Day 29 - March 6, 2008

The Senate and House worked until late afternoon today as they raced the clock to pass bills before the end of the 30^th legislative day, scheduled for Tuesday, March 11^th.  There has been no agreement between the chambers on the Amended FY 2008 budget; education continues to be a key sticking point.

The Senate passed SB 404, the Georgia Health Market Place Act, today. This Act would encourage Health Savings Accounts for 18 to 25 year-olds and create a website where consumers could shop and compare insurance. The bill would create a new class of health insurance plans that could be offered without important health services currently mandated by Georgia law.

The House passed a long list of legislation including HB 831, the Public Charter School Capital Financing Act. This Bill would provide for an income tax credit with respect to qualified donations for construction of or capital improvements for charter schools. HB 831 passed the House with a vote of 137 to 21.

This afternoon, Rep. Judy Manning (R-Marietta) held a Subcommittee meeting focusing on TANF. The Subcommittee includes Rep. Manning, Rep. Keith Heard, and Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver. Rep. Pat Gardner also attended the meeting.
 
Cliff Connor, with the Department of Human Resources which oversees the TANF expenditures, gave a brief history of TANF.  He explained that States have broad ability to use TANF funds as long as those expenditures meet the four purposes set forth in federal law. Those four purposes are: 

• To provide assistance to needy families
• To end dependence of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work and marriage
• To prevent and reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies
• To encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.

Georgia's annual allocation for TANF is $368 million. These block grant dollars are provided on a federal fiscal year basis and any dollars not spent in that federal fiscal year may be used in later years but only for "cash assistance." Georgia's TANF cases have declined since 2004 – from more than 57,000 to slightly more than 26,000 on a monthly basis in 2007.
 
There are two types of "cash assistance:" 

• Traditional adult TANF – which includes a parent and one or more of her children. The parent is required to engage in one of twelve work activities (these are both core (unsubsidized employment, vocational educational training, on-the-job training, etc.) and non-core (job skills training directly related to employment, education directly related to employment and satisfactory school attendance at a secondary school) work activities) working towards moving to self-sufficiency. The requirement for work participation is only for those women who have children over the age of one. As of August 2007, Georgia's caseload for this form of TANF was more than 3,000. Federal law only permits adults to have five years of assistance under this form of TANF; states could adopt their own limits (up to five years) and Georgia's limit is only four years. Georgia is obligated by federal law to have a 50% work participation rate for families receiving these types of assistance. Georgia's work participation rate for FY 2007 was approximately 68%. The maximum benefit per month for two persons, for instance, is $235.
• Children-only TANF. Children are eligible for receiving TANF funds based on their income while under the care of a relative (such as the grandmother, aunt, uncle, etc.). The relative has no requirement to be engaged in any work-related activities since that individual is not receiving the benefit and that individual is not legally responsible for the care of the child. As of August 2007, Georgia had more than 20,600 of these cases. In these cases, there is no "means test" done and the Division of Family and Children's Services is not required to be the custodian of these children. There were $62 million dollars for these children.

This Subcommittee asked many questions regarding how Georgia is using these TANF funds and whether more of these funds are available for funding subsidized child care for mothers who qualify for the program.
 
Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver stated that she interested on accessing additional TANF dollars to fund more child care for women who, while meeting the federal poverty limit guidelines, are not eligible for Adult TANF and do not receive priority. Rep. Oliver asked that the Department demonstrate or prove that TANF funds were getting people to work and determine the amount needed to fund the additional child care slots for persons who needed those services. She asked the Department to provide an estimate of how many slots would be needed to serve everyone receiving any service funded with TANF allocations.
 
For FY 2008, Georgia has a total of TANF dollars of $449.3 million (this includes the base allocation of $368 million and an additional $103 million from last fiscal year and a deduction of $22 million (transferred to Child Welfare Services). There were a number of questions on moneys which were transferred from child care to Child welfare services such as out-of-home care (formerly known as the Levels of Care system for children in foster care to pay for their Room, Board and Watchful Oversight). The Department explained that the Child Welfare issues took priority over child care and that TANF funds were being used to fund these departmental priorities.