According to News on 6, in May of 2012, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed House Bill 2388 into law. The new law, which went into effect November 1st, 2012, requires the Department Human Services (DHS) to screen adult welfare applicants for possible drug use, specifically to be drug tested upon suspicion that the adult applicant is using. Benefits would therefore be denied to those individuals who tested positive for drugs.
Why Welfare Drug Testing
The new law is particularly directed towards adults applying to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF is the acronym for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federally funded grant program that allows Oklahoma and other states to create and administer their own assistance programs. TANF replaces the federal programs previously known as “welfare,” and allows states to offer a wide choice of social services to their residents. Each state has its own local TANF office, and the purpose of TANF is to help families in need by providing them with the combined benefits of financial assistance and work opportunities.
The new law is not unreasonable, but it is firm. Applicants who refuse to take the drug test or who test positive will be denied benefits. But applicants testing positive who then at their own expense undergo a drug rehabilitation treatment program, are eligible to reapply for TANF benefits six months after completing rehab. Child-only cases and cases where the parent is underage would be exempted from drug testing. If a parent were denied benefits due to a failed drug test, HB 2388 provides for payments then to be made to an alternative payee. Although the original bill required the person being tested to pay for the drug test, an amendment passed in the Oklahoma Senate places the burden of expense on the state.
According to a 2010 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) article, the federal funding for TANF is diminishing, while at the same time the need continues to be high, especially with current high unemployment rates nationwide. Again, according to the CBPP article, the federal cuts in funding will potentially result in more low-income parents not having jobs, more homeless families not having shelter, and more low-wage workers going without help with their child-care expenses.
Although 49 of the 50 states will experience the funding cuts–all except Wyoming–Oklahoma experienced a cut in its TANF funding from approximately $15.7 million in 2009 and 2010, to an estimated $145.3 million in 2011, an 8.4% decline in the federal funding made available to the Oklahoma state program.
In conjunction with the decline in TANF funding, Oklahoma is at the same time experiencing a continued rise in the abuse of prescription painkillers, and according to the director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), prescription drug abuse is a growing cause of death in the US, and especially in the state of Oklahoma.
Governor Fallin has expressed her view that illegal drug use and addiction are contributing factors in child abuse and neglect, and are a factor in a person’s inability to find and hold a job. The Governor also expressed her view that the recently passed HB 2388 would help ensure that Oklahoman’s welfare checks would not be used to pay for drugs, and that hardworking taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize drug abuse. Signing the bill into law was a means to ensure that those burdens not be placed upon Oklahomans.
Although there a myriad of factors a governor of any state must take into account when determining sound financial and governance policies, most any layman can see that a decline in needed state funding doesn’t mesh with that same state’s escalating substance abuse problems, demanding that decisive and definitive action be taken to deal effectively with both problems.
Fortunately for the state of Oklahoma and her people, Narconon Arrowhead Drug Rehabilitation Center in Canadian, Oklahoma, can help with the pressing substance abuse problems the state is experiencing.