Maryland Representative Benjamin Cardin introduced legislation on April 20 to extend the Welfare-to-Work (WtW) grant program through FY2000 and provide several changes to enhance the program. The "Welfare-to-Work Amendments of 1999" are intended to maintain the focus of the program on the hardest-to-serve welfare recipients while expanding employment opportunities to help low-income fathers better support their children.

The WtW program, which was enacted a part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, funds job creation, job placement, and job retention efforts to help long-term welfare recipients to move into self-sustaining employment. The program is funded through the U.S. Department of Labor, through the states, to local private industry councils and workforce investment boards.

The amendments appropriate $1 billion in FY2000 and enhance the current program by:

• Simplifying the eligibility criteria;
• Expanding local flexibility to serve victims of domestic violence, individual with disabilities or homeless;
• Requiring states to spend at least 20 percent of the WtW formula grant funds to help noncustodial parents (mainly fathers) by committing to work and pay child support;
• Increasing resources to Indian tribes from the current1 percent of the total to 3 percent;
• Improving resource allocation by recapturing unallotted formula funds for competitive grants, and providing a preference to local applicants from states that did not receive formula grants;
• Streamlining reporting requirements through the Department of Labor;
• Promoting best practices;
• Including children aging out of foster care as eligible service recipients; and
• Adding job skills training and vocational educational training to the list of eligible activities.

There is some concern that movement on this legislation will not take place until later in the year.