LOUISIANA LEGAL SERVICES AND PRO BONO DESK MANUAL 2013

TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES
1. INTRODUCTION
The Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program (“FITAP”) and Kinship
Care Subsidy Program (“KCSP”) provide cash assistance to needy families
and are Louisiana’s primary implementation of the federal Block Grant for Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families (“TANF”). These two programs are designed
on the state level as entitlement programs: all who qualify are to receive the assistance.
1 The state also uses TANF funds to fund other programs that do not provide
cash assistance and under which there is no assurance of assistance for all who
meet their eligibility criteria. The latter are called “TANF Initiatives.”
This Chapter focuses on FITAP, KCSP, and the work participation requirements
to receive FITAP (called Strategies to Empower People, or “STEP”).
The TANF initiatives are set out at Louisiana Administrative Code (hereafter,
LAC) Title 67, Part 3, Chapter 55. For an initiative to be a proper use of TANF
funds, it must: 1) provide assistance to needy families, or 2) promote job preparation,
work, or marriage of needy parents, or 3) prevent or reduce out-of-wedlock
pregnancies, or 4) encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
2 Recipients of the assistance need only be indigent with respect to the first
two goals. The state’s TANF initiatives are fluid rather than static: the state is
free to and does end some and start new ones, at its discretion, exercised through
rulemaking in the Louisiana Register.
The federal TANF program is a block grant. In Louisiana all of its aspects,
thus far, are administered by the Department of Children and Family Services
(“DCFS”). Though the state must act within federal constraints, all rules are set
at the state level. The federal requirements may help in interpreting the state
provisions, and the need to comply with the federal requirements can inform policy
arguments about program design. But the requirements placed on recipients are
determined by state law and policy.
2. DEALING WITH ADVERSE ACTIONS: REAPPLYING, NEGOTIATION,
ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS, AND JUDICIAL REVIEW
Most TANF program parameters are decided only as a matter of state law;
federal statutory or regulatory law rarely determines an issue. (For example, even
where compliance with federal “work participation” requirements is at issue, those
requirements do not require 100% compliance. So it is not federal law that
requires a client be sanctioned.) As a result, unless a denial of due process or
violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act or other federal statute occurs, if
the fair hearing decision is not favorable, the only formal relief available is through
state court “judicial review.” As a result, the decision as to how to preserve the
client’s rights is very straightforward, unlike under some other programs, where
direct resort could be made to federal court based on violation of federal law.
This also means that the administrative appeal must be utilized before court
review is possible, unless there is a federal statutory or due process claim. The
state court review will be based exclusively on the record created at the hearing.
1
See Due Process section, infra.
2
42 U.S.C. § 601(a).
(825)