Georgia is using federal welfare dollars - called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - to replace state money for child welfare programs. That's the finding in a new report from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. The study found that Georgia is increasingly funneling the TANF funds to adoption assistance and child welfare programs that had once been funded with state dollars. The result is that there are fewer TANF dollars to help needy Georgians find employment. The study calculated that there will an 11 percent drop in TANF funds in fiscal year 2010 than the year before. That's mostly because there is a smaller pot of money to carry over.
(Associated Press)
