March 8, 2004

Senator Orrin Hatch
104 Hart Senate Office Building
United State Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Senator Hatch:

Since April 2001, the Utah Reauthorization Project (UREAP) has worked closely with your staff specialists on Welfare Reform. We have all worked diligently on the issues--frequently using Utah's experience as a model--to make TANF and related programs truly assist families work toward self-sufficiency and safe-guard their children's well-being. We have greatly appreciated your commitment to refine the 1996 Welfare Reform law through reauthorization.

Today, we are alarmed at the 2005 Budget Resolution that will soon be before you on the Senate Floor. It promises to turn back the clock on all of our hard work and make it impossible for Utah and other states to continue to operate programs that assist families. We are writing to urge you to vote against Senator Nichols' Budget Resolution and do everything in your power to ensure that whatever Budget Resolution does pass allows hope for a positive future for Welfare Reform and the families that rely on it to move forward. 

UREAP has worked hard with Becky Shipp and Jace Johnson to support the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) process as you deliberated, crafted, and passed two TANF Reauthorization bills. We continue to hold out hope that barriers preventing the 2003 SFC bill from reaching the Floor will be resolved and are still prepared to help in any way possible in your efforts to increase countable months of education and training and child care funding. However, the proposed Budget Resolution, if passed, seems to us to make all of these matters moot. As we understand it, the Nichols Budget Resolution would so dramatically cut funding for essential services and reduce work supports already in place that Utah's TANF program, as we know it, would cease to exist. All of our efforts to make improvements--to better assist families with barriers to employment, to seek to reduce poverty and focus on enhancing child well-being, to help families get somewhere rather than simply get off welfare--are precluded by the elimination of funding for entire essential programs and reduction of funding for others. There is nothing left to enhance TANF.

As you may recall, UREAP has taken formal positions in support of the following issues. All of them are now threatened by the proposed Budget Resolution:

• Transitional Medical Assistance (TMA)--Utah began providing this critical coverage to families back in 1993 under the Single Parent Employment Demonstration (SPED) Program and found it to be so important as a self-sufficiency component that we presently offer families up to 24 months of Medicaid coverage after cash assistance ends. Under the current climate for employer-provided health insurance coverage, we are handing families seeking to leave welfare for work an impossible situation. The proposed Budget Resolution provides no funding for TMA.
• State Supplemental Grants--These grants were made a part of 1996 Welfare Reform to assist growth states and those with higher poverty rates to meet additional needs. Utah currently relies on Supplemental Grants for $9 million worth of services each year. The proposed Budget Resolution provides no funding for Supplemental Grants, promising substantial reduction in existing services.
• Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)--The EITC is credited with reducing poverty and assisting working poor individuals and families to make ends meet despite low-wage jobs. Reducing it sends the wrong message to hard working people, yet the proposed Budget Resolution would take this work incentive away from people without children. 
• Medicaid funding--Given the enormous number people in this nation who lack health insurance coverage of any kind and persistent state fiscal crises, a reduction in Medicaid funding cannot be supported. The proposed Budget Resolution would reduce the Medicaid budget by $11 billion over the next five years.
• Child care funding--This has been a goal we have all worked for and would be prepared to continue to pursue. Senator Snowe voted for the Senate Finance Committee bill with the understanding that there would be a reasonable opportunity to add an additional $5-$6 billion on the Floor. Your own understanding of the need for substantial additional dollar and commitment to support that is unmistakeable. Yet, the Budget Resolution includes no additional child care funding. It does not even allow for the $1 billion passed by the House and the Senate Finance Committee.
  
• TANF reauthorization--Despite some rather significant disagreements between the Administration/House approach and that of the Senate Finance Committee, both demonstrate agreement that some changes in the TANF law are needed and those changes will cost money. The proposed Budget Resolution provides nothing, meaning that funding all TANF reauthorization changes will require cutting other programs on top of the funding cuts just discussed above. This is an untenable situation, in our view.

Please use your influence to modify the Budget Resolution or oppose it if that is your only choice. We have all worked responsibly and diligently together to address TANF Reauthorizations in ways that will be positive for families, children, and communities. Please don't allow the proposed Senate Budget Resolution to undo the gains of the past several years and prevent us from doing what we know needs to be done.

Thank you for your consideration of our concerns. Please call on UREAP if we can assist in any way.

Sincerely,
 
 

Shirley Weathers and Bill Walsh, UREAP Staff

for the Utah Reauthorization Project members:

Active Re-Entry, Price, (Southeastern Utah)
Box Elder Family Support Center, Brigham City, (Box Elder County)
Bringing Hope to Single Moms, Logan, (Cache and Box Elder Counties)
Community Action Services, Provo, (Utah, Wasatch, and Summit Counties)
Disabled Rights Action Coalition (DRAC), Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake County)
Family Support & Children's Justice Center, Price, (Carbon County)
Housing Authority of Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake City)
International Rescue Committee, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
JEDI for Women, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
League of Women Voters of Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake County)
Legislative Coalition for People with Disabilities, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
Mental Health Association in Utah, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
Multiple Sclerosis Society, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
New Hope Refugee and Multicultural Center, Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake City)
Options for Independence, Logan, (Northern Utah)
Peace & Justice Commission, Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
People Helping People, Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake County)
Salt Lake Community Action Program (SLCAP), Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake and Tooele Counties)
Tri-County Independent Living Center, Ogden (Weber, Davis, and Morgan Counties)
United Way Executive Directors Association (UWEDA), SLC, (Salt Lake County)
Utah Children, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
Utah Community Action Program Association (UCAPA), (statewide)
Utah Issues, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
Utahns Against Hunger, Salt Lake City, (statewide)
Ute Tribe Social Services, Ft. Duchesne
Valley Mental Health, Salt Lake City, (Salt Lake and Tooele Counties)
Walsh & Weathers Research and Policy Studies, Fruitland
Your Community Connection, Ogden, (Weber County)