Welfare . . . Unfair?:
Criticism About Lackluster Job Training

Aired April 13, 1999

This is INFOhio After Nine, I'm David C. Barnett, welcoming you Tuesday, the thirteenth day of record for April of 1999, and as the clock ticks away, welfare as we knew it is changing very quickly. Critics of welfare reform are worried about the people who are falling through the cracks, while proponents argue that change is going to be painful but at the end, the result will be good for everybody. As we continue our year-long examination of this "Changing Face of Welfare," we're going to have a conversation this morning with a man who worked for thirty years in the U.S. Congress for various sorts of social reform, the recently-retired Louis Stokes, a man who is not at all retiring in his opinions on the course of welfare reform. But first, we're going to consider another facet of that everybody I was just talking about; some other folks that say that they're falling through the cracks. Now you know the basic rules: each of Ohio's 88 counties has the task of reducing its welfare rolls. Those on public assistance in Ohio have a three-year lifetime eligibility; after that, they can no longer receive benefits. In order to bring its number of welfare recipients down, the Lorain County Department of Human Services hires income maintenance, or caseworkers, to counsel those who are trying to get off public assistance. However, several of the IM workers allege that welfare has not been fair to them nor did it treat them well. 90.3 correspondent Harry Boomer talked with them about their concerns.

Susan Thompson–For five weeks we went through...and during that time, I kept saying, this is not making sense to me, I don't know how this all fits together. "Oh don't worry about it, we don't expect you to know this for at least a year. You won't know this for at least a year. Nobody knows this. It's really hard, you aren't going to get it right away. Don't worry about it, you'll learn it on the job." So I didn't worry about it.

Harry Boomer–Maybe Susan Thompson should have worried about not understanding the details of her job description, as an income maintenance worker. Last Thursday, she and three other former IM, or caseworkers, sat in their living room in Lorain and told me about their unpleasant experience with the Lorain County Department of Human Services. During this report, you'll hear mostly from them. They allege they were poorly trained beginning in September of 1998.

ST–In December we were given our caseloads, and basically we were given interviews and files and said, "Here you go." And suddenly we were interviewing people and basically had not real clear understanding of what we were doing and what questions to ask and what we needed to know, what needed to be documented, and my biggest gripe is the fact that it was never expressed to me that you only had so many weeks to get this done totally, or you were out of here.

HB–Earlier this month, Susan Thompson, a mother of three, says she was fired.

ST–They basically walked me to my office, packed me up, and led me to the door and put me out. I mean, it was humiliating, it was degrading, and if we treated our clients that way, there would be no end of it, because if the clients are dissatisfied, they call the county commissioners. And yet as workers, we had no recourse to talk to the county commissioners or anybody and say, "I need help, I don't understand, somebody tell me what I'm doing here."

HB–She's not the only who says she wasn't properly trained to help welfare recipients get benefits. Renice Tomisek, Pete Kamutsis, and Larry Gribble were in the same group being trained as IM workers by Lorain County. Larry Gribble says he quit before he was fired. However, Renice Tomisek expects to be fired last Friday, one day after talking to me.

Renice Tomisek–I struggled, I worked through breaks, I know that I shouldn't have, but I stayed late many times, I came in early, and I really would have liked to have stayed there.

HB–Tomisek has three associate degrees: one in psychology, another in social work, and a third in mental health. She's a 28-year old single living alone. Tomisek says she took the job, that pays $11.31 and hour, to enhance her resume. She says the Lorain County Department of Human Services used them to justify slow response time to welfare recipients.

RT–That's how they explained to the clients, "well, I'm sorry, a new trainee is working on your case right now, that's why your benefits are delayed."

Pete Kamutsis–I've got nothing nice to say about the agency and they way they handled my termination.

HB–Pete Kamutsis is from Lorain, and he graduated from Kent State University with a bachelor's degree in gerontology and family services. He says he went to work for Lorain County with hopes of doing well. Instead, Kamutsis says, he was dumped just before his nine-month probationary period was up.

PK–He treated me like I was the scum of the earth, basically, as soon as he gave me the boot, and I did get a lot of stuff turned in, and he pretty much seemed like he made up his mind a month in advance that I was done, and no matter how much I got turned in, no matter how much progress I made, it just seemed like he had his mind made up that I was done. Just clean up and get out.

HB–Kamutsis says his job performance reviews show that his error rate had gone down a lot. Still, he says, it made no difference. Again, Larry Gribble, who wasn't fired, but quit just after learning he was about to be terminated.

Larry Gribble–Even the people who were training us were saying, "you know, we don't have enough time, we don't have enough resources to train you, but they want us to get you out of here," and the reason they wanted to get us out was because they had a new group coming in. Why aren't the commissioners, who are supposed to be the authorities on the situation, why aren't they going,. "Wait a minute. Why are we hiring so many people? " Why don't they go to the administrators and supervisors and say, "OK, we need address this issue, we need to change it, we need to correct it." But it seems like no one's being held accountable for it.

HB–Disgruntled ex-employees or welfare workers, maltreated by the system designed to help.

Sally Stark–Some people could be very good students and be very proficient in what they're doing as a student, but get them into the task and it really isn't for them. This is not a job for everybody.

HB–More from the other side on part two tomorrow, with Lorain County correspondent Karen Schaeffer. For INFOhio, I'm Harry Boomer, in Cleveland.