Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board: Records, 1987-1989

This collection is available in whole for research use. Some folders may still have withdrawn material due to Freedom of Information Act restrictions. Most frequently withdrawn material is national security classified material, personal privacy, protection of the President, etc.

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Scope and Content Note

This collection documents the functioning of the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board in fielding state proposals for demonstration projects for welfare reform, assisting states in composing their proposals; evaluating these proposals, recommending approval of these projects and the follow-through with affected agencies in seeing the proposals gain approval, waivers and implementation.

This collection was acquired by the Library as part of a 1992 accretion to our Presidential records. At the time of accessioning the material was marked as “Peter Germanis” records. Upon examination the material documents the Board as a whole and appears to have been filed that way. Work product for Chairman Charles D. Hobbs, Driggs, Amorosi, Bavier, Doughton, Hall, Hill, Martin and Norberg can be found though out the material, although Hobbs and Driggs created the majority of the material. The material is now all in one collection, the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board records.

This collection is arranged into seven series: SERIES I: Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board Meetings; SERIES II: Charles D. Hobbs, Chairman, Material; SERIES III: Chronological File, 1988-1989; SERIES IV: Subject Files; SERIES V: State Files; SERIES VI: Workshops; and SERIES VII: Digital Media Material.

Series List

SERIES I: ILIOAB Board Meetings (1.1 l.ft.; Box 1-3)

This series consists of material regarding business before the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board (ILIOAB) including minutes for each board meeting; an agenda and list of attendees for each Board meeting; notices of future meetings; requests to book White House meeting rooms for the Board meetings; proposals from various states for welfare reform demonstration projects and requests for ILIOAB assistance; terms and conditions for ILIOAB approval for state proposals and ILIOAB staff comments on the proposals. The material is arranged chronologically by meeting date.

SERIES II: Charles D. Hobbs, Chairman Material (0.8 l.ft.; Box 3-5)

This series consists of material regarding the specific functions of the Chairman of the ILIOAB Board. The material includes outgoing correspondence from Hobbs covering approvals of state projects, selection of state projects, welfare and entitlement reforms, and administrative actions of the Board; memos from specific staff members on state demonstration projects, projects sponsored by non-government groups, and welfare and entitlement policy; invitations for Hobbs to participate, speak at, or attend meetings related to welfare and politics (1988 campaign); and some personal material for Hobbs regarding financial disclosure reports and access to White House staff amenities.

SERIES III: Chronological File (0.4 l.ft.; Box 5-6 )

This series consists of material regarding establishing further procedures for Board functioning in reviewing state demonstration proposals; accountability for the progression of the state proposals; Board approval or rejection of the proposals; notification to agencies of the approval of projects; purpose and functions of the Self-Help Workshop held at the White House; duplicates of Board meeting material from Series I including minutes, notification of meetings, tracking reports and agendas; requirements from Agencies regarding approval of state project proposals; reports on the status of social issue legislation, especially the 1988 welfare reform bill; writing the summary of “aid to the poor” for the Reagan Record; reporting on the disposition of the Board in the Bush Administration; and personnel and administrative issues for the Board. This material covers the time period from June 1988-March 1989 and it was maintained for the Board by Michael Driggs, Executive Secretary of the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board.

SERIES IV: Subject File (1.4 l.ft.; Box 6-10 & 37)

This series consists of material regarding the administrative running of the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board (ILIOAB); creation of the Board; reporting on the accomplishments of the Board; creating standards and procedures for states and federal agencies to use in creating welfare reform projects; issues with state quality control of the Food Stamps program; a series of memos on Board, welfare policy, and several select state proposals from Executive Secretary Richard Bavier; National Governor’s Association meetings in 1987-1989 regarding welfare reform at the state level and the push for a new national welfare reform bill sponsored by then Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas and Governor Michael Castle of Delaware; features, amendments and impact of the 1988 Family Support Act (welfare reform bill); Labor Department child care report and its effects for working mothers; tenant management of public housing; final recommendations to the Chief of Staff on the future of the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board in the George H.W. Bush administration; presentations to the Domestic Policy Council by the Low Income Opportunity Working Group and the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board on welfare policy, welfare reform and the progress of state welfare reform projects; the first annual report of the Board published as Volume 5 of the Up from Dependency publication. It is arranged alphabetically by folder title.

Overhead projection slides for presentations to the Domestic Policy Council regarding welfare reform are housed in oversize Box 37.

SERIES V: State File (9 l.ft.; Box 10-32 & 37)

This series consists of material relating to the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board’s initial contact with states and U.S. territories regarding welfare reform and the duties of the ILIOAB, requests for further information, cover letters to Secretaries of various federal agencies, evaluation of state demonstration proposals and follow-up on the implementation of state welfare reform projects. States provided descriptions of their proposed projects and submitted requests for waivers from current federal welfare practices to the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services or the Department of Housing and Urban Development depending on their projects. States also prepared presentations for meetings of the ILIOAB and provided changes to requests and follow-up information. In some cases files consist only of the initial contact with states if they chose not to pursue a welfare reform demonstration project. The material is arranged alphabetically by state and in rough chronological order within the state.

This material was filed as a group by the office, but it also includes material from the individual staff members responsible for a particular state.

Two presentation packets and an oversize computer report printout from the state of Iowa are housed in Oversize Box 37.

SERIES VI: Workshops (0.5 l.ft.; Box 32-33)

This series consists of material relating to the regional workshops on welfare reform organized by the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board and focusing on the Board’s role in assisting states’ efforts to obtain acceptance of their demonstration projects with various federal agencies. The material consists of invitations to various governors to specific workshops; preparation for the workshops; agendas for the workshops; presentation packets for the workshop which include a copy of the 1986 report on welfare reform entitled Up from Dependency; and follow-up media reports on the workshops.

SERIES VII: Digital Media File (2. 0 l.ft.; Box 34-36)

This series consists of 194 five and one quarter inch computer diskettes. The electronic files appear to be WordPerfect and several Lotus formats from the late 1980s.

The diskettes are split between three boxes. Box 34 appears to contain electronic documents of an administrative nature for the functioning of the ILIOAB. Box 35 & 36 appear to be the drafts, tables, narratives, and master copies of the publication, Up from Dependency. Up from Dependency was a report first published by the Low Income Opportunity Working Group, a sub-group of the Domestic Policy Council. Its first volume was published in 1986. Later volumes were continued by the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board, including volume 4 which was actually an annual report of the Board.

The Library is unable to access these diskettes not having the hardware or software necessary. We are unable to determine whether all of the material on these diskettes is found in printed form within the collection. But given most of the diskettes (157 of the 193) are regarding a publication, it is safe to assume much of this material can be found in the publication. Likewise, the administrative electronic files appear to match some of the folder titles and documents found in the collection.

Biography

Office History

At the start of the second Reagan administration, the Domestic Policy Council formed the Low Income Opportunity Working Group. The Working Group studied the current state of all federal welfare programs. From the Working Group the Reagan Administration commissioned Up from Dependency: A New National Public Assistance Strategy, a multi-volume report evaluating current government welfare policies published in 1986. One of the report’s conclusions was the piecemeal creation of the welfare structure resulted in an uncoordinated tangle of programs, regulations, and bureaucracies which often worked at cross purposes. The report recommended creating an entity to ease the burden of this confusion for states wishing to make innovative changes to their federally funded welfare programs

The Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board (ILIOAB) was created on July 17, 1987 by Presidential memorandum to coordinate the state’s welfare reform projects providing a “one-stop” method for states with proposals for welfare reform demonstrations and requests for waivers from current federal welfare program rules and regulations. In addition the Board was to collect and present evidence in support of administration policy as Congress considered welfare reform.

The Board was involved in the push for the enactment of H.R. 1720, the Family Support Act, a welfare reform bill signed by President Reagan on October 13, 1988. The Reagan Administration supported Republican alternatives to this bill (H.R. 3200 & S.1655) for most of 1988. Then Governor Bill Clinton (D., Arkansas) and Governor Michael Castle (R. Delaware) lobbied the President to support H.R. 1720 and its Senate alternative S.1511. When it became clear that the Republican bills stood no chance of passage and some work requirements became part of H.R. 1720, the Reagan Administration supported passage of this bill. The ILIOAB was most interested in protecting the already established state welfare reform demonstrations already in progress and some already proposed. Material on this issue can be found in the Subject File series.

The Board was chaired by Charles D. Hobbs. In 1984 Hobbs began work in the Office of Policy Development as a Deputy Assistant to the President, and in 1985 he was promoted to Director of the Office of Policy Development. His background included working for then Governor Ronald Reagan as Chief Deputy Director of Social Welfare where he worked on the California welfare reforms of the 1970s. A large part of his Office of Policy Development collection contains material on welfare and welfare reform.

Hobbs was appointed an Assistant to the President, in 1987 and given the Chairmanship of the ILIOAB. The Board also contained representatives of the Office of Management and Budget, and the Departments of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, and Labor. Other organizations would be included on the Board as they were needed. Staff support was provided by the Office of Policy Development and the Board member agencies.

The Board was located at 730 Jackson Place and the staff included Office of Policy Development analysts and subject experts Anthony Blankley, Michael Driggs, and Peter Germanis. It also included representatives of the other agencies on the Board: Martha Amorosi (Social Security Administration); Richard Bavier (Health and Human Services); Steve Barolomei-Hill; Judith Boggs (HHS); Morgan Doughton (Labor); Diane Esanu; Jeffery Hall (Office of Management & Budget); Robert Hill (Expert/Advisor); Robert Kirchner (Interior); Dolores “Dee” Martin (Expert/Advisor -University of Nebraska); and Linda Norberg (Agriculture).

The Board was still functioning at the Inauguration of President-Elect George H.W. Bush. The Board continued to field proposals and continued work on ongoing proposals from various states through most of 1989. The Board made a final report to the new President in March 1989 recommending that it be continued with a new name as a sub-group of the Domestic Policy Council. At some point the Board was slated to be shut down in September 1989. We are unaware if this actually happened, but our documentary evidence suggests it did.

In consultation with the George H.W. Bush Library archivists, the Ronald Reagan Library has decided to retain all of this material in one location within the Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board records. The Bush Library has some material on this Board and in particular records from staff member Peter Germanis. We refer researchers to this material held at the George H.W. Bush Library in College Station, Texas.

Record Type

Textual

Last Modified Date

2025-01-10

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Interagency Low Income Opportunity Advisory Board: Records, 1987-1989

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