(California) State stops seeking refunds for overpaid welfare
The state will no longer allow counties to seek refunds from former welfare recipients who were minors when their caregivers were overpaid, officials announced in a partial win for advocates who had sued on behalf of the recipients last year.
The announcement was welcome news for one of the plaintiffs in that suit, a 19-year-old Riverside County woman whose was being asked to repay $766 mistakenly given to her mother four years ago. But the other family named in the lawsuit, headed by Fresno County resident Clarence Ayers - who receives $334 a month to help raise his 14-year-old great-grandaughter, Irene - will still be on the hook, said attorney Patti Prunhuber.
That's because the state decided only to halt collections from former recipients, she said. In cases where the recipient is a minor who is still receiving welfare, county welfare agencies will be allowed to continue pursuing the debt, said Prunhuber. The Public Interest Law Project in Oakland, where she works, filed the suit in November.
It's not entirely clear why the state is only giving former minor recipients a pass. In a letter to the state's 58 county welfare programs, the department wrote that they were able to make the decision to stop collecting debts from former or emancipated minors unilaterally, without a change in the law. In the past, agency officials had argued they are legally bound to pursue current and former minors for overpayments; Michael Weston, a spokesman for the department, declined to comment on why current minors such as Irene are excluded from the new rules, citing the ongoing litigation.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/09/BAVP1MMOU4.DTL