Voinovich, George V.

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Remarks of the Governor onMeeting the Basic Needs of ChildrenHON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH*I want to congratulate The Ohio State University College of Law forhosting this symposium. This is the kind of activity I'm encouraging highereducation to undertake. We need to harness our academic knowledge-yourlegal expertise-to develop stronger public policy.This evening I have been asked to share with you my vision for childrenand families in this changing government climate. Throughout this symposium,you will be examining and debating critical questions regarding how the basicneeds of children are and will be met, as well as who holds fiudamentalresponsibility for meeting these needs.To begin to answer these questions, I believe we must look beyond federalor state law . . . beyond welfare reform . . . beyond the debate overentitlements... to the fundamental need and moral obligation of our society tocherish, protect and nurture its children and their families.My concern for children stems from more than a barrage of grim statistics.It comes from a deeply held belief that we are all God's children... and, thatwe are no longer treating the youngest among us as God's children.In my heart, I also feel that the only way to ensure Ohio's economic futureis to mount an all-out effort for today's children, preparing them to grow andthrive.To deal with the problems I'm confronted with as Governor, I have oftensaid that if I had a magic wand, I would reconstitute a supportive family life forall our children. To date, no one has handed me, or any of you, such a wand.Nonetheless, as we discuss our personal and public responsibilities for meetingthe basic needs of children, we need to start with what we want for families.As a public official, I have been up front about my commitment tochildren. In my first State of the State address, I laid out my vision. I havenever wavered from this pledge. Our aim is to make an unprecedentedcommitment to one priority that I believe ranks above all others.., the healthand education of our children. Most Ohioans have had enough welfare-enough poverty-enough drugs-enough crime. Most Ohioans would love tosee that debilitating cycle broken, and the people trapped within it, freed-onceand for all. So would I. The only way to do it is to pick one generation ofchildren-draw a line in the sand-and say to all: This is where it stops.As Ohioans embraced this vision-our line in the sand-we moved to turn* Governor of the State of Ohio. J.D., The Ohio State University College of Law.Governor Voinovich delivered these remarks on November 3, 1995, at the Ohio StateUniversity Faculty Club to Symposium authors, participants, and other guests.OHIO STWELAWJOURNALthis conviction into a measurable goal. That goal is National Education GoalOne. By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn.A few years ago, I chaired the National Governors' Association's SchoolReadiness Task Force. The knowledge I gained from presiding over meetingsof national experts mirrored what our local schools and social service providerswere advising. As a result, Ohio mobilized around the three basic schoolreadiness objectives: better health care, more early childhood education, andsupporting parents as a child's first teacher.Each of these objectives pose challenges, but the key to success lies incollaboration. A cooperative effort between state and local governments,nonprofit organizations, and parents is needed to improve the lives of familiesand children. The Family & Children First Initiative is the framework for thispartnership as we work toward our goals. Eight state agencies lead this effort.What the Family & Children First Initiative is doing today goes back to thephilosophy I followed as Mayor of Cleveland. Government is but one thread inthe social fabric. We have to utilize all of society's resources to make adifference. I call it "symbiosis"-all of us cooperating, working together, sowe can individually achieve our goals.In moving toward the school readiness goal, I want to stress the importanceof requiring measurable results for children. For too long, we have allquestioned what our tax dollars are achieving. Accountability... which can bemeasured and understood by taxpayers . . . is key to an ongoing publiccommitment to children.I tell my Cabinet Directors, "if you cannot measure it, do not do it."Accountability for results is also key to child development. We must closelymonitor programs and services for results.., we cannot waste precious earlyyears in activities that don't produce.On Health Care: Ohio has the lowest percentage of uninsured children inthe nation, according to the National Governors' Association (5.1%). Thenumber of fully immunized two-year-olds is up 16% over last year. Infantmortality rates are dropping from 9.4% per 1,000 live births in 1992 to 8.7%last year.On Early Education: Ohio leads the nation in state funding for Head Start,with 64% of our children enrolled. When enrollment in Head Start, PublicPreschool and Special Education Preschool is combined, 70% of our eligiblechildren are in class. And, the state remains on track to ensuring that virtuallyevery three and four-year-old whose families desire services can enroll in anearly childhood education program by the end of 1998. Ohio has increased byfive times state funding of child care since I took office. On a typical day,25,000 children receive state-subsidized child care . . . which means theirparents are working.[Vol. 57:321REMARKS OF THE GOVERNOROn Parental Support: The state's child support collections have risen 30%since 1991. The state has improved paternity establishment by 52% since 1991.Any discussion about meeting the needs of children that ignores the importanceof prioritizing child support enforcement misses the mark. My administrationnow provides paid adoption and maternity leave benefits to state employees,both mothers and fathers. I want to salute the leadership of Wendy's DaveThomas for bringing the need for this policy to my attention. I think it'sinteresting to note that of the 3588 state employees who utilized the leave in itsfirst year, 2577 of them were fathers.Overall, state leaders have made some tough choices to prioritize children.Funding for children and family programs is increasing 35% at a time whenstate spending has grown at the slowest rate in forty years.Ohio's been able to prioritize children by making some "tough love"choices about welfare reform. We dramatically scaled back General Assistancefor able-bodied adults in 1992 and eliminated it altogether last summer. As aresult of this and reforms to Disability Assistance, we saved $275 million todate and will save another $885 million over the next four years. We've alsokept our Aid to Dependent Children payments in check and reduced ourcaseload by 150,000 recipients since 1992, for a savings of $164 million overthe last three years. These savings were reinvested in education and children'sprograms.However, I want to stress that the public commitment to families must gobeyond money. You don't get the results I've described without harnessing theenergy, or synergy, of a lot of folks. It goes back to that old African proverb,"It takes an entire village to raise a child." It's taken top-down leadership frommy administration and the General Assembly and bottom-up, grassrootsleadership from families and local service providers who have pushed forhomegrown, customized solutions. Sometimes, local ideas clash with statebureaucracies. But, it's from this interaction that synergy for change emerges.My state Family & Children First Cabinet Council has moved to form newpartnerships, tackle family problems before they deepen, and accommodatelocal approaches by waiving state rules through our Regulation Free Zone law.For instance, counties used to submit a twenty-one page form with back-upfiles to receive finding for multineed youth. Today, it's a two-page form, withno back-up file and new funding incentives that have resulted in residentialplacements for these youth dropping 23 %.The state and many counties now pool their funding for these childrenwhich moves everyone past the debate over who has to pay for what. Whenagencies start sharing their money, that's getting past the turf wars.I would like to give you a preliminary look at our next state project.Currently on the drawing board is an Ohio Wellness Block Grant. In a19961OHIO STATE LAW JOURNALnutshell, the state is considering taking existing categorical funding, pooling itinto a block grant, and awarding it to local Family & Children First Councils.Local Councils would then be given significant latitude to make decisions forfunding prevention or early intervention services aimed at obtaining betterresults around a few state goals. Most likely those prevention goals will focuson teenage pregnancy, child abuse and neglect, high school graduation rates,and adult illiteracy. We think a Wellness Block Grant will give counties thesame kind of flexibility to achieve results for which the state has beenpetitioning the federal government. We also believe local Councils will betterjudge which programs can deliver results... something someone reviewing agrant proposal at the state level simply cannot do. This block grant can alsoserve as a "test case" for state and local governments as we all learn how bestto operationalize block grants.Another quick example of bringing needed flexibility to the system... Mystate team recently worked together to eliminate 15% of the administrativerules governing seven state agencies. One, Youth Services, cut its rules in half.And, the state team hasn't stopped the review process ... the rule reductioncontinues.At the local level, eighty-one of Ohio's eighty-eight counties eithervoluntarily created, or are now forming, Family & Children First Councils. Atno point did the state mandate a new governing structure. Although I had tostop an initial recommendation from the state team that we do just that. Thetruth is we didn't need a mandate. When we asked for a few pilot counties,sixty-four counties applied. And today, all of these counties are workingwithout significant state funding. These Councils bring together education,health, and social service systems-combine them with family representation-to decide how to redirect and prioritize resources to solve communityproblems.In rural counties, Family & Children First has meant nurse practitionersworking with schools, streamlined intake systems, or common-sense, toy-lending libraries for families.In Hamilton County, an urban area, a 24-hour crisis system now operates,and a children's managed-care entity is emerging. Hamilton County agenciesare actually pooling funds for children with multiple needs and securing privatemanagement of services.The magic of turning Ohio's vision into results is not government or theCouncil structure itself, it's the common understanding that today's childrenface such overwhelming issues that no one system, be it public or private ornon-profit, can meet the challenge alone. It's meant engaging corporatepartners in our Adopt-a-School and Help Me Grow efforts, securing the help ofthe Rotary and Kiwanis on immunization, rolling out the National Guard[Vol. 57:321REMARKS OF ThE GOVERNORmedical units for our GuardCare effort.In its first nine months of operation, our Help Me Grow effort has handedout 105,000 wellness guides-which contain health information and couponincentives to make doctor visits-to pregnant women and families with childrenunder age two. Our 1-800-755-GROW helpline has fielded more than 60,000calls. When Kroger's is advertising free prenatal and baby wellness guides atthe checkout, and the local Domino's Pizza is delivering immunizationschedules with every pizza, you know you're making a difference. This is thepublic/private spirit that wins results . . . not government entitlements ormandates. Not state mandates to our local Councils... not federal mandates toour state.I would be remiss to discuss a vision for meeting the basic needs ofchildren without addressing a parallel vision for self-sufficient families. Wemust think beyond school readiness to lifelong learning. This means focusingon school-to-work and welfare-to-work programs. Ohio leads the nation inparticipation in the JOBS program and is implementing welfare reforms whichtarget job readiness and work. Only California comes close to matching Ohio'sperformance (32,755), and California has three times the number of ADCrecipients as Ohio. Under our new welfare reform law-which, incidentally,Michael Kramer said in Time Magazine was "among the most intelligent in thecountry"-we're making changes. Mothers and fathers on public assistancewill no longer be punished for being married or obtaining part-time jobs.Teenage mothers must live with a responsible adult to receive public assistance,and the parents of a teenage father can now be held liable for child support fortheir grandchild.Our welfare reform cracks down hard on child support. At least half of thefamilies on public assistance in Ohio are there because the non-custodial parentdoes not pay child support. This is no less than financial child abuse. We mustmake it as socially unacceptable to financially neglect a child as we've made itto drink and drive.In developing welfare reform, Ohio did not eliminate additional benefitsupon the birth of a child. Why? The facts did not support the need. The fertilityrate among women on welfare matches the overall fertility rate. The bestavailable information indicates that between 5% to 7% of women on welfarehave additional children. And, states which have restricted benefits to addressthis issue show no solid results.I also get tired of all the focus on this portion of the welfare problem. Thereal money for welfare is spent on health care-Medicaid. And, in Medicaid,the real problem is long-term care . . . not welfare families. Seventy-fivepercent of the Medicaid expenditures pay for 25% of the eligible people...I Michael Kramer, Fixing Welfare Right, TIME, Aug. 14, 1995, at 37.1996]OHIO STATE LAW JOURNALthe elderly and disabled.In addition, 75% of all nursing home beds are paid for by Medicaid. Thisis why I think we must refocus the debate on the state's ability to recoup itsMedicaid costs from estates. As lawyers, I challenge you to address this issuehead-on. As you know, many lawyers specialize in showing people how to hidetheir assets so the state must pick up the nursing home tab. I don't want toimpoverish a spouse. But, don't tell the state it can't put a lien on a house orrecover money from an estate. I question the ethics of lawyers who workdiligently to safeguard estates for adult children at the expense of the taxpayer.I question whether such safeguards should even remain legal.Obviously, I got off track, but it's an issue of great concern to me. It's justwrong.Back to welfare reform. In the face of the facts regarding birth rates andgiven Ohio's moderate assistance payments, I urged state lawmakers toconsider the problems of illegitimacy but to focus on self-sufficiency and jobs.Some of you may recall that in my last State of the State Address, I honored aformer JOBS recipient from Akron, Lettie Neal. After twenty years on and offwelfare, Lettie enrolled in the Summit County JOBS program, where shereceived training to work in the child care field. Today, she is the director of achild-care center. That's where we need to focus welfare reform. On workexperience, job training and education, so that recipients like Lettie becomeself-sufficient.Ohio's vision also extends to working-poor and middle-class families withjob creation incentives, subsidized child care, and promoting the EarnedIncome Tax Credit which resulted in 31,000 more working-poor Ohioansclaiming the credit worth $464 million. The tax credit is important because it'san incentive to work.I have touched upon the public and corporate role in supporting children, Iwould like to elaborate on the need to re-examine family responsibility. As thestate prepares to address federal block grants and increased federal flexibility,the role of parents and families in meeting the basic needs of children and olderparents becomes critical. I think all of us in society now agree that familiesmust assume more personal responsibility for their success. In an era ofindividual entitlements, families have sometimes assumed the role of advocates.As such, many families learned how to lobby the system on behalf of theirchildren for increased services. A system-which leans toward "all ornothing"-means some families who just need minimal help to manage eitherdon't qualify for anything or wind up receiving more assistance than is prudentor cost-effective. We need to bring more common-sense to how we decide whoreceives services, what is an acceptable service level, and how much familiesshould contribute to a loved one's care.[Vol. 57:321REMARKS OF =IfE GOVERNORIn closing, I would like to share two testimonials from fellow Ohioans,which tell me that our goals are sound and that results are being achieved.From a parent: "As parents, we became involved in Head Start. Theexperience gave my husband more self-esteem. In ten months, he found a job.Now we are more active in our children's education." Last year, I gave theOhio Newspaper Association's Governor's Award to another Head Start mom,Penny Jordan. By the time Penny was done sharing her family's inspirationalstory, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. From a county commissioner:"Collaboration in our community is really beginning to reap harvest. Countyagencies are learning to listen to families who need essential supports." Insteadof saying, "Why can't we do something?" We now say, "How can we dothis?"In public life, I follow two mottoes. One comes from my days as Mayor ofCleveland: "Together we can do it." The other is Ohio's state motto: "WithGod All Things Are Possible." I believe that by working together, and withGod's help, our line in the sand will provide a healthy, educated future for thisgeneration of Ohio's children and secure our state's future.1996]

Remarks of the Governor on Meeting the Basic Needs of Children

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Remarks of the Governor on Meeting the Basic Needs of Children

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