SB 202 - This act adapts Missouri's public health and welfare statutes to comply with the mandates of the federal welfare reform act known as "The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996". The act provides for the following:

1. Deletes statutory reference to municipal and county welfare boards;

2. Replaces the term "aids to families with dependent children" in Missouri statute with the term "Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" to reflect the change from the AFDC Program to the TANF Program;

3. Creates a tax credit for business which develop on-site day care facilities;

4. Allows the Department of Social Services to sanction those recipients of public assistance who are denied employment for failure to pass drug-tests;

5. The Department of Social Services to establish eligibility requirements for the TANF program and is required to inform all recipients that the program provides transitional assistance benefits to help recipients regain self- sufficiency;

6. The Department of Social Services to develop an Individual Development Accounts program as described in federal language;

7. Department of Social Services may implement wage supplement programs, however, no funding shall be assigned to any employer who terminates or lays off a person from the same or substantially equivalent job to create a vacancy to obtain wage supplements;

8. Department of Social Services to implement and enforce federal work requirements and mandated participation rates;

9. The Department of Social Services is given authority to collect child support;

10. The Department may sanction parents who receive benefits if minor dependent children do not attend school;

11. Department of Social Services to provide at least four time annually and upon the request of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the name, address and other identifying information of any individual the department knows to be unlawfully in the United States;

12. Department of Social Services to provide Medicaid benefits to those people who meet the AFDC eligibility requirements of July 16, 1996 or other requirements set by the department;

13. The provisions of the Department of Social Services Section 1115 Waiver are to remain in place;

14. The state is to meet the federal government's conditional requirement on retaining a maintenance of effort fund in order to be eligible for contingency funds from the federal government in case of an economic downturn;

15. Department of Social Services and Department of Economic Development to prepare a state plan to provide for securement of coordinated public assistance, education, training and economic development services in defined geographical areas and for development of strategies for contracting at the community level for the delivery of services to eliminate barriers to employment and to promote self- sufficiency.

CHERYL GRAZIER