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Show i New Regulations Will Govern All I Assistance Cases ; For many months public assist-; assist-; ance expenditures by the state de- partment of public welfare have increased constantly. The funds ' available to meet the relief demands de-mands are limited and in order i to make certain that assistance is i given only to those persons who ; have insufficient resources to ; provide for themselves those things essential to health and i well-being, the state .department i of public welfare has adopted new ; rules and regulations relative to ! the granting of assistance, accord-I accord-I ing to Aubra Cartwright of Bea-i Bea-i ver, director of the Beaver county department of public welfar, who has handed The News the following follow-ing article for publication. Effective January 1, 1940, all persons receiving old age assistance, assist-ance, aid to the blind, aid to dependent de-pendent children or general assistance assist-ance will be determined on the j basis of these new instructions-i instructions-i Persons applying! or re-applying i for any type of assistance after : January 1, 1940 will also have their eligibility for assistance es- tablished in conformity with I these regulations. All incomes and resources of applicants cr re-, cipients shall be evaluated and persons either receiving or requesting re-questing public aid shall be ex-, i pected to utilize to the limit all j personal resources before receiv- ing assistance. There has been a I mistaken idea on the part of a j large percentage of the general public that some of the assistance I grants made pcssible-by the social ; security act are pensions to which j people are entitled on the basis of i age, physical handicap, or a social I status. These factors are included I in points of eligibility but in themselves them-selves do not constitute eligibility. Procf that need exists and that the combined resources and in-com)e in-com)e are inadequate to provide the persons with a decent standard stand-ard of living must be ascertained' prior to granting any type of assistance. as-sistance. In the opinion of the state beard of public welfare, the new instructions will reduce the total number of persons now receiving aid, will increase grants to some and will reduce grants to others now receiving assistance, thus effecting ef-fecting a more equitable distribution distribu-tion of assistance funds. Unless there is a reduction in the total expenditures, it will be necessary, before the end of the fiscal year, for the state department to order a percentage cut in all grants in order to keep within the income available to the department- A percentage cut is a drastic and effective method by which an immediate im-mediate saving in funds can be effected. However, such a measure mea-sure should be used only as a last resort and not utilized until it is determined that aJl persons receiving re-ceiving assistance have been granted aid on the same basis and that a percentage cut would uniformly uni-formly affect all persons. The state department of public' (Continued on last page) New Regulations (Continued from first page) welfare is charged with the re-1 sponsibiKty of uniform adminia- j tration throughout each political subdivision of the state and with ! the introduction of these new ! regulations each county department depart-ment of public welfare will decide eligibility on this same basis. All resources will be given a cash value and the amount of aid granted will be the difference between be-tween the total of such resources and income and the minimum standard budget established by j department, or in the case of old age assistance, tije grant will be , the difference between the average ave-rage monthly incorrje jand resources re-sources and 530-00 maximum specified by the old age assistance law of Utah. The department has also adopted adopt-ed a new policy relative to personal per-sonal property limitations. A single person will be permitted to have personal property holdings net in excess of 5250.00 and a couple or household will be permitted per-mitted to retain personal property not in excess of $500.00. Clothing Cloth-ing and household furnishings are not included in this limitation. All persons having personal holdings in excess of these maximums will be expected, to liquidate such resources re-sources and to utilize funds from the liquidation to meet their own needs for a period consistent with the amount of resources thus liquidated. Persons who deliberately deliber-ately dispose of resources to become be-come eligible for assistance shall by such procedure forfeit their right to public assistance. The exact date when the reinvestigation rein-vestigation of cases will be completed' com-pleted' has not been set but the counties are being instructed to begin work immediately on this reinvestigation in 'order that at the earliest possible date there might be a more equitable distribution distri-bution of funds and so that the necessary savings by the department depart-ment can be effected prior to the end of the fiscal year, July 1, 1940. Utah has consistently maintained maintain-ed a high standard of relief grants. This state, unlike many other states, has attempted to meet the needs of persons eligible for social sesurity grants as well as these persons in need because of lack of employment or who, because be-cause of mental or physical handicaps, handi-caps, are not employable. |