State of Illinois
91st General Assembly
Legislation

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91_HB2595

 
                                               LRB9105341SMdv

 1        AN ACT to amend the Illinois Public Aid Code by  changing
 2    Section 12-4.33.

 3        Be  it  enacted  by  the People of the State of Illinois,
 4    represented in the General Assembly:

 5        Section 5.  The Illinois Public Aid Code  is  amended  by
 6    changing Section 12-4.33 as follows:

 7        (305 ILCS 5/12-4.33)
 8        Sec.    12-4.33.     Welfare    reform    research    and
 9    accountability.
10        (a)  The  Illinois  Department  shall  collect and report
11    upon all data in connection with federally funded or assisted
12    welfare programs as federal law may require,  including,  but
13    not  limited  to,  Section 411 of the Personal Responsibility
14    and Work Opportunity  Reconciliation  Act  of  1996  and  its
15    implementing  regulations  and  any amendments thereto as may
16    from time to time be enacted.
17        (b)  In addition to and on the same schedule as the  data
18    collection  required  by  federal law and subsection (a), the
19    Department shall collect and report  on  further  information
20    with  respect  to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
21    ("TANF") program, as follows:
22             (1)  With respect to  denials  of  applications  for
23        benefits,  all  of  the same information about the family
24        required under the federal law, plus the specific  reason
25        or reasons for denial of the application.
26             (2)  With  respect  to all terminations of benefits,
27        all of the same information as required under the federal
28        law,  plus  the  specific  reason  or  reasons  for   the
29        termination.
30        (c)  The Department shall collect all of the same data as
31    set  forth  in  subsections (a) and (b), and report it on the

 
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 1    same schedule, with respect to all cash  assistance  benefits
 2    provided  to  families  that  are  not  funded  from the TANF
 3    program  federal block grant or are not otherwise required to
 4    be  included  in  the  data  collection  and   reporting   in
 5    subsections (a) and (b).
 6        (d)  Whether  or  not  reports under this Section must be
 7    submitted to the federal government, they shall be considered
 8    public and they shall be promptly  made  available  to    the
 9    public  at  the  end of each fiscal year, free of charge upon
10    request.  The data  underlying  the  reports  shall  be  made
11    available   to   academic   institutions  and  public  policy
12    organizations involved in the  study  of  welfare  issues  or
13    programs    and  redacted  to conform with applicable privacy
14    laws.  The cost shall be no more than that  incurred  by  the
15    Department in assembling and delivering the data.
16        (e)  The  Department  shall, in addition to the foregoing
17    data collection and reporting activities, seek  a  university
18    to  conduct,  at  no  cost  to the Department, a longitudinal
19    study of the  implementation  of  TANF  and  related  welfare
20    reforms.   The  study  shall  select  subgroups  representing
21    important  sectors  of  the  assistance population, including
22    type of  area  of  residence  (city,  suburban,  small  town,
23    rural),  English  proficiency, level of  education, literacy,
24    work experience, number of adults  in  the  home,  number  of
25    children  in  the  home,  teen  parentage, parents before and
26    after the age of 18, and other  such  subgroups.    For  each
27    subgroup,  the  study  shall  assemble  a statistically valid
28    sample of cases entering the TANF program at least  6  months
29    after its implementation date and prior to July 1, 1998.  The
30    study shall continue until December 31, 2004.  The Department
31    shall  report  to  the  General  Assembly and the Governor by
32    March 1 of each year, beginning March 1,  1999,  the  interim
33    findings  of  the study with respect to each subgroup, and by
34    March 1, 2005,  the  final  findings  with  respect  to  each
 
                            -3-                LRB9105341SMdv
 1    subgroup.  The  reports shall be available to the public upon
 2    request. No later than November 1, 1997, the  Department,  in
 3    consultation with an advisory panel of specialists in welfare
 4    policy,  social  science,  and  other  relevant  fields shall
 5    devise the study and identify the factors to be studied.  The
 6    study  shall,  however,  at  least  include   the   following
 7    features:
 8             (1)  Demographic   breakdowns   including,  but  not
 9        limited to, race, gender, and number of children  in  the
10        household at the beginning of Department services.
11             (2)  The   Department  shall  obtain  permission  to
12        conduct the study from the  subjects  of  the  study  and
13        guarantee  their  privacy  according to the privacy laws.
14        To facilitate this permission, the study may be  designed
15        to  refer to subjects by pseudonyms or codes and shall in
16        any event guarantee anonymity  to  the  subjects  without
17        limiting  access  by  outsiders  to  the data (other than
18        identities) generated by the study.
19             (3)  The subjects of the  study  shall  be  followed
20        after  denial or termination of assistance, to the extent
21        feasible.   The  evaluator  shall  attempt  to   maintain
22        personal  contact  with  the  subjects  of the study, and
23        employ such  methods  as  meetings,  telephone  contacts,
24        written  surveys,  and  computer  matches with other data
25        bases to accomplish this  purpose.  The  intent  of  this
26        feature of the study is to discover the paths people take
27        after  leaving  welfare  and  the  patterns  of return to
28        welfare, including the factors that may influence   these
29        paths and patterns.
30             (4)  The   study  shall  examine  the  influence  of
31        various employability, education, and  training  programs
32        upon   employment,  earnings,  job  tenure,  and  cycling
33        between welfare and work.
34             (5)  The  study  shall  examine  the  influence   of
 
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 1        various supportive services such as child care (including
 2        type  and  cost),  transportation, and payment of initial
 3        employment  expenses  upon  employment,   earnings,   job
 4        tenure, and cycling between welfare and work.
 5             (6)  The   study  shall  examine  the  frequency  of
 6        unplanned occurrences in subjects' lives, such as illness
 7        or  injury,  family  member's  illness  or  injury,   car
 8        breakdown, strikes, natural disasters, evictions, loss of
 9        other  sources  of  income, domestic violence, and crime,
10        and their impact upon employment, earnings,  job  tenure,
11        and cycling between welfare and work.
12             (7)  The  study  shall  examine  the wages and other
13        compensation, including health  benefits  and  what  they
14        cost  the  employee,  received  by  subjects  who  obtain
15        employment,  the  type  and  characteristics of jobs, the
16        hours and time of day of  work,  union  status,  and  the
17        relationships  of  such  factors to earnings, job tenure,
18        and cycling between welfare and work.
19             (8)  The  study  shall  examine  the   reasons   for
20        subjects'  job  loss,  the   availability of Unemployment
21        Insurance, the reasons for a subject's return to welfare,
22        programs or services utilized by subjects in  the  search
23        for  another  job,  the  characteristics of the subjects'
24        next job, and  the  relationships  of  these  factors  to
25        re-employment,  earnings,  job tenure on the new job, and
26        cycling between welfare and work.
27             (9)  The study shall examine the impact of mandatory
28        work requirements, including the types of work activities
29        to which  the  subjects  were  assigned,  and  the  links
30        between   the   requirements   and   the  activities  and
31        sanctions, employment, earnings, job tenure, and  cycling
32        between welfare and work.
33             (10)  The  study  shall  identify  all  sources  and
34        amounts  of  reported    household  non-wage  income  and
 
                            -5-                LRB9105341SMdv
 1        examine  the  influence  of  the  sources  and amounts of
 2        non-wage non-welfare income on employment, earnings,  job
 3        tenure, and cycling between welfare and work.
 4             (11)  The  study  shall examine sanctions, including
 5        child support  enforcement  and  paternity  establishment
 6        sanctions,  the  reasons  sanctions  are  threatened, the
 7        number threatened, the number imposed,  and  the  reasons
 8        sanctions   are   not  imposed  or  are  ended,  such  as
 9        cooperation achieved or good cause established.
10             (12)  The study shall track the subjects'  usage  of
11        TANF  benefits  over  the course of the lifetime 60-month
12        limit of TANF eligibility, including patterns  of  usage,
13        relationships  between consecutive usage of large numbers
14        of months and other factors, status of all study subjects
15        with respect  to  the  time  limit  as  of  each  report,
16        characteristics  of  subjects  exhausting the eligibility
17        limit, types of exceptions granted to the 60-month limit,
18        and numbers of cases within each type of exception.
19             (13)  The study shall track subjects'  participation
20        in  other  public  systems, including the public schools,
21        the child welfare system, the  criminal  justice  system,
22        homeless  and  food  services,  and others and attempt to
23        identify the positive or negative ripple effects in these
24        systems of welfare policies, systems, and procedures.
25        (f)  The Department shall cooperate  in  any  appropriate
26    study  by  an  independent expert of the impact upon Illinois
27    resident  non-citizens  of  the  denial  or  termination   of
28    assistance  under  the  Supplemental  Security  Income,  Food
29    Stamps, TANF, Medicaid, and Title XX social services programs
30    pursuant  to  the  changes  enacted  in  the federal Personal
31    Responsibility and Work  Opportunity  Reconciliation  Act  of
32    1996.   The  purpose  of  such a study must be to examine the
33    immediate and long-term effects on this population and on the
34    State  of  the  denial  or  termination  of  these  forms  of
 
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 1    assistance, including the  impact  on  the  individuals,  the
 2    alternate means they find to obtain support and care, and the
 3    impact  on    state  and  local  spending  and human services
 4    delivery  systems.   An  appropriate  study  shall  select  a
 5    statistically valid sample of persons  denied  or  terminated
 6    from  each  type  of benefits and attempt to track them until
 7    December 31, 2000.  Any reports from the  study  received  by
 8    the  Department  shall  be  made  available  to  the  General
 9    Assembly  and  the  Governor upon request, and a final report
10    shall be submitted upon completion. These  reports  shall  be
11    available to the public upon request.
12    (Source: P.A. 90-74, eff. 7-8-97.)

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