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Tuesday, April 29, 1997

Houston, Dallas, San Antonio top sites for welfare worker jobs

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso may see the largest losses in state jobs if Texas gets federal approval to turn its welfare operations over to private companies.

Forty-two percent of the 10,939 Texas Department of Human Services employees who perform welfare eligibility work are based in those five areas, according to a county-by-county list prepared by DHS.

Organized labor is opposing the Texas privatization plan - which has been stalled at the White House for four weeks - in large measure because of concern that good-paying public sector jobs will vanish.

State officials have said they would replace the state staffers with lower-paid employees of private companies.

In number of welfare eligibility worker jobs, Harris County leads the pack with 1,552 jobs, according to DHS. Next are Dallas County, 922 jobs; Bexar County, 710; Hidalgo County, 698; El Paso County, 681; and Tarrant County, 567.

The Texas plan, which requires federal approval to implement, is being carefully watched nationally because it goes further into privatization than any other plan to date - and could prompt other states to consider similar ventures.

The plan is intended to provide one-stop shopping for assistance ranging from food stamps and Medicaid to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

Texas cannot solicit privatization contracts, pegged at $2 billion over several years, from bidders such as Lockheed Martin, IBM and Electronic Data Systems without first securing federal approval.

Gov. George W. Bush and other state officials contend privatization would allow Texas to save up to $120 million of the $500 million spent annually administering welfare programs. Those savings could allow the state to provide health coverage for 150,000 additional children, they say.

Opponents contend that privatization will cost thousands of jobs, reduce services for recipients and potentially jeopardize client confidentiality.

Some in the Texas Legislature are wondering if the privatization push, approved by lawmakers in 1995, isn't going too far. A bill by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rob Junell, D-San Angelo, would limit the number of state employees who would lose their jobs.

A congressional opponent of the plan, Rep. Gene Green of Houston, also argues that the plan goes too far. The state is capable of finding savings by upgrading its own computers without turning the whole system over to private contractors, the Democrat says.

"Why can't they do it under the current system, with state employees?" Green asked in a recent interview. "There are some services that the government should work as hard as they can to wring every dollar out of it, and I don't think we've done that yet." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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