Oregon Public Broadcasting

Democrats control both chambers of the  Washington legislature. But that doesn’t mean they always see eye-to-eye.

In fact the House and Senate are currently in a stand-off over one program in particular. The conflict is over a welfare program called General Assistance Unemployable.

Speaker of the House Frank Chopp is a fierce defender of GAU. But Democrats in the Senate want to pare it back. Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

Bill Smith sits in a back office at the Union Gospel Mission in Olympia. Fifty years old, he’s a veteran and former construction worker.

GAU recipient Bill Smith in Olympia,  WA

Bill Smith: “Pretty much wasted my back doing concrete work and roofing and stuff like that.”

Smith has been on Washington’s GAU program for going on four years now.

Bill Smith: “I get $339 cash and I’m getting like a hundred dollars in food stamps.”

GAU is a bureaucratic name for a program that provides a monthly cash stipend and medical coverage to about 19,000 Washingtonians who are temporarily unable to work. They are the injured, mentally ill, and drug and alcohol addicted.

People like Bill Smith – who is not an addict – but does have physical and mental problems.

Bill Smith: “I hear people talk that aren’t there. And they haven’t figured out why and they’ve had me on mental medication and pain medication for my back and I can’t go to work.”

GAU is supposed to be a temporary program – a year at most. But the average length of stay is nearly a year-and-a-half. And some recipients – like Smith - remain much longer.

That alarms State Senator Rodney Tom, the number two Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.

Senator Rodney Tom: “We have 28 percent of the people who have been on it longer than a year, 10 percent longer than 2 years, and 12 percent longer than three years. Three years is not a temporary program.”

Tom views GAU as a runaway train – especially in a year when the legislature must close a $9 billion budget shortfall. In the past six years, GAU has almost doubled in size becoming a nearly $400 million obligation. Now Senate Democrats like Rodney Tom are proposing to cut spending on the program by half.

Senator Rodney Tom: “We need a program, but we need a program that is better managed and doesn’t have the growth rates that we’re seeing in here. I mean we’re not seeing homelessness double every six years, but this program is and so we need to make sure we have a handle on it so that we can make sure that we can fund our other priorities like education and higher education.”

Senate Democrats would also allow the Department of Social and Health Services to limit how long people can receive GAU. But House Democrats have a very different view.

Before the legislative session even started, Speaker of the House Frank Chopp famously said this about the GAU program.

Frank Chopp: “If we don’t handle this situation correctly many people could die.”

House Democrats in their budget go relatively easy on GAU – trimming just $35 million from the program. State Representative Eric Pettigrew chairs the House Health and Human Services budget committee.

He also has a high number of GAU clients in his Seattle legislative district. Pettigrew rejects the idea that the program is out of control.

Eric Pettigrew: “I guess I would disagree that it’s a runaway train. It’s actually been more of a stopgap for us for a lot of folks who would ultimately end up either on our streets or better yet in emergency rooms that cost us a lot more money down the road.”

Back at the Union Gospel Mission, GAU recipient Bill Smith says it’s not his fault he’s still on the program – he says he’s stuck in limbo. 

Bill Smith: “I’m not disabled enough to get Social Security, but then again on the other hand I’m disabled enough that I can’t go back to work.”

What happens to Smith and other longtime GAU recipients depends on budget negotiations happening in earnest at the Capitol. Right now the disagreement over how to fund GAU is one the bigger factors that threatens to push the legislature into overtime.