While previous bills to test welfare recipients have died, lawmakers still looking at data
By Eric Eyre
Staff writer
West Virginia lawmakers continued to analyze more data about drug-testing welfare recipients on Monday, but Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, said it's time to decide whether the proposal will really help to curb addiction.
"We've talked about this the last three or four years," Stollings told fellow members of a joint House-Senate committee. "If it's a good tool in the toolbox, then I think we need to explore it. I think enough time has gone by."
Earlier this year, the House of Delegates and Senate took up legislation requiring drug-testing for public assistance, but the bills never reached the full chamber in either house for a vote.
The bills would have required "reasonable suspicion" to trigger drug tests for welfare recipients. The Senate bill would have started a three-county pilot program.
On Monday, a state health official told legislators that an estimated 220 of the 2,700 adults enrolled in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program in West Virginia might use illegal drugs. That estimate was calculated using national statistics.
Lawmakers also learned that the state received 245 referrals related to infants being exposed to drugs since last October. Another 1,181 cases about caretakers using drugs were referred to Child Protective Services during the same time period, said Kathy Paxton, substance abuse specialist with the state's Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities.
At a legislative meeting in June, lawmakers learned that few welfare recipients are testing positive for drugs in the dozen states that already have the high-cost screening programs.
A statewide drug-testing program for public assistance beneficiaries would cost about $3 million a year.
In December, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that Florida's drug-testing law was unconstitutional. Florida's program required testing of all public assistance applicants.
The 12 states with testing programs use questionnaires and screening tools to determine whether there's reasonable suspicion to require a drug test.
The West Virginia legislative committee plans to continue to study the drug-testing issue through the end of the year.
"I guess the bottom line here is, based on the statistical analysis, can we get a better handle on this and get these people in treatment?" Stollings said.
Reach Eric Eyre at ericeyre@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4869 or follow @ericeyre on Twitter.