State House News Service  

JUNE 30--As budget conferees worked in seclusion to hammer out their differences, welfare activists canvassed the State House today to drum up support for the more generous package provided in the Senate proposal. 

Both the House and Senate budgets include outside sections allowing up to 
10 hours of education and job training to count toward welfare reform's 
20-hour work requirement.  Beyond that, the branches are sharply divided on welfare initiatives. 

With the "first steps" in the House budget and the more extensive policy 
statements in the Senate version, "I think our foot's in the door," said 
Mac D'Alessandro, campaign coordinator for Family Economic Initiative. 
"Now, it's a matter of how much further we can wedge it open." 

The fact that both branches have begun to tinker with welfare reform is an 
important start, said Pat Baker, senior policy analyst for the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.  "I think both branches recognize that the cookie-cutter approach that the administration has to welfare reform 
isn't working," she said. 

But the devil's in the details, Baker added.  Both the House and the Senate 
address the issue of barriers to employment such as domestic violence, 
substance abuse, illiteracy and lack of a high school education.  But the 
branches differ in the minutia.  The House mandates DTA to spend "up to" $2 million on barrier assessment.  The Senate's language says "at least" $2 
million. 

That two-word difference is "significant," Baker said.  "Our concern is 
that unless the Legislature is specific about the amount that DTA shall 
spend on assessments, they could spend a hundred bucks and comply with the House version. The Senate version really mandates that they spend the $2 million." 

House welfare initiatives end with barrier assessment and education and job 
training provisions, but the more liberal Senate pushes further ahead.  It 
includes criteria the Department of Transitional Assistance must consider 
when deciding whether to grant extensions to the two-year time limit, and 
provides for a "fair hearing standard" in the case of appeals.  It also 
includes language barring DTA from denying the Earned Income Credit to the working poor. 

The huge philosophical gap is cause for concern as budget conferees begin 
negotiations, D'Alessandro said.  "I think you always worry, when the two 
chambers are at such different ends of the spectrum, that they'll end up 
trading things off and you'll end up getting a watered-down package," he 
said.  "But we're going to make sure both chambers understand the 
importance of every one of these measures.  These things work in concert 
with one another." 

To that end, activists rallied this morning on the State House steps, where 
they stacked 200 milk cartons - one for each legislator - bearing pictures 
of children and families, essays about courage, and legends such as "Kids 
Count" and "Stop Kids From Living in Poverty." 

A take-off on the missing children campaign, the milk cartons are intended 
to draw attention to families that have been pushed off the welfare rolls 
and now are "missing," said Sharron Tetrault, event organizer for Working 
Massachusetts.  "The welfare rolls have dropped substantially and nobody 
seems to know what's happening to the families," she said. 

Ann Whitorn of UMass Boston's Academic Working Group on Poverty added, "What we're trying to do is get the legislators to think about it as a real issue for real children, and to have as much concern for them as people do for the missing children who've been kidnapped." 

Activists this morning also received support from the faith community. 
Sister Linda Bessom of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, called the 
budget a "moral document" that outlines the state's priorities.  She brought a petition to the State House, signed by 115 sisters, calling on the budget conferees to support the Senate's initiatives. 

"The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur believe that welfare reform is not just work policy, it is family policy.  It needs to be a way to self-sufficiency, a way out of poverty, not just a way off of welfare,"Bessom said.  "We're calling on the joint conference committee to realize they have a moral imperative to ensure that the families that have the greatest need are not abandoned." 

After the brief rally, activists fanned out through the State House to talk 
to their individual legislators and ask the lawmakers to do a little lobbying themselves.  "We're going to ask them to talk to the influential people and make sure they're hearing it from all sides," D'Alessandro said.  "The more they hear it and from the more sources, the more likely they'll be to say, this is something we ought to take a look at." 

He added that activists have undertaken intensive grassroots efforts in the 
districts of those "influential people" - House Speaker Thomas Finneran 
(D-Mattapan), Senate President Thomas Birmingham (D-Chelsea), and the 
chairmen of the Ways and Means Committees, Sen. Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) and Rep. Paul Haley (D-Weymouth). 

Once the budget comes out of conference, activists still face the hurdle of 
Gov. Paul Cellucci's veto pen.  One aim of the organizing efforts is to 
make sure there's enough bipartisan legislative support to override anything Cellucci vetoes, Baker said. 

"Our hope is that with the bipartisan support on both sides of the Legislature, the governor will appreciate what they're saying...and not 
pursue a veto," she said.  "But if the administration decides to veto, then 
we're confident that we have the support for an override." 
 

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