Article from NC Countylines and NC The Administrator

May 2000

UNC researchers track county responses to welfare reform

By Susan Webb, Project Director

 Faculty members at 12 University of North Carolina campuses are preparing to launch a major study of welfare reform, for which they will need the assistance of county government.

The N.C. Association of County Commissioners’ Board of Directors met in March with the project leaders, Dr. Deil Wright and Dr. Phil Cooke.  Afterward, the directors endorsed the project and asked that counties cooperate wherever possible.

 While previous research on welfare reform has looked at the recipients and the impact on poverty reduction, Wright and Cooke’s study has a different focus. Their team will be documenting changes in the way counties have responded and will respond to legislation that requires them to become stronger partners in policy development and implementation.

 “We are attempting to track county responses to our state's actions, which offered counties much more autonomy, discretion and policy options about welfare,” Wright told the Board of Directors.

The national welfare reform legislation, which passed in 1996, and the state’s reform package, which followed in 1997, are both significant examples of the devolution trend, the researchers said.

 “The federal government is trying to get states to take on more responsibilities, and North Carolina, which can be seen as a kind of laboratory, is trying the same thing with its counties,” Cooke said. 

 The goal is not to evaluate or compare the actions of individual counties; it is to form a clearer picture of the evolving relationship between the state and its counties, Cooke said.

He added, “Welfare reform is part of an important larger effort to redefine the focus of governmental responsibilities away from the model it began adopting in the 1930s. Our work should enable us to tease out how specific counties are responding in creative ways that might be useful to county governments in general.”

 Both discussed how the project’s findings may be more broadly interpreted to other areas involved in decentralization, such as the mental health reorganization legislation that will be introduced this month at the N.C. General Assembly.

 Wright and Cooke began discussing and working on the study about two years ago with funds supplied by UNC-CH. They have since recruited faculty associates at 11 other UNC campuses to assist them.

 Information gathering for the study will begin in late May and will continue throughout the summer. Key policymakers in all 100 counties, including county managers, commissioners and social service directors, will be surveyed, so they are asked to be alert for the study’s mailing and to respond to them diligently.

 In addition, the researchers will examine 25 counties, mostly those around the UNC campuses, in more detail. 

 The project findings will be available and disseminated this fall.  The project is funded by a $50,000 grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to UNC-CH’s Odum Institute for Social Science Research.

 Wright and Cooke are part of a university-based research network from 11 other UNC institutions, including: Drs. Daniel Barbee of UNC-Pembroke, Thomas Barth of UNC-Wilmington, Ruth DeHoog of UNC-Greensboro, Terry Gibson of Western Carolina University, Dennis Grady of Appalachian State University, Elizabethann O'Sullivan of N.C. State University, Gary Rassel of UNC at Charlotte, William Sabo of UNC-Asheville, Carmine Scavo of East Carolina University, Derick Smith of Fayetteville State University and Rebecca Winders of N.C. Central University. The possible participation of a faculty member at Elizabeth City State is currently under discussion.

 For more information, contact the study's website at www.unc.edu/depts/welfare, or Susan Webb Yackee at swebb@email.unc.edu.