Price Requests Revamping Of Mass. Welfare System

A citizens' committee, headed by Don K. Price, dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration, recommended this week that Massachusett's welfare system be overhauled.

The committee's suggestions are certain to become one of the most controversial issues that will face the General Court (state legislature) in 1966.

The report proposes that the State Department of public Welfare take over administration of the $212 million in welfare programs now handled by 270 local agencies. It also recommends Community Service Centers throughout the state to provide rehabilitative services to those receiving public aid.

A bill filed yesterday in the legislature calls for the establishment of a committee to review the study. The legislation, filed jointly by Price, Sen. Beryl D. Cohen (D-Brookline), and Rep. John W. Frenning (D-Boston) is actually a parliamentary device. A bill incorporating the suggestions of the report will be introduced as a substitute amendment to it next January.

The study endorsed by the committee was co-sponsored by the United Community Services and the Massachusetts Committee on Children, two independent organizations who work with welfare recipients. Begun last March, the study was conducted by the National Study Service, a research firm from New York.

Cohen said last night that adoptiou of the report's recommendation would allow more qualified personnel to administer welfare aid.. Because of the vagaries of political and civil service appointments on the local level, Cohen said. Massachusetts's to a great extent has completely untrained and unqualified people administering our welfare programs."

Cohen pointed out that welfare is administered exclusively on the state level in about thirty states and that "the more enlightened of these states all have a rehabilitative aspect to the programs."

Cohen admitted that his bill would preface a difficult fight in the legislature. He based his judgment on the degrse of opposition raised this year to one of his bills which added an education requirement to employment qualifications in the welfare department.

"The opposition will come from the less qualified people entrenched in the bureaucracy under the present system,' Tohen said. "They are a powerful interest group. There are presently 3807 employees administering welfare progrems in Massachusetts at a cost of 320 million a year.