A recent documentary about the trials and sacrifices of Mormon pioneers as they trekked from east to west showed the power of the human spirit when moved by faith, hope and looking after one another. It formed the values that helped Utah thrive and become known as a state that takes care of our own. Whatever happened to that value?

Now, the state is planning to cut services to the poor and disabled at a time when the need is increasing. It creates a moral dilemma for our state political leaders as to how they will help those Utahns in greatest need.

The Department of Workforce Services, like other agencies, was required to make a 15 percent cut in its budget; and, like bureaucracies, the ones that suffer are the people they are mandated to serve. Their solution: reduce the number of line workers and limit the estimated 1,500 poor and disabled eligible by almost half to 800. The Utah Commerce and Workforce Legislative Subcommittee asked Workforce administrators why 64 percent of the $6.9 million state funds appropriated for the program was spent on case management overhead, and the remainder parceled out to the poor and the disabled. The state-funded general assistance program bridges the gap for people determined by a doctor to be temporarily unemployable due to injury or disability by providing money to help keep them from becoming homeless and to get basic medical help. However, the DWS turned the program into a full employment program that hires case managers to put poor people through a needless exercise when, in reality, all they need is temporary help to get them back on their feet or to apply for Social Security provided by the federal government.

Advocates for the poor/disabled are told there is a two-year waiting period before receiving Social Security. Workforce Services has adopted a program that would assist the disabled in processing their claims within a four-month period. So why does DWS keep spending money on case management and making clients go through needless hoops writing employment plans when these people are not able to work?

Bureaucracies spend more time trying to prevent people from getting around the system than helping people get into the system when they really need it. According to a study in 1992 by the legislative analyst on Workforce Services job training program: 74 percent of the funds were used for case management and 27 percent were used for tuition, books and transportation. Seems nothing has changed; however, DWS has learned how to survive.

Somehow, with changing times, our way of life has eroded.