County seeks $230 million to trim welfare rolls

Clark County could receive as much as $230 million in federal grant money to create jobs in economically depressed urban neighborhoods and train people to get off the welfare rolls and start collecting a paycheck.

Doug Bell, head of the county's community resource management division, said his staff is spending the summer preparing an application to upgrade the nine census tracts of the federally designated Southern Nevada Enterprise Community into an "empowerment zone."

By the end of 1998, the federal government plans to designate 15 urban and five rural areas as empowerment zones. The designation would allow a community to designate up to 2,000 acres of additional property outside the formal poverty criteria to be included as part of its zone.

That designation comes with tax incentives and benefits for redevelopment, job training and curriculum development.

If Clark County qualifies, Bell said, it could receive $130 million in private activity bonds -- tax-exempt financing for projects inside the empowerment zone and three outside areas identified as developable sites for commercial and industrial projects.

Another $100 million, not yet approved by Congress, could become available for any number of purposes inside the zone, Bell said, from day care for new workers to transportation to job readiness programs.

"This would tie in with any welfare work initiative already under way by the state," Bell said. "We hope we get the empowerment zone designation, because it will mean tax credits to employers as an inducement to hire welfare and welfare-to-work people."

The state is under a federal deadline to get about 5,000 people currently on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, working at least 20 hours a week, said Myla Florence, administrator for the state welfare division.

By 2000, Florence said, "hopefully, they'll have a job to make them independent or they'll be off welfare."

As of May, Nevada had 25,991 welfare recipients in 9,954 households, Florence said, two-thirds of which were children not affected by the work requirements.

That leaves 9,954 heads of households, of which half are exempt because of a disability that prevents them from working.

The 1996 Welfare Reform Act set a series of timetables for the percentage of welfare recipients who must work and how much they must work each week for each state to continue to receive welfare benefits.

Nevadans receiving TANF benefits must work 20 hours a week or more to continue receiving cash benefits by Jan. 1, 1999. Effective Jan. 1, 2000, benefits will expire after 24 months, after which recipients must wait 12 months before reapplying to exhaust the remainder of their 60-month allotment.

"The bottom line is all states are vigorously working with clients to get them into unsubsidized employment, training or subsidized employment opportunities," Florence said. "The penalties are very real, and states can be penalized if they are not meeting work participation requirements."

If Nevada fails to meet the criteria, it could lose 5 percent of its block grant in the first year or $2.2 million, Florence said.

"It's more manageable in a state like Nevada where we do have entry-level job opportunities for people without skills," Florence said. "We're small enough that we can cultivate relationships with employers to enable them to understand the benefits of hiring welfare recipients."

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