Senate Bill S4544

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S4544               REVISED 5/12/09

 TITLE OF BILL :  An act to amend the social services law, in relation
to work experience

 PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL : The purpose of this bill is to
allow a participant in the Work Experience Program (WEP, or workfare)
to have his or her time in the program credited against any public
assistance a focal social services district is entitled to recover.

 SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS : Section 1 would amend Social
Services Law (SSL) § 336-c to require local districts to credit the
value of an individual's time in the Work Experience Program (WEP)
against any benefits legally recovered by the district.

Section 2 would require that the Office of Temporary and Disability
Assistance promulgate any rules and regulations and conduct any
requisite training necessary for the implementation of the act.

Section 3 provides an immediate effective date. Effects Of Present Law
Which This Bill Would Alter: This bill would acid a new section (5) to
SSL §336-c.

 JUSTIFICATION : Persons who receive public assistance in New York
State are required to repay the local social services district for the
assistance they receive. Properly paid public assistance is a debt
              

owed by the individual who received such assistance and is subject to
recovery under a number of provisions of the Social Services Law. The
recovery of such assistance is expressly authorized against windfalls
such as inheritances (SSL 104), lawsuit proceeds (SSL 104-b), lottery
winnings (SSL 131-r) and retroactive SSI awards (SSL 158(3)).
Additionally, local districts are entitled to recover properly paid
public assistance by requiring applicants for public assistance who
own their own homes to provide the district with a mortgage equal to
the sum of public assistance paid, as a condition of eligibility for
assistance (SSL 106). When an individual works off his or her grant by
participation in workfare, it is only fair that the value of that work
be credited against any recovery that the local district is entitled
to make. This bill would require local social services districts to
credit the value of workfare by calculating the number of hours worked
times the higher of the state or federal minimum wage applicable at
the time, when determining the amount of properly paid public
assistance that the local social services district is entitled to
recover.

This legislation would codify the holding of the United States
District Court for the Western District of New York in Elwell v.
Weiss, 2007 WI, 2994308, which addressed a challenge to a County's
seizure of a former recipient's retroactive SSI benefits, holding that
the Fair Labor Standards Act requires that world are participants
receive a credit equal to the minimum wage value of their labor when a
local district calculates the value of a public assistance recovery.
This proposed legislation is consistent with the provisions of the
social services law that recognize workfare as work and require that
workfare workers be provided with worker's compensation, and that the
hours assigned cannot exceed the total of public assistance and food
stamps received divided by the higher of the state or federal minimum
wage,

Prior to 1997, it was the longstanding policy of the state to require
local social services district to credit workfare against any recovery
of properly paid public assistance. When welfare was "reformed" in
1997, chapter 436 of the laws of 1997, section 148, repealed a
provision similar to this proposal. This bill would restore the prior
policy, which recognized the value of such work.

 PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY : 2007 - A.11216

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS : To be determined.

 EFFECTIVE DATE : Immediately.