(The Center Square) – A major restructuring of Louisiana’s workforce benefits and how they are appropriated is making its way through the legislature.
The restructure is being facilitated by a duet of bills from Reps. Kim Carver and Stephanie Berault, who are are attempting to streamline Louisiana’s workforce programs, including the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The bill passed the House Appropriations committee without objection.
Louisiana’s Workforce Commissioner Susana Schowenn said that LDH is more equipped to handle the appropriation of SNAP benefits.
She also told The Center Square that part of the motivation for taking the authority away from the Department of Children and Family Services was to make DCFS “its own stand alone agency and focus exclusively on child protection.”
LDH, according to Schowenn, already does much of the same processing for Medicaid. Currently, various facilities around the state function as “one-stop-shops” for workforce programs and other benefits. Schowenn said that some will be closed, but added that rural parishes would be spared.
House Bill 624 by Berault, R-Slidell, transfers certain support programs, like SNAP and TANF, from the Department of Children and Family Services to the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
HB617 by Carver, R-Mandeville, rewrites the internal structure of DCFS itself, formalizing the creation of a new Office of Child Welfare and Office of Child Support, each with its own assistant secretary.
It also strips the department of many responsibilities no longer under its control and updates statutes to reflect the new organizational chart.
The reorganization would leave DCFS focused on child welfare and protective services, while workforce-related public assistance programs would be run by Louisiana Works.
All workforce programs like SNAP and TANF would be accessed and appropriated by a single authority, the LWC, which would be renamed Louisiana Works.
An amendment however would leave the disbursement of SNAP benefits and Disability Determination Services to the Louisiana Department of Health, though the workforce commission would still help bring individuals into SNAP and Medicaid.
The agency plans to cross-train case managers so they can provide more comprehensive support and access to eligible benefits by combining workforce and rehabilitation services.
“Right now, there are 800 people at LDH working on Medicaid eligibility, and another 600 down the street at DCFS doing the same thing — processing eligibility for mostly the same people, using the same system,” Berault said. “Essentially, it’s two copies of the same system asking for the same information.”
The overhaul reflects a similar initiative taken in Utah.
“Utah is the only state with fully integrated federal and state funds for both human services and workforce services,” the Alliance for Opportunity wrote in a 2023 report. “Utah began with a legislative audit of the state’s 23 workforce programs that were operated out of six different state agencies. The 1992 audit unearthed a fragmented system with ‘duplication of bureaucracy,’ which made it difficult for low-income Utahns, particularly those with significant challenges, to access services.”
Lawmakers say the goal is to cut red tape and make it easier for more Louisianans to move off public assistance and achieve economic self-sufficiency.
Berault emphasized that the shift would not eliminate jobs, but staffing reductions could come through attrition.
“There is a commitment that there will not be layoffs,” Berault said. “But some positions may be reallocated.”
The bill was not without opposition.
“This is nothing more than a disguised bill that’s going to not only harm and hurt those who receive SNAP benefits, who make up 24% of our state,” said Dadrius Lanus, the executive director of the Louisiana Democratic Party. “But it’s also going to be a more definitive way to cut jobs across the board that our governor wants to push down.”
Gov. Jeff Landry has said he supports the bill.
