1. The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 created TANF and had two specific references to the use of TANF funding to “Increase the number of children raised in two-parent families.” These references were designed to encourage states to experiment with state TANF funding to create demonstration projects in relationship and marriage education. There was NO REFERENCE to fatherhood programs in this landmark legislations signed by President Clinton.
2. Only Oklahoma ran with this language and created a state-wide marriage and relationship education program which has continued under GOP and Democratic governors.
3. The 2006 Welfare Reauthorization created a $150 million fund for marriage and fatherhood programs to go to private, non-profits, faith-based and community organizations directly from the Federal government. It was NOT designed to go to State governments. As a result 42 states received funding.
4. The proposed Innovation Fund will provide funding to only EIGHTS states, only FOUR of these states will have any money for relationship education. YOUR STATE will LOSE significant number of jobs. Approximately 100 full or part-time jobs per year per grantee will be permanently lost. Private organizations will not be allowed to apply for funding.
THIS IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ARGUMENT. YOUR STATE WILL LOSE SIGNIFICANT NUMBERS OF JOBS.
5. The Innovation fund transfers all the funding to the ACF Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE). All the previous ACF demonstration projects have been run or tied to OCSE and all have FAILED. They have failed because they are based on a flawed model. These programs are run through state child support enforcement agencies or grants to private agencies that are tied closely to state child support enforcement agencies. The priority for these agencies is to get men who are not paying child support to become employed or get higher paying jobs and then be able to make child support payments to the government. The priority is NOT to INCREASE THE ABILITY OF THESE MEN TO BE BETTER FATHERS. Not one of the demonstration grants succeeded in improving the quantity or quality of fathering. In fact, two of the grants specifically reported INCREASES in conflict between the men and the mothers of their children. Two of the four increased job participation by the men and two failed at this goal.
6. The TANF administered grants from the Office of Family Assistance have much better success rates because they are administered by an agency that does not want to get more money from participants. These are skills-based programs which may include job services, but are not based on increasing the money that the government gets from participants. The TANF office, the Office of Family Assistance’ goal is to HELP at risk individuals either get jobs and get off welfare or not go on welfare at all. That is why the Marriage and Fatherhood grants were designated by Congress to be housed in the Office of Family Assistance.
7. There are numerous changes that can be made in the way the current program is administered that will improve the grants but not force them into an already failed model. These include:
· Require all participants to have incomes that total under 200 percent of the Federal poverty level. Make this a program for low income people.
· Require all grantees to have written partnerships with job service providers, job trainers, and drug rehabilitation centers.
· Require that more resources go to communities of color by adding diversity language to the legislation.
· Allow grantees to engage in capacity building activities. The prohibition against capacity building has made the cost of service approximately twice as high per participant.
These changes would keep the grants in the hands of skills and relationship building organizations while requiring partnerships and outreach to agencies that can provide help with employment and drug and alcohol problems. These amendments would save the grants but improve them AND would add components that are in the Innovation Fund without transferring responsibility to the Office of Child Support Enforcement and without making these grants to state governments.
8. The rest of the TANF act is set to be reauthorized in a Continuing Resolution or a CR for one year this September. That means that the Administration is not proposing to open up the $14 billion bill and reauthorize it for five years. The Administration wants the bill to remain exactly as it is, add some additional funding to help take care of more people on welfare due to the recession, and shut down the current TANF marriage and fatherhood programs. This probably violates the rules of the House and Senate. When you enact a CR, you keep the legislation EXACTLY the same as it was. You cannot have a CR that amends part of a bill and keeps the rest intact.
9. Our request is simple: Keep the entire bill intact. Do not open it up. The marriage and fatherhood programs are working. The proposed Innovation fund is based on a model that has been tested with well over $50 million in four separate demonstration grants between 1994 and 2004. All of them failed to increase or improve the quality of fathering. We will lose precious jobs in our state if the Administration’s proposal is enacted.
10. Talk more about “relationship education” than “marriage education” We must shift our messaging from Marriage to Relationship strengthening to save the program. In fact, most of the skills building programs are relationship and not marriage education.