Supervisors balk at welfare costs

COUNTY BUDGET: Controlling payments to poor part of new plan to avoid further cutbacks.

Faced with the prospect of further budget cutbacks, two county supervisors Tuesday proposed a new plan to control the rapid growth of welfare payments to the poor.

Supervisors Don Knabe and Michael Antonovich proposed a motion to reduce the cost of administering the state-mandated but county-funded general relief program.

The program provides payments of $221 a month to indigent single adults - mostly the homeless - who have no source of income and who do not qualify for any other state or federal benefits.

Amid the weak national economy, the program's caseload has skyrocketed by 80 percent over the last five years, now costing the county $257million this year.

Antonovich noted the county's general relief caseload is more than 80 times larger than those of Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties combined.

"Although Los Angeles County constitutes one-third of the state's population, we are shouldering 71 percent of the state's general relief participants," Antonovich said. "If we continue this trend, it will have a devastating effect on our ability to provide quality services."

General-relief recipients currently can receive cash for nine months a year, on the condition that they participate in programs that would lead to them either getting a job or disability benefits from the federal government.

Knabe and Antonovich directed the county's chief executive officer and public services director to consider

provide housing vouchers instead of cash, and to look at ways to crack down on enforcement of the program's eligibility rules. For example, they want to look at more limits on property and asset ownership to qualify and more documentation to prove residency in Los Angeles County.

Knabe noted that about half of general relief recipients are neither pursuing gainful employment or disability benefits. "There has to be a more appropriate way to address this portion of the caseload," he said.

They said half of any savings should go to the county's general fund, and the other half should go into the General Relief Anti-Homelessness Account.

County Chief Executive Officer William Fujioka estimated the monthly general relief caseload has nearly doubled in the last four years - from 58,599 in 2006-2007 to 106,894 in the current fiscal year.

He said the increase has pushed the county's costs to about $257 million in fiscal year 2010-2011, and warned that if the trend continues, the bill will soon exceed $300 million.

Leelee Sobieski Kate Bosworth Emma Heming Ali Larter Tami Donaldson