERE IS A PRODUCTION REPORT
WHICH WE RECOMMEND BE ADOPTED DEPARTMENTWIDE IMMEDIATELY. There may be
some minor things wrong with it but the urgency we feel in getting started
-16-
with something of this nature overshadows any technical considerations.
The Task Force feels very frustrated in trying to make these
categorical type recommendations speaking without the benefit of more
comprehensive data but we feel that there is great urgency in getting the
department to move in setting basic, quality control standards. We are
satisfied that the workers will respond to them and we have seen it
demonstrated in the time we have been in the department.
Since February the Family Services Division in the Broadway office
has attempted to impose two standards for continuing eligibility workers
that are absolutely fundamental to further improvement. The first is that
each worker spend at least one day per week in the field. The second is
that each worker complete 20 renewals per month. The production reports
from this division are built around these two standards. As limited as the
experience is the Task Force believes that it reveals enough to start making
some assumptions about what management should and can expect from the
continuing eligibility worker. We show some summary data below for one of
the sections in this division for the months of February and March. The
totals shown on these two exhibits represent the production of 36 workers
for two months. Each unit would be responsible for 720 cases and the total
section for 4,320 cases. This is about 15% of the total AFDC caseload so
we feel it is somewhat representative.
-17-
SECTION PRODUCTION REPORT
Family Services Division
February, 1971
UNIT NO.
WORKER
FIELD
OFFICE
OTHER
NO. SUC.
REASSESSMENTS
OR RENEWALS
INCOME
NUMBER
CODE
(Specify)
FIELD
DUE PRIOR
DUE
UPDATING
CASES
DAYS HRS.
DAYS HRS.
DAYS HRS.
CASES
TO CURRENT
CURRENT
MONTH
MONTH COMP.
GXX
8
61/2
84
27
1
58
478
41
96
GXX
13
81
61/2
2
25
1
73
448
69
158
EXX
7
51/2
95
2½¹₂
16
7
48
342
154
107
9
3½¹
94
N/N
16
3½¹
75
302
79
156
13
51/2
101
6
24
3½¹
90
254
69
75
EX8
12
2
94
3½¹
13
2
75
487
46
58
TOTAL
65
N/H
551
4
123
3
419
2311
458
650
March, 1971
GXX0
11
5
116
5
9
5
72
445
53
112
91
11
21/2
106
4
20
1
82
425
62
97
28
10
2-3/4
119
7½
7
5
64
375
156
97
40
GRXX
12
51/2
110
3
14
61/2
100
234
103
103
19
14
61/2
107
51/2
15
3
107
240
58
114
3
12
6
113
51/2
11
31/2
103
496
63
73
2
TOTAL
73
5-3/4
675
1/4
79
1 ¹/2
528
2215
495
596
183
Remarks: (Explanation of unusual circumstances).
The reports show that workers, for the short time they are spending
in the field, make a high percentage of successful client contacts averaging
about six to seven successful field calls for each day in the field. The ratio
between days in the field and renewals completed is even higher averaging
around nine renewals for each day in the field. Time spent in the field,
however, is very low averaging less than two days per worker per month. This
shows, we think, that regardless of what the continuing eligibility functions
are supposed to be it is being administered in a very remote manner. If this
eligibility section is typical of the amount of time the eligibility workers
are spending in the field, it tends to bear out the workers' estimate that
only 20 to 30% of the renewals are taken with home calls. If the workers
were able to spend just three more days in the field it would be possible to
make every renewal with the benefit of a home call and stay current with
their caseloads. One can see just from this much data the logic of requiring
five days in the field which the division chief is suggesting as his
standard. These two divisions are also rapidly approaching a point where
they are almost meeting the 20 renewal per month standard. We were able to
watch the Family Services Division very closely for five months to see what
the outcome was of the division chief's attempt to get 20 renewals per month
from his eligibility workers. It is a remarkable little story of admini-
stration in action. We cannot do it for this report but somebody should write
it up as a case study for a textbook in public administration. It was the
best example of management in action we witnessed in the course of our seven
months in the department. It demonstrates many things -- the necessity of
explicitly stating what it is you expect from an employee, the power of a
determined division chief who knows what it is he wants to do, the importance
-19-
of a quiet, soft spoken but incredibly good section leader working with
some production reports that clearly fix accountability for individual
performance. In March, the first month the production standard was
announced, only 30% of the workers were making it. During the month this
report was being written over 70% of the workers were making their 20
renewals per month. We could not go behind the renewals to compare the
quality of them from one period to the other but we can almost guarantee
that the quality is as good or better as a consequence of doing more renewals.
By dividing six into the unit totals one can also see the differences
in the production of the individual workers. This is more visable, however,
by the individual unit reports which show production from each worker.
UNIT PRODUCTION REPORT
March, 1971
WORKER
OTHER
NO. SUC.
REASSESSMENTS
OR RENEWALS
NUMBER
FIELD
OFFICE
(Specify)
FIELD
DUE PRIOR
DUE
DAYS HRS.
DAYS HRS.
DAYS HRS.
CALLS
TO CURRENT
CURRENT
MONTH
MONTH COMP.
1
3
21
3
--
1½¹
8
40
13
4
2
5
20
N/A
--
2
25
18
16
24
5
-
18
I
--
-
51
12
23
17
3
3½¹/2
19
4
--
-
20
58
20
35
2
-
19
3½¹
1
4
9
50
10
5
1
1½
20
2
1
4
12
50
17
21
TOTAL
15
5½¹
118
5½¹
3
4
125
228
99
106
Remarks: (Explanation of unusual circumstances).
-20-
There are significant differences in worker output and it is very obvious
where most supervisor effort should be spent. If one worker can do 35
renewals per month why is someone else only able to do four or five? We
are quite sure that in this division someone will ask why and there will
probably be a difference in production next month. We have talked mainly
about these reports being used to control production, but they also indicate
much about the qualitative aspects of eligibility work. You can almost be
assured that more days in the field will result in better eligibility work
generally than eligibility work done at a desk. This type of report permits
management to audit quickly and effectively all the way through the division
down to the unit worker. In addition, this type of data provides some fair
and objective criteria for evaluating worker performance. This information
is also used now as the basis of worker performance evaluation. Performance
evaluation based in anything else is a meaningless, wasted exercise.
The reporting system we have just described has been used in the
department at an earlier time. We saw almost identical reports used as late
as 1966 and they were used throughout the department. The Task Force has
reviewed enough cases from that era to satisfy itself that the significance
of the recommendations we have made around the case transfer system, case
documentation, and the need for more home calls are well understood by the
department or anyone acquainted with what goes on in managing eligibility.
These basic eligibility controls have all deteriorated in recent years.
INITIAL ELIGIBILITY INVESTIGATION
As one step in the eligibility process, initial investigations
are certainly one of the most important. It is important because it sets
the trend for the relationship between the client and the agency for years
-21-
to come. If the recipient is convinced initially that the agency investigates
and verifies his statements and seems firm on the client's carrying out his
reporting responsibilities it is likely that he will cooperate from then on.
Likewise, if the client senses that the agency's investigations are little
more than cursory formalities he will be more tempted to withhold information
or be indifferent to his own reporting responsibilities.
The eligibility investigations being conducted five or six years
ago were something quite different from what they are today. We would
describe eligibility investigations before 1966 as having these six
characteristics:
1. Confirmation of the client's statements by much
better verification and documentation.
2. All the children were seen and absolute identity
obtained.
3. Clients were seen on unscheduled calls.
4. There was an emphasis upon completing face sheets
and the recording of eligibility data.
5. Nearly all recertifications of eligibility were
done through home calls.
6. There was narrative dictation in the cases which
described the essential points of deprivation.
6. THE TASK FORCE CAN ONLY RECOMMEND THAT THE SAME TYPE OF
ELIGIBILITY INVESTIGATION BE REINSTATED.
We believe that the department will admit that there has been
a gradual erosion in the quality of eligibility investigations since 1966.
In making this allegation the Task Force is reminded that department
-22-
management has been pressured to relax its investigations by the State
Department of Social Welfare. The following is an excerpt from a State
audit made of the department in late 1965 and released in 1966. It is as
good an example as we found of how the State registers its influence on
county welfare directors.
"Practices and attitudes inherited from the past
still dominate the Alameda County Welfare Department.
Their continuation makes this agency slow to change
from one that just dispenses a dole to one that
provides rehabilitative, protective, and preventive
social services. Neither has the welfare department
assumed an active role in fighting the lack of job
opportunity, educational gaps and housing deficiencies
which plague its clientele--the 20% of the county's
population who are poverty stricken.
Most staff work hard and conscientiously, doing
what they have been taught to do. In the public
assistance programs, this is mainly determination of
eligibility, characterized by over-investigation
that leaves little time for social services that will
help people overcome handicapping personal and family
problems. Many workers and supervisors want to provide
services but cannot do so effectively because of lack
of skills or because paperwork takes so much time "
Add to this the fact that there are many vocal people in the
department who share the same opinion about the incompatibility of
tough investigation with social work objectives and it is fairly easy to
understand how basic changes can occur in management's philosophy. Good
investigation work would have suffered enough just from the disruptive
effects of things like separation and the constant flow of ill-defined
regulating changes which come down from the State.
After we developed some appreciation for how difficult it is to
do good eligibility investigations we really wonder how it was ever possible
to do too many of them.
-23-
We doubt if the State would make the same kind of statement today
because we believe there is a growing recognition that it is this kind of
thinking which has brought the whole State to the edge of a welfare crisis.
Dispensing the "dole" as the State fellow put it, is a $130 million affair
in this county and trying to dispense it by slighting fundamental, common
sense fiscal controls has been a fundamental mistake of judgment. Further-
more, it has hurt the recipient as much as it has hurt the agency or any
part of the taxpaying public who pays for it all in the first place.
For every overpayment which occurs there is just as much chance
for an underpayment because both mistakes are caused for precisely the same
reasons. The Task Force finds no reassurance in the fact that some of the
costly effects of sloppy eligibility administration may be cancelled out by
some kind of mythical wash in accounting between two different types of fiscal
errors. If tight investigations are necessary to make this corrupting, ill-
conceived system work according to the rules there can be no administrative
compromise about having them.
In writing this report the Task Force has never lost sight of the
fact that we are examining the welfare system built and designed around
social work concepts such as that expressed in the excerpt above. From all
the welfare system reveals about itself, the observations mentioned in that
statement are nothing more than sentimental fictions which have diverted
policy-makers from making realistic assessments of what the welfare system
is really capable of doing for economically deprived people. The overriding
tragedy is that the real losers are the same people these social service
auditors have implied they are trying to help through their mawkish philosophy
and untested assumptions. The fiscal paperwork which was one of their
-24-
principle concerns in 1966 has been handled in another way for the past 18
months but we challenge anyone to demonstrate that social services are more
viable, meaningful, or beneficial than they were in 1966. We find few
tangible references in the real world of welfare for such words as
"rehabilitative, protective, and preventative social services." The ones
that can be found relate more to children than the adults where most of the
attention is focused now. To even intimate that local welfare departments
are capable of doing something positive in the area of housing only suggests
again the total misconception the State planners have about what really goes
on inside a welfare department.
The events that follow since 1966 only indicate to the Task Force
that eligibility, like any other part of welfare administration, is what
management chooses to make it. It can be tough-minded or it can be loose.
If management takes a hard line on eligibility investigation, certain kinds
of administrative controls are going to be present somewhere. If management
takes a softer attitude there is less reason to have them or spend money on
making them work. The decision to have easy or tough investigations would
not be the sort of thing you would find written down. There is a tacit side
to management as surely as there is a formal and visible expression of
management influence but the effects of these quiet, unspoken decisions
leave tracks in the organization which are deep and wide. Anyone can
trace them eventually.
Our sense of the times is that another philosophy about welfare
has emerged from the State. The point of this digression is only to say
that if the reason for ending strict investigations occurred because of
what the State's philosophy was in 1966 there is less reason for local
-25-
departments to be concerned in 1971. It distressed the staff of the Task
Force to describe control reports and functions, and talk about the signi-
ficance of investigations as if it had to convince someone why they are
important. Management does know what will follow as a consequence of more
home calls, tighter investigation, better documentation and from every other
recommendation made in this section. If these parts of the eligibility
process are in order management can practically guarantee a drop in caseloads,
more consistency in denial rates, fewer overpayments and underpayments, and
lower administrative costs. Furthermore, all this can happen without any
change in law or regulation at any other level of government.
Since the Task Force has been working on this project we believe
we do detect a change in management's outlook on eligibility investigations.
But, if the policy of the county is to carry out a stricter eligibility
process the Board of Supervisors must understand that this department has lost
a lot of ground in six years. The administrative mechanisms which control
eligibility have been weakened, the personnel are new, poorly trained, and
line supervision is not seasoned. Even the older staff is disillusioned and
confused because they know that one era in welfare has ended and leadership
has not clearly been shown how the department will enter and adapt to the next.
Because of this management is finding it very difficult to make the
organization respond to a tougher line on eligibility and in implementing
policy directives which will accomplish that objective. We noted, for example,
that when management issued a directive to eligibility units to consider
income earned by the applicants in the month of their application that it was
not carried out uniformly. The treatment of earned income is a very basic
eligibility factor and there cannot be too much confusion about how it is
-26-
done, but it is the type of order that is very difficult to implement because
it reflects a change in management orientation which is not fully under-
stood throughout the organization and there is not a flow of information which
allows management to monitor how its decisions are being carried out at the
line level.
Management also issued a directive to get absolute identification
verified on recipients before recertifying renewals. At least one division
was doing this. Most were not. We uncovered this in the course of trying to
make some correlations between renewals and time spent in the field. The
offices which had fewer renewals completed were trying to follow the directive
and their renewals took more time. Those which reported more completed
renewals were processing them before complete identification was obtained.
This is the type of situation which explains why there are relatively few
statistical comparisons in the report.
The thoroughness of eligibility investigations will be reflected
somewhere in intake statistics, but the reports through which management
gets its information about the intake side of eligibility vary just as much
as the reports which cover ongoing caseloads. There are no standardized
formats. While top management can, of course, get any information collected
in the divisions it is our judgment that without a great deal of reworking
the divisional reports are of little value in their original form. The
reports may be comparable on one or even several points but the department
does not have a reporting system that allows general comparisons or trends
to be drawn. Reports cannot vary too much in content because there are only
so many factors which can be reported, but to make valid interpretations
possible, counts have to be based on the same procedures and uniform
-27-
interpretation of regulations and directives. As we have said, there are
good examples of statistical and production reporting in some of the agency
divisions but it is not coming to management in a systematic, organized way.
Management must decide on what types of reports they need from their
divisions and be very uncompromising in their demands about getting them.
POLICY AND PROCEDURE MANUALS
Management would be much more successful in carrying out its policy
and administrative objectives if it could translate them into simplified
procedures manuals. More work has to be done in this area if the department
is to expect uniform interpretation of eligibility law and regulation. State
regulations come to the department as very broadly phrased directives. Few
of them are capable of being applied by the worker unless they are simplified
and reduced to step-by-step procedures.
The intent of either a State or departmental directive is usually
implemented through one of literally hundreds of clerical or eligibility
procedures. The staff's mental image of the welfare system is nothing but
a vast network of interlocking procedures. The procedures are usually
identified with some kind of digit and dash number sequence like 3-1 or 0-20
which designate the two types of budget systems or abbreviations like TIC
(Transfer Into County). Most of them remain incomprehensible to us and we
are certain that most cause considerable confusion to the clerical and
eligibility workers for a long time. With good justification this whole
study could have concentrated on a set of informational problems which we
can only cover in the most superficial way.
The administrative errors which we refer to so often throughout
this report represent, in nearly every instance, a mistake of procedure.
-28-
Management, as well as the clerical and eligibility workers, discuss
eligibility problems largely in terms of examples of what happens when a
procedure goes wrong. The Task Force staff is reduced to the same method
in providing background to the few general recommendations which we
developed for better clarification and communication of procedures in the
organization.
The first example is related to the procedure covering the issuance
of duplicate checks. It is a very common procedure used hundreds of times
each month. Until recently the department had some latitude in the time it
took to issue duplicate checks. There was usually a delay sufficient to
allow the worker to confirm the notice of loss, and put a hold on the issued
check before fiscal was advised to issue a duplicate warrant. As the time
taken to do this varied considerably the Legal Aid Society secured a court
order requiring the county to issue the duplicate warrant within five working
days. The five days was not sufficient time in some cases for the department
to confirm the losses in the usual manner so they received permission from
the court to issue the duplicate checks only after written notice was obtained
from the recipient attesting to the fact that his check had been lost.
This was the only element of control left in the procedure and
instructions were issued to the eligibility workers accordingly as to the
importance of this step of the procedure being followed. It was called the
revised 12-3 procedure. It was soon discovered the notice to issue
duplicate checks was being sent to fiscal without first securing the
applicant's confirmation of loss in a high percentage of the cases. More
review also disclosed that the 12-3 procedure was actually being used by
many of the eligibility workers to trace lost checks. Tracing lost checks
-29-
is done by an entirely different procedure. In one instance a worker had
tried to trace a lost check with the 12-3 procedure five times on the same
case. Here is an example where a well defined procedural instruction was
not being adhered to and where it had become confused with an entirely
unrelated procedure.
This previous example involves one minor but important fiscal
procedure but even broader policy directives seem to get misinterpreted in
this agency. As our case in point we select a situation where 90 food stamp
only cases were found in social service caseloads. The department has a
very explicit policy on services to food stamp cases. The policy is that
food stamp only cases are not entitled to receive social services, but even
that simple directive was not being followed.
No series of specific recommendations the Task Force can make is
going to solve this kind of problem. The roots of it reach into every facet
of the organization -- training, supervisory review of caseloads, and
management monitoring capability, to mention some.
The Task Force, however, does see one broad area related to policy
and procedural clarification which we believe can be strengthened to
considerable advantage. It is based on a general finding that eligibility
workers and clerical staff simply do not have well interpreted, clearly
defined procedural guidelines which describe and give step-by-step
instructions on how to handle their routine tasks and make the judgments
which are expected of them.
There is far too much reliance in this organization on verbal
communication of important procedural and policy statements. The problem
-30-
is compounded by the fact that similar tasks are performed in many different
ways between divisions and even units within divisions. 7. IT IS DIFFICULT
TO PREPARE THE PROCEDURAL AND POLICY MANUALS WHICH WE RECOMMEND WITHOUT FIRST
STANDARDIZING MANY COMMON WORK TASKS TO A MUCH GREATER EXTENT THAN THEY ARE
AT PRESENT. It is very difficult to develop a direction on something when
the procedure by which it is carried out is not uniform.
A policy may be very specific from the viewpoint of the systems
and procedure analyst who prepares it initially, but there is a weakness in
the organization on following-up to make certain that the intent of the
procedure is understood by the person using it. The specific problems we
have just cited can be traced to this conclusion.
We are also of the opinion that most communiques are not in a
form that allows them to be referred to easily. Most of the department
communiques come down as loose material. It was the staff's impression that
only the very exceptional worker would probably organize the communiques in
a manner that would permit them to be used as continual reference pieces. We
also thought that much of the material which would be essential to workers
had only been sent to supervisors. As one example of this we can cite the
use of the department's Resource Manual prepared by the Community Resource
Coordinator. In terms of time and money this is one of the department's most
expensive communications. It is proposed for the line social worker to
assist him in making referrals. Yet, in our sample of social workers we did
not find one instance where the social worker said they had a personal copy
of the resource directory. Few of them were even aware of the directory
being available in their units.
-31-
Very often a regulation goes through a whole series of inter-
pretative changes before the law and intent is clarified. Without well
organized and current directives and information on procedural changes it
is easy to understand how workers can be inadvertently applying superceded
rules in their daily eligibility decisions.
Distribution of material should also be more sharply directed than
it is. Intake and ongoing functions are different jobs and there is a
tendency to send directives that apply only to one or the other to both
types of worker. Workers complained about this to us and knowing that they
get a lot of matter which is extraneous to their individual jobs tend to
disregard all of it.
The Task Force has no basis at all for suggesting what the
distribution of materials should be. Workers need certain things; others
should be available to only unit supervisors; and another part of it should
be kept by the section heads or division chiefs. On the whole we liked the
procedural instructions we saw prepared by the systems and procedure staff.
The main problem is more related to follow-up, standardization, instruction,
and getting more interpretative materials to the right place on more problem
areas of eligibility than it is with the qualitative aspects of the materials
prepared.
8. WITHIN THE LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY ALL WE CAN DO IS IDENTIFY
SEVERAL BROAD GROUPINGS OF GUIDELINE INFORMATION WHICH WE RECOMMEND THE
DEPARTMENT DEVELOP FOR THE ELIGIBILITY AND CLERICAL PERSONNEL. The groupings
overlap and run into each other but they all go to distinct areas which we
think can be improved in the department's informational system. All of them
emphasize eligibility but there is an identical need present for the clerical
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staff. In most respects the comments we have made about the flow of infor-
mation would also apply to clerical personnel. The type of procedural
manuals we visualize would cover the following subjects:
1. A handbook on the role and duties of eligibility
workers, the social worker, and the clerical
worker;
2. A handbook outlining all the necessary procedure
needed to determine eligibility and reaffirm
continuing eligibility and which can be updated
regularly for changes in agency policy. Uniform
methods should be stated for taking and completing
an intake interview;
3. A handbook regarding the eligibility qualifications
of all aid categories;
4. Guidelines to all workers informing them of all
necessary steps needed to verify income, how
income should be recorded and exemptions to be
allowed. All forms used in recording income
should be definitely standardized;
5. Guidelines regarding the reasonable and maximum
cost of child care, transportation, and auto-
mobiles and more precise instructions on
documenting the allowances;
6. A handbook on all common budget procedures, including
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withholding tax tables, earned income exemption
tables, and special need allowance tables.
Special mention should be given to two of these areas -- car
allowances and child care. Allowances made for these needs vary widely and
are the two most subjective areas we find in determining grant amounts.
9. THE TASK FORCE RECOMMENDS THAT A STUDY BE MADE TO DEVELOP MINIMUM AND
MAXIMUM GUIDELINES FOR CHILD CARE AND TRANSPORTATION ALLOWANCES THAT ARE
BETTER THAN THOSE IN USE IN THE DEPARTMENT. We are sure, however, that a
study of the problem and the range in allowances can produce some averages
and allowances that are far more equitable and consistent than letting workers
make personal judgments on individual cases. This would be one of the other
research projects the Task Force would suggest for early attention by an
Assistant Director for Management proposed in Recommendation 48, p. 200.
SCREENERS
One bi-product we would expect to come from developing better
procedures manuals is that it will force the development of more standard-
izing procedures and approaches to common eligibility functions. It is
impossible to develop step-by-step procedures until the department decides
that the same job should be done the same way. In this sense the preparation
of a procedures manual will be a constructive discipline to the entire
organization.
One job we are sure will be isolated as a special function is the
screening process at the point of eligibility intake. Screeners have been
used in the organization before separation and removed for the reasons we
explained in our discussion of separation in the chapter on the Planning
Process.
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10. THE TASK FORCE RECOMMENDS THAT THE POSITION OF SCREENERS BE
REESTABLISHED. Screeners were removed on a set of unfounded assumptions by
the State which was never anything more than idealized speculation. There
was no more reason to think that screeners will be used to arbitrarily dis-
qualify eligible applicants than a regular eligibility worker would. The
Task Force believes that a sound case can be made for screeners in light of
all subsequent events since separation.
Some offices, in fact, have the facsimile of screeners now. They
are called informational workers but they function essentially as screeners.
Finding positions like this only illustrates again, the differences between
divisions and the various ways in which the eligibility process is procedu-
ralized.
The Task Force bases its recommendation on screeners on three
points. First, as we see the intake process we feel a great deal of time is
wasted by eligibility workers in interviewing ineligible applicants. Basic
eligibility can be determined almost instantly in some cases. An applicant
under 65 years of age cannot qualify for OAS or a couple without children
cannot possibly qualify for AFDC. A properly trained screener can make
these denials quickly before sending an applicant to a regular eligibility
worker. The difference in quick denials is recognized in weighting work-
loads now.
We sat in on enough intake interviews to know that once that an
applicant gets to an eligibility worker it is very difficult to avoid going
through a point-by-point search to assist in making the applicant eligible.
-35-
There is no reason to do this when a determination can be made on one basic
qualifying factor of eligibility.
Many applicants come to the department asking only about one
specific aid program like food stamps or medical service. In these cases
the applicant should be sent directly to a food stamp unit or a Medi-Cal
unit. There is no reason to present these applicants to a regular intake
worker who will have to review eligibility for aid programs which the
applicant may not even be asking about. Any applicant who feels he wants to
persist with an application may do so. The time saved by the eligibility
worker can be used then to get on with her home calls and budgets.
Secondly, we believe that having screeners will encourage offices
to set up regular interviews on fixed schedules. Some offices see applicants
by appointment now. Others see applicants when they arrive. It seems to us
that workers would have a much better chance of organizing both their office
time and field work if intake interviews were scheduled by appointment.
Thirdly, and probably most important, we believe that screeners are
the key to the department getting control once again of its application logs
which are presently in very bad shape. These application logs are the only
source of the statistics on applications taken, applications accepted, denials,
and cases pending. They are basic to every decision management makes.
These statistics are now scattered throughout every worker in each
intake unit and the Fiscal Division has been notably unsuccessful in
collecting this data from the division. The statistics have been delayed as
long as two months in some of the divisions. The large number of pending
cases shown in the official reports of the department may be more a result
of faulty statistical reporting than a delay in making an eligibility
-36-
determination. Problems with the application logs also account for the
inconsistency in statistics we find between reports. It is impossible for
anyone to know for sure.
By having screeners management could centralize control over the
application logs as well as some other important intake data. The Fiscal
Division has been allowed some new positions this year to audit and collect
intake statistics. There is probably reason to do this but even that job
will be much easier if there are one or two people in each division to remind
workers to clear their applications by the end of each month. These new
positions in Fiscal Division were approved because of the difficulty the
department has in auditing and getting reliable statistics out of the divisions.
Rather than try to accommodate to an eligibility function that is funda-
mentally wrong we believe it would have been better to reorganize the
intake function around the screeners.
In looking at the problem relating to collecting statistics staff
also observed another area of inconsistency in counting intake workloads
which would distort intake data. It relates to the weighting or credit
given to restoration cases and cases transferred into the county from other
departments. In some offices "transfer-in" cases are weighted at 1.; in
others they are credited at 4.6. Restoration cases, in some offices, are
given new application numbers which make them appear as new cases. In other
offices the old application number is used. This does not affect workload
but it certainly causes inconsistency in the statistics.
-37-
The department could also build a good referral service around
the screeners. We notice that food referrals are one of the most frequent
and successful kinds of social service given. There cannot be too many
places in the community meeting this need. It seemed to us that screeners
would be a likely place to handle some common types of referrals without
having to involve social workers at all.
CASELOAD CLASSIFICATION
In 1962 it was demonstrated that the AFDC caseload could be reduced
30% without changing one State regulation or law or changing eligibility
standards in the slightest. The reduction was effected solely by adminis-
trative action and in the way the caseload was conceptualized and managed.
Certainly the problems were different then in the sense that the total AFDC
caseloads were smaller and were all concentrated in one location but the
composition of the caseload is not essentially different than it was in 1962.
The principal elements of the classification scheme we pose here is based,
to a large extent, on a rationale for classification that has already been
proven. We do acknowledge, however, that the addition of food stamps and
medical programs since 1962 also make it more difficult to remove marginally
attached recipients altogether from the aid programs.
To understand the necessity for some kind of classification system
in AFDC one must first have some appreciation for the diversity of recipients
in that aid program. To mention a few there are recipients who have income
(approximately 25 to 30%) and those who do not. Some of these have variable
income and for others it is more or less fixed. Some heads of eligible house-
holds have absent parents contributing to support of the families, most do not.
The size of the cash grants vary from $10.00 to $400. In some families there
-38-
is an excellent employment potential, for others it is absolutely nil. Heads
of households in 40% of the cases have only one dependent child. When the
AFDC caseload is looked at as a single, generalized grouping it is no wonder
that groups like this retreat, frustrated and feeling that nothing can be
done. Indeed, that was the first reaction of the staff during this study.
As our understanding of welfare deepened, however, we have come to
the conclusion that there is some part of the caseload which will yield to
systematic analysis and the application of some original management thinking.
We are certain, however, that little can be done in reducing the size of the
AFDC caseload as long as management approaches it as if it were a homogeneous
group of recipients, as they do now. This conception of AFDC makes about as
much sense to the Task Force as trying to make a systematic study of all sea
life without the benefit of working with a classification system recognizing
their different Orders and Species and Families of fish.
The only distinctive group of recipients now identified within AFDC
are the unemployed. As a working constructive grouping, however, it is not,
by itself, a useful categorization. Unless other factors are related to the
knowledge that the person is eligible by virtue of being unemployed it is a
useless piece of information. The possibilities for employment and inde- -
pendence are so completely different between an unemployed mother 45 years
old with a sixth grade education and seven children and a 20-year-old,
unemployed mother with one child and a high school education that they
cannot be compared. Yet, these cases are managed as if they were identical
situations.
We prepared this section, writing from the viewpoint that there
are a large number of AFDC recipients that can benefit from special eligibility
-39-
considerations and social services and there are other groupings which
cannot. To focus its resources properly, efficiently and with any
expectation of productive results it is imperative that the department
begin to identify and concentrate its attention on specific groupings of
the total caseload.
Both our sections on WIN and Social Services are basically
concerned with classification concepts. There can and should be many
different types of classification schemes developed within the total
welfare system depending on management's objectives. Any classification
scheme has this end result: it forces management to declare what it is
they are trying to do.
This classification scheme is somewhat hypothetical, but let us
say that it has as its main objective the reduction of caseload in AFDC
by 2,000 cases. It is obvious that some cases are more tenuously tied to
the welfare system than others. Management must first make some assumption
about which cases these are likely to be.
We suggest it may be the recipient receiving the smallest
grants -- say in the $10 to $30 category. They would be people who are
almost making it on their own but not quite well enough to break the tie with
welfare. There would be income of some kind in these cases. A fixed type of
income may be support payments from an absent father. In instances where the
income was earned the cases should be examined considering the age of the children
and the child-care plan available for them. A mother with a three-months old
baby has a different prospect for self-support than someone with a child in
-40-
school or one that has a good child-care plan already worked out.
In any event, the caseload should be searched for the cases
having these characteristics:
Single mothers with small grants under $30 and with:
1. income from an absent father or other
income of some type;
2. under 35 years old with employment
histories interrupted by pregnancy
or divorce, or who are already working;
3. one child in case;
4. good child-care plans or where good child-
care plans can be developed.
You now have a special group of recipients isolated. Look at the
ones first with absent parent support. If you can manage to get only $10 to
$30 more out of the absent parent could they be terminated? If so, it should
be quite evident where the D.A.'s staff should be spending their time. Instead
of chasing someone for $200, concentrate on just trying to get $20 or $30 out
of someone else which would remove the family from welfare entirely. The
other reason is because it is easier to do. But, this is the kind of intra-
agency coordination simply not present in the county now. These important
agencies, like the D.A. and Probation, on the periphery of welfare are not
tied together with the welfare deparment under working management concepts
like this.
Next, move on to the cases with earned income asking the question:
what can be done to get the $10 to $30 needed to make up the difference
between the recipient's own income and the small grant received? Recognize
-41-
that all that has to be done is to make the opportunity for the recipient
to work 15 to 20 hours more each month. Concentrate on the precise factors
that interfere with that objective.
In the group of recipients we have selected through this classi-
fication scheme the chances are good that the problems will be with the
child-care plans of the recipient because that is basic to anybody. If the
recipient does not have a good child-care plan concentrate on getting one
worked out. If it is not a child problem look for whatever it may be. If
clothes are needed or some esthetic dental work, provide it in these cases
instead of somewhere else because you have already decided that these are
the recipients you are going to move out.
All we have tried to do is provide the barest outline of one way
of thinking about caseload management. It is too general to submit as a
specific recommendation because we are basically talking about a way of
thinking and conceptualizing a problem.
Besides the reduction in grant payments, the other payoff, from
removing these small grant cases from the rolls, is in administrative salary
savings. Savings in grants by removing 120 cases receiving $20 each month
would total about $29,000 annually. The administrative staff, to service
the cases, might be 20-25% of the grant amount. The combined savings would
more than pay for what the cost of setting up the classification scheme
would be.
One reason we cannot be more specific in suggesting a classi-
fication system for AFDC is because of the limited amount of information
-42-
about the characteristics of the caseloads. The data needed to construct
the classification scheme we describe is not available. About the only
management information supplied routinely from the computer are some
statistics on family size, ethnic composition of recipients, and the
average dollar amount of grants. These are statistics needed for getting
grant reimbursement from the State but they are not very useful for manage-
ment purposes. When grants vary from $10 to $400, knowing the size of the
average grant is not a very helpful piece of information.
THE BUDGETING PROCESS
Customers must possess an almost religious-like faith in the
longer-term potential of their computers to make them tolerate the
problems which they seem to create. There are many reasons for it, but
the potential of this computer installation has never been realized.
The focus of the Task Force review was upon the use of the computer
in assisting with the automation of the budget process for the department's
60,000 aid cases. To be sure, the computer does many other things for the
-43-
department and some of them quite well, such as writing the warrants and
handling the central index, but we see the case budgeting application as
the primary work savings application for the welfare department. The
capacity and type of data processing installation needed to handle index
and warrant writing would be quite a different thing if the main objective
were not to computerize case budgets.
After 10 years of massive effort the department has been unable
to automate the budgeting of more than 10 to 15,000 of its 60,000 aid cases,
and is losing ground daily. Nearly all of the computer budgeted cases are
within the OAS program which is probably the most stable of the three major
aid categories. But, even the OAS application has been so badly patched and
modified since it was written seven or eight years ago that it cannot be
salvaged. A new program must be rewritten if the OAS caseload is to remain
on the computer.
Fifty to 80% of the AFDC budgets may have been done on the computer
at an earlier time. Computer budgeted cases have been steadily removed until
only about 10% are on the computer today. It appears to the Task Force that
in respect to the major objective of automating the case budgeting process the
department is at a point where they could stop computerized budgeting without
any great loss.
Another new generation of computers is on order and must be installed
before another push can be made on the case budgeting application. But even
with larger capacity equipment the Task Force believes that there are reasons
to reassess the objective of automating the budgeting of the grant cases. As
theoretically ideal as computer budgeting is, as a data processing application,
the Task Force questions whether it can be done until the welfare programs
-44-
themselves are simplified and stabilized by changes in federal legislation.
This is not a problem peculiar to Alameda County. The State's review of
computer budgeting in welfare two years ago indicated counties had some
reservations about the feasibility of computer budgeting. Only two centers
with comparable computer installations reported they did the case budgeting
by computer.
One of the most monstrous inconsistencies we find in welfare is
that millions and millions of dollars are spent in developing hardware and
clerical procedure systems around welfare regulations which are not stable
enough to be controlled regardless of how sophisticated, powerful, or fast
the machines are.
We estimate, conservatively, that 70 to 80% of the department's
system staff, as well as the staff from the central data processing center
assigned to the department, is consumed with modifying programs to accommodate
regulation changes. The reason we find for the deterioration of the computer
budgeting program is this, and it is very important in understanding the
specific recommendations we make. The logic built in both the AFDC and OAS
budgeting applications 10 years ago was based on the regulations and require-
ments in the welfare programs as they existed in 1960. Future modification
of some of the original computer logic is possible but much of it is
irreversible. The programs are being asked now to perform functions which
were simply not planned for when the computer programs were written. For
an analogy, it is about like trying to make a formula race car out of a
chassis you had originally intended to use as a dump truck.
Each new change in welfare regulations causes more machine budget
cases to be dropped becaus the programs will not accommodate them. One of
-45-
the important policy decisions facing the department right now is whether
the confusion resulting from having two budgeting systems working simultan-
eously justifies the small advantage of having a few of the budgets prepared
on the computer. 11. THE TASK FORCE THINKS THAT IT DOES NOT AND RECOMMENDS
THAT THE MACHINE PREPARED BUDGETS BE DROPPED AND THE COUNTY REVERT BACK TO A
MANUAL SYSTEM FOR ALL CASES.
The confusion and problems resulting from having to teach the
eligibility staff the intricacies of a manual budget system and a computer
budgeting system is enormous. We will describe the differences between the
manual and computer budgeting system to give some indication of what would
be lost by our recommendation
In the automated budgeting system the machine stores in magnetic
files all details of the case necessary to compute the grant amount. When
a change in the grant becomes necessary by virtue of a regulation change,
a change in the income of the recipient, etc. the computer is procedurally
notified of the one change involved and it re-computes a whole new budget.
The warrant amount is changed around the action and the computer continues
to pay the new amount to the recipient until it is notified of another
change by the eligibility worker. The great value of the computer system,
of course, is in handling grant changes that affect all cases caused by
some of the general court orders on new regulations that apply to all
recipients uniformly. To do all this there is a very complex set of
procedures which have to be followed exactly by the worker.
In the manual system the worker computes the revised budget by
desk adding machine and then sends the new amount of the warrant to the
computer pay tape. All the computer does then is prepare the actual
-46-
warrant sent to the recipient.
At this time the worker decides whether to let the case remain on
the computer system or to remove it and handle it on the manual budgeting
system. The decision is based on the stability of the case and the number
of changes the worker believes will occur in the case.
As automated as it sounds there are some important limitations in
what the computer system can do. It cannot initiate aid, add a child,
determine and show non-federal eligible people, cancel and rewrite warrants
to a lesser amount, pay vendor checks, adjust overpayments according to
regulations, ("it will adjust but not for the right months," or issue
emergency warrants).
The computer, then, is only able to perform a limited number of
budget tasks on a small percentage of cases. It is only the manual system
that can handle all budget actions on all the cases. The volume of transfers
between the two budget systems is great. This frequently causes a delay in
the processing of a budget action which results in many warrants being held
and is a common cause of budgetary errors as well.
The new computer may add speed and storage capacity to the present
installation but it is not going to change the inherent problem of trying to
automate the budgetary process of a welfare program subject to constant
change. The Task Force does not say, categorically, that computerized case
budgeting cannot be done but we see very little from the past 10 year's
experience to make us optimistic. As laudable and objective as machine
budgeting may be, the cold truth is that it has probably caused as many
problems as it has solved. 12. WE RECOMMEND THE COUNTY REASSESS ITS AUTO-
MATED BUDGETING APPLICATIONS IN THE LIGHT OF EXPERIENCE AS TO WHETHER IT IS
A REALISTIC DATA PROCESSING APPLICATION.
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The Task Force believes that proper recognition has not been
given to the fact that the basic budgeting programs may have relatively
short, usable life spans. The expensive implication of this statement
is that much more time and money will have to be spent on the development
of new systems prior to the time current operating programs expire. As
we have said, systems people in both the department and central data
processing are totally preoccupied in adapting existing programs to current
changes in law and regulations. From a systems standpoint the present
budgeting applications were worn out five years ago. Work has started on
re-programming the OAS budgeting system. That may be a sensible priority
or it may not when one considers the real payoff with the computer is in
AFDC. It is also more probable that the adult categories are the programs
most likely to be transferred to the State or federal government from all
the indications we see in pending federal legislation. The more likely
reason for re-programming OAS first is that it is about the only program
the department can approach given the size of the present staff and the
legitimate preoccupation they have for keeping the existing programs
running. The year or so it would take now to prepare a new budgeting
program for AFDC practically makes the application obsolete before it is
started or measurably reduces its useful life.
There are about 38 new data processing applications in some stage
of development now, 13 of which relate to the improvement of fiscal and
statistical controls. Most of them have been pending for well over a year.
It is a large backlog of work which cannot and should not be implemented
without a much clearer definition of what the department's basic objectives
are for its computers.
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Basic to most of these 38 applications is whether or not to use
the computer on case budgeting. Uncertainty about the outcome of this year's
Federal and State legislation has paralyzed decision-making for some time.
Some things may happen this year in legislation that will help the department
make a decision but the Task Force is inclined to doubt it. The only definite
thing we see on the horizon are stiffer requirements in regards to data
processing development costs which the State and Federal government will
participate in underwriting. It is becoming more necessary than ever before
for local welfare departments to set its goals around the reality that the
welfare programs are not likely to stabilize very soon.
If it is impossible to get effective use of computers in certain
applications because of constant changes in the welfare programs themselves
it is time the department recognize this and act accordingly in limiting their
data processing applications to the ones which are actually possible. The
Task Force believes it is more desirable to use the computer on applications
which are common to all grant cases than it is on applications where
experience has proven it is almost impossible to achieve success.
13. IF THE COUNTY DECIDES TO MAKE ANOTHER ATTEMPT AT COMPUTER
BUDGETING THE TASK FORCE RECOMMENDS THAT THERE BE AN AUGMENTATION OF SYSTEMS
AND PROGRAMMING STAFF TO WORK EXCLUSIVELY ON THE PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT OF
NEW APPLICATIONS INDEPENDENT FROM ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DAY-TO-DAY
MAINTENANCE OF EXISTING APPLICATIONS. We cannot suggest the size of the
staff needed but we are confident from our review that more advance systems
work is needed if the department is ever going to get full value from the
million dollars it is spending on data processing. Systems planning and
development work must precede by several months, the time when existing
-49-
applications wear out. To make timely and well-coordinated transitions
from an existing application to a new one is difficult when original systems
development and ongoing maintenance work is managed as if they were the same
responsibility.
14. THE TASK FORCE RECOMMENDS THAT FOR EACH APPLICATION SET UP AS
A DATA PROCESSING OBJECTIVE A TIME TABLE AND A SPECIFIC BUDGET ALLOCATION BE
GIVEN TO IT. The budget should set forth the number of man-hours required
from systems people and programmers in both the Central Data Processing
Center and the department. There is a mixture of responsibility for systems
design and programming between the Welfare Department and Central Data
Processing that makes it very difficult to fix accountability for anything
at present. Progress points should be specified on each new proposal and
reviewed critically by the Director of Fiscal Services from the Welfare
Department, the County Administrator, and the Chief of Central Data
Processing.
The Task Force's initial excursion into the Budget Process, which
we titled this piece of the report, was prompted by seeing the problems
created for the eligibility worker by having to learn and deal with two
different budget systems. We prepared a lot of procedural detail on how the
manual and computer budget systems worked and related to each other. Like
so many other parts of this study we soon realized we were not confronting a
problem of systems and machines so much as we were a management problem. It,
again, relates to plans, administrative objectives, and time tables far more
than it relates to systems or hardware. The essential question is whether
computerized budgets are possible and whether they are worth the time and
effort it will take to get them.
-50-
It is tragic to see the department patching and limping along
trying to salvage a data processing application conceived for another era of
welfare. If the department's expectations for its data processing installation
were clear at one time they are not any longer. Management must restate its
goals for this installation and then pay far more attention to watching and
coordinating the people and resources it uses in translating these goals into
practical applications.
To go any further with this discussion of data processing the Task
Force would be taken into a quagmire of technical considerations. All we
have done is look at one primary objective set for the computer and find
that it has not been accomplished. All the rest is explanation. The Task
Force feels that should be given to those officials in the county to whom
the department is accountable. We agree, however, that there are many
technical aspects to the problem the department faces in getting the install-
ation to service them more effectively.
We have discussed computerized budgeting with people who have
written case budgeting programs. In reviewing our material they suggest to
us that the statements we make about the difficulty of modifying computer
programs around welfare change may not be true at all. The point raised
relates to the kind of systems logic employed in writing the programs. It
seems there are two types of systems logic. One is "segmented" in which
parts of the program are separated into connected but isolated pieces which
permits one piece of the program to be revised or updated around specific
welfare changes without disturbing other parts of the overall program. The
other type called "free flow" is what they suspect has been used in preparing
the case budgeting application in this installation. In free flow programming
-51-
all the computer routines are joined together in a manner which limits the
amount of alteration which can be done. One sounds a lot better than the
other but the Task Force does not know if it has significance here or not.
Another problem the department points out to us is the difficulty
of holding systems people and programmers assigned to a project until it is
finished. There may be good reasons to contract for software services rather
than keeping in-house programmers if this is a major problem.
Another question to be considered is the advantage in having the
welfare department's data processing needs serviced through central data
processing. There is nothing intrinsically good about centralization of
equipment. Again, the test is, does it work. With 60,000 cases does the
department have a data processing requirement which might be better met by
having an independent satellite installation of its own. The department's
needs are much different now than what they were when the separate installation
the department once had was merged into central data processing.
Knowing what it does about the allocation of data processing costs
in welfare the Task Force is inclined to suspect that the reasons for removing
the welfare department's installation had as much to do with cost sharing
considerations with the State as it did with the efficiency which came with
a larger, centralized operation.
These are very substantive policy matters which the Task Force believes
the Board of Supervisors must evaluate through very close study if the full
potential of this installation is to be realized. The Task Force does not
know what the capability the county may have in the administrative office and
central data processing for studying these questions but unless it has them
this is definitely an area where some competent outside assistance should be
obtained.
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ASSISTANCE PLANNING
In only one sentence of the report so far have we alluded to the
importance of the client's responsibility in reporting, on his own initiative,
changes in his circumstances which would affect his grant. That was in
reference to what we said about the initial eligibility investigations setting
the stage for the long-term relationship between the client and the welfare
department.
Even when renewals are done on time and made with home calls and
strong verification, much can occur in the life of a recipient between one
renewal and the next which needs to be reported to the agency. Regardless
of how big brotherish it becomes, the administrative network in welfare can
never be made good enough to work successfully without an element of strongly
enforced cooperation from the client. The opportunity is just too great
for the agency to miss a telephone call, to lose a case file at an inopportune
time, and to otherwise get all changes when they occur.
What is needed we believe is a method of enforcing systematic,
mandatory reporting to the agency on the part of the recipient. The Task
Force is convinced that the only successful way of enforcing client reporting
-53-
is by making client reporting a condition of receiving their welfare payments
from one month to the next. It is no more unreasonable to expect clients to
furnish information which affects their grants to the agency than it is for
the Internal Revenue Service to expect every citizen to file an income tax
return regardless of whether they have income or not.
The clients are clearly obligated to report changes now but, as we
have tried to illustrate throughout this chapter, there are many places in the
administrative system which can interfere with the flow of information between
the agency and the recipient.
The Board of Supervisors were approaching one part of this problem
in their recent ordinance pressing the department to adopt procedures for
collecting information on earned income from the recipients. That, however,
is only one type of information which can affect the grant. As we view the
total problem, the ordinance affects, at best, 25 to 30% of the cases mainly
in AFDC. The grants can be influenced just as much by dozens of other factors
such as children leaving the family unit, dropping out of school, or losing a
job for which a special transportation allowance was given. It is in the
clients' interest as well to have a well understood procedural provision for
reporting promptly changes which would alter their grants before they are
discovered by the agency in the course of doing a routine renewal six months
or a year later.
It goes by different names, but as an administrative concept for
controlling grants assistance planning is not anything original or radical.
We also disagree with the State in their saying that as a budget method it
is both "expensive and administratively complicated." In terms of the costly
mistakes it causes nothing could be more expensive than the present budget
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system. Three or four counties, in fact, have successfully tied grant pay-
ments to client reporting for several years. We talked to some of them and
are satisfied it works. The concept of assistance planning was considered
in this department five years ago and in a loose, ill-defined way provision
has been made for assistance planning in State regulations since 1958. Seeing
the significance of better client reporting as we do and the important
administrative implications budget planning has for management, it is
staggering to realize that it has not been pushed and implemented in every
welfare department.
Like any administrative change there are some technical problems
associated with a conversion to a different payment method such as how you
treat earned income initially, the designation of the reporting period, short
months, payment dates, etc. As much as anything the ball-up has centered on
trying to deliver the client's check exactly on the first and 15th of each
month and in trying to make the budget process conform to some nonsensical
notion of the State about "statewideness." The State's concern about state-
wideness seems particularly ludicrous to the Task Force knowing that there is
practically nothing uniform now in the way counties handle client budgets. As
constructive administrative guidelines, words like "statewideness" mean
absolutely nothing. Yet, they persist as if they were real concepts and
prevent the counties from taking decisive action on important changes which
are vital to controlling the grants they are charged with administering. It
is but one example of the vicious deadlock between the counties and the State
which paralyze decisive action on improving money payment controls. Combine
this kind of influence with the normal tendency for inertia there is in any'
large organization and you have the nightmarish aspect of administration we
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spoke about in our opening statement.
Seeing the significance of having a better method of forcing client
reporting, we wrote to the State in regard to their approving some form of
assistance planning if we recommended it in this study. We print the reply
in its entirely.
May 4, 1971
Miss Linda Furst
405 Davis Street
San Francisco, California 94111
Dear Miss Furst:
In response to your request for explanatory material on the
AFDC "Budget Planning and Subsequent Payment" method, I am
enclosing an old handbook section and the training outline
used with counties when the method was first established.
It is our understanding that you are participating in a
management study of Alameda County which was commissioned
by the Board of Supervisors, and that one of the recom-
mendations under consideration is concerned with the choice
of AFDC budget methods. As I mentioned when we talked on
the phone the other day, the State Department of Social
Welfare is developing a welfare reform proposal which when
implemented, would require all counties to use a simplified,
uniform method of preparing budgets in AFDC cases. The
proposal under consideration would be comparable to the
"Budget Planning and Subsequent Payment" method.
Since the change in budget methods is both expensive and
administratively complicated, we would not encourage or
approve county action to change case budget methods until
development of the proposal is further along. As soon as
they are ready for release, details will be distributed to
the counties.
If we can be of further assistance, please let me know.
Sincerely yours,
Arlo W. Dehnert, Chief
AFDC Bureau
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cc: Mr. Hrayr Terzian, Director - Alameda County
Mr. W. Jerry Cambre, No. Reg. Office
Attachments - Handbook Section C-221.02
January 1958 Training Outline (Excerpt)
Attached were 24 pages of procedural discussion, regulation, examples, flow
charts and lastly "suggested questions for stimulating discussion." To say
what: that after 13 years the State has still not presented counties with
a definitive regulation on something that is vital to controlling grants
and telling us that until they do they will not approve a procedure which
may show the way.
What is also interesting is that the outline of the plan which
the State implies it is developing is, in fact, coming from one of the
counties which recognizes it has to do assistance planning. There is still
no assurance yet of what may come from the State. We tried to get some
detailed information from the State Department of Social Welfare about their
plan but they claimed it was not at a stage where it could be released.
From what little we saw of the State's proposal we felt that the approach
which has been considered by Alameda County would be better anyway. 15. OUR
UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE ADOPTION OF A STATEWIDE PLAN COMPELS THE TASK FORCE TO
RECOMMEND THE COUNTY ADOPT A FORM OF ASSISTANCE PLANNING THAT IS COMPATIBLE
WITH THEIR DATA PROCESSING EQUIPMENT AND PRESENT BUDGET PROCEDURE REGARDLESS
OF STATE APPROVAL. We cannot imagine the present State administration
obstinately refusing to accept an approach to budget planning that deals
effectively with the essential problem involved.
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The proposal made on assistance planning to management by some of
the staff worked this way. We describe the procedure of assistance planning
as if it were a monthly payment cycle when there are actually two, but the
sense of it is the same. A client would be required to report any change
that affected his grant to the eligibility worker by the 25th day of each
month. Checks for the subsequent month would be held on any client pending
receipt of the required information.
It is recognized that not all clients would report on time so an
additional five days would be allowed to receive late reports and rework
the clients' budget around the reports and notify fiscal of any change in
the warrants. An additional 10 days are needed after the worker finishes
her computations for data processing to prepare and mail the warrants.
In order to make the reporting period of the client correspond
cleanly to a calendar month, which is all he understands, the 25th does not
allow sufficient time to process the information and prepare the warrants
by the first of the month. This has been one of the main problems the
State has dealt with for 10 years. There is only one solution and it is to
send the check to the client on the 10th of the month instead of the first.
To install assistance planning one has to recognize also that
because of the desperate financial condition of the clients delaying the
date of their warrants for even 10 days presents an unacceptable hardship.
To meet this problem a supplement equal to about one-third of the previous
month's grant will have to be given to the client in the month preceding the
date the procedure is started otherwise the client would have to live through
one 40 day month and most of them cannot do it. This will be approximately
$38 per recipient. This slide-in payment is another thing that has bothered
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both the State and the counties because it appears to be a grant increase.
It is not a supplement but an advance which will be recovered from the
recipient if possible on the month aid is terminated. Working out a method
which will guarantee recovery of the advance is also an acknowledged problem.
It is the feeling of the Task Force that it is worth $38 per recipient to
get the reporting system started for what it will do to assure better grant
administration in general.
For one thing, we believe the department's success in collecting
overpayments would be infinitely improved. In cases where the client will-
fully reports false information there is, from his own reports, firm docu-
mentation of what he represented his status to be. There is nothing like
this now. If a renewal is not made on time or the client can allege he was
unable to contact his eligibility worker for any reason the chances of
collecting an overpayment are practically lost.
It is also acknowledged that certain estimates and averages have
to be made about the client's income in initiating assistance planning. We
feel confident, however, that just as many estimates are being made about
income in the present budgeting procedure. As many as three or four adjusting
or supplementary warrants have to be written on each case when aid is first
initiated before the grant is worked out correctly. Supplementary or adjusting
warrants are written on nearly one-third of the AFDC cases. The State's
sluggish attitude on approving modifications of the present budgeting system
suggests to us that they think there is something worth preserving in the
present methods they are forcing counties to use, In truth, no system could
be more vulnerable to mistake on behalf of both clients and welfare
administration.
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SECTION II
MEDICAL ELIGIBILITY
MEDICAL ELIGIBILITY
The fiscal and administrative problems we are addressing in this
section are directed to a relatively small and even declining number of
persons who find their way into the welfare system through the route of the
county hospitals. Between Fairmont and Highland Hospitals it amounts to 250
to 275 persons per month. This is approximately 20 to 25% of the total
hospital admissions. The two units of eligibility social workers are super-
vised from the East Oakland division. Their primary assignment is to sort out
from the total hospital admission lot those patients with possible linkage to
Medi-Cal in order for the county to participate in the State's sharing of the
patient's medical cost. Unless the patient's Medi-Cal eligibility is certified
the county has no recourse but to bear the full cost of the medical care.
Technically, at least, the certification for Medi-Cal eligibility must be
established and a billing submitted to Blue Cross, the State's fiscal inter-
mediary, within 60 days. An exception is made for the 60 day requirement
for those persons who qualify for ATD. This is in recognition of the delay
involved in securing the medical examinations required which are the essential
qualifying factors for eligibility in the ATD program.
In the largest sense, Medi-Cal certifications are just one other
facet of eligibility administration, but important phases of it are conducted
in conjunction with the county hospitals. A recent study of Alameda County
institutions dealt with this problem in some depth. The essential recom-
mendation of that report was to reassign responsibilities for determining
medical eligibility back to the hospitals.
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The reasoning for that recommendation was based on the fact that
time studies of hospital eligibility personnel indicate that the number of
admissions to the hospital with which the Welfare Department is involved has
dropped from about 80% of the hospital admissions to about 20% and seems to
be declining further.
We concur in the recommendation, and agree that there are clear
advantages in having admissions, eligibility determination and collections
integrated within a single agency. On the surface that may appear to be a
rather neat and final solution to a county administrative problem. As staff
we were sorely tempted to side-step the issue saying it was under study
elsewhere and that it was a matter to be resolved finally by the hospital
staff. We did not, however, because we cannot visualize the creation of
any procedure for handling the certification of Medi-Cal eligibles which can
completely bypass the Welfare Department. Furthermore, we think that trans- -
ferring responsibility for categorically linked medical cases to the hospital
intake staff will only compound the problem for the Welfare Department.
We say this because we think that in cases where eligibility is
not readily apparent to the hospital there will be a tendency to send
all questionable cases back to the Welfare Department for a final deter-
mination. If this occurs there will be more reason than ever for Welfare
to set up a dependable way of certifying the medical eligibility.
What is at stake in this issue is between $500,000 and $600,000
worth of hospital services rendered to recipients which cannot be billed
by Central Collections pending the department either certifying or denying
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the patient's eligibility for Medi-Cal. Without going into the intricacies
of the "standard" and "option" methods of financing county medical costs,
suffice it to say that any proper Medi-Cal charge not billed in time risks
becoming a county cost liability.
In referring to this figure it is important to point out that how
much of it represents legitimate charges to Medi-Cal is rather uncertain.
It is the practice of the auditor's office to set up costs for all patient
care as a receivable until he is notified that a case cannot be billed as a
Medi-Cal charge. Strictly speaking, the $500,000 to $600,000 are charges for
hospital services which have not been cleared. State Department of Health
Care Services reports that Alameda's utilization of the Medi-Cal Fund in
relation to eligibles is comparatively good when viewed in the perspective
of counties of comparable size. Still, it is a matter of concern to the
Task Force that such a large amount of billing for hospital care is in doubt.
If the State's fiscal intermediary upholds the 60 day certification require-
ment many of the legitimate billings to Medi-Cal are in jeopardy because
most of the uncleared charges are considerably older than 60 days.
The 60 day certification requirement is, of course, a critical
administrative factor but it does not seem to us unreasonable. In fact, the
eligibility process in all aid programs except ATD must be completed within
30 days. As we have said before, the number of pending cases in a welfare
department is one test of how well the eligibility process is working. The
large number of pending cases in this particular area is only consistent with
the general situation we find in the overall department.
This group of cases, originating through the hospital, take on
special significance only because of the direct and immediate financial
losses that occur when they are not processed within the required period.
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The following point is an important one in understanding this problem. When
certification of eligibility in a regular cash aid case is delayed beyond the
normal 30 day period it is, generally speaking, of greater consequence to the
applicant than it is the agency. If an application cannot be processed or is
delayed because of the eligibility worker's failure to make the required home
call or verify some point of eligibility it is the applicant who suffers
because his cash aid won't begin until the eligibility is completed. Obviously,
it is to the recipient's advantage to cooperate to the fullest extent possible
and make himself available to the worker in order to complete his eligibility
so that his grant payments can begin. In a manner of speaking, it is incumbent
on the applicant to chase the department. If contact is lost with the depart-
ment before an application is finalized the department can, with good reason,
just deny the application on the grounds that the client failed to return.
The important difference with the applicants who enter the welfare
system through the hospitals is that a liability, and probably a fairly
large one, has been incurred before the applicant leaves the hospital and
before the eligibility process and required paperwork has been completed.
It is of no personal interest to the patient, particularly those entitled to
medical services only, whether the certification process is ever finished.
In their minds county hospital services are free anyway and they have no
concern whatsoever with all the paper and procedure that determines whether
they are covered as a county indigent at full county expense or as a Medi-
Cal patient with State reimbursement of the hospital cost.
This subtle difference is the crucial reason why it is necessary
to complete the eligibility determination as quickly as possible. After
the patients leave the hospital many recuperate at some place other than
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