[Ohio] Poverty fund has $1.14 billion that hasn't reached poor

From The Akron Beacon Journal Online

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The state has socked away $1.14 billion in a poverty assistance fund, but less than half of it has been designated for a particular use, a newspaper reported.

Of the total surplus in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, $599 million is listed as "unobligated," which means the state doesn't have specific plans for it. That figure is up grew by $168 million in the past year despite Census data showing Ohio's poverty rate rose a full percentage point in that time, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported Sunday.

Critics said the Ohio Department of Job & Family Services could end up losing funding if legislators see that the agency's allocations aren't being used. The combination of rising poverty and growing surplus "sends the wrong signal to Congress because these resources aren't being used when they're desperately needed," said John Corlett, director of public policy at the Center for Community Solutions in Cleveland.

Last year, Cleveland was the poorest city of more than 250,000 people, according to Census data. Figures released last week showed it had dropped to 12th on that list.

Barbara Riley, director of the state agency, said the unspent money in the face of the rising poverty rate "does not look good and it makes us easy pickings, I guess you could say, and that makes me nervous and concerned."

Still, Riley said improved forecasting and new programs should reduce the unobligated balance from $599 million to $265 million by 2007.

Part of the problem, officials said, is that many counties still don't have programs to spend their TANF money, which must be used to assist families with children under 18. So the state's 88 counties end up returning a combined $100 million to the state every year.

"How can anyone say that we have kids suffering in this state for lack of money?" asked Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Job & Family Services.

Frech said he has sought cash payments from the surplus to eligible families.

But every time he proposed it, he said, state officials told him, "No, we can't, we'll run out of money."

Riley said her agency has allocated $35 million to allow counties to develop and share new programs to spend the TANF dollars.

She, Corlett and Frech agreed the state should carry some surplus, but none could say for certain what a proper amount would be.

"We don't take a position that there's a right amount to have unspent," said Zoe Neuberger, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C.

"There's always a balance between wanting to serve as many people as you can and wanting to have a cushion in case there's a downturn and an increase in poverty."