WELFARE BANKING REFORMS LAGGING.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

Nine months after a self-imposed deadline for putting welfare payments into families' bank accounts by direct deposit, Los Angeles County is still at least 15 months away from starting the program because of computer difficulties, officials said Wednesday.

The delay means tens of thousands of welfare families will continue giving a percentage of their monthly aid to check-cashing firms that distribute the checks for the county.

Many welfare recipients don't have bank accounts and financial institutions won't cash their checks, officials said.

The program had a scheduled starting date of Sept. 1, 1998.

A further delay of 15 months or longer should be unnecessary for the Department of Public Social Services, said Tessa Carmen De Roy, director of banking programs for Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, a nonprofit group advocating electronic direct deposit of welfare checks.

``Anybody else could do it in three months,'' De Roy said. ``They need to make it a priority.''

``They should start doing it now,'' said welfare recipient Rita Mancha, 48, of Pacoima, who said she worries about getting robbed outside the check-cashing office.

``I prefer the bank,'' she said. ``That would be much better and safer.''

Los Angeles County used to mail out welfare checks but so many mail carriers were getting mugged around the first of the month that the U.S. Postal Service complained, and the county switched to the check cashing outlets in 1997.

There has been so much trouble setting up the new computer system that officials had to postpone direct-deposit capability, said Vance Martin, chief of eligibility for the welfare-to-work program in the county.

Each county administers the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids program welfare-to-work program.

More than 60 percent of the county's welfare families cash their CalWORKS aid checks at the check-cashing firms that distribute them and pay as much as 3 percent as a fee, said Martin.

A welfare check is roughly $600 for a mother and two children, and a 3 percent fee takes $18 from them every month.

Getting direct deposit of welfare checks is important because ``it takes a lot of hardship out of people's lives,'' said Gilda Haas, director of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

The organization has developed a pilot program in which welfare checks would be hand-delivered to special savings accounts that Washington Mutual has agreed to set up for as many as 1,000 welfare recipients.

The program could start in August, Martin said. It was supposed to start June 1, but the county has had to work out liability issues, such as who is liable if the courier fails to deliver the checks to Washington Mutual's processing office in Chatsworth, he said.

The pilot program will be in the South Central and East Los Angeles districts of county Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina.

Burke said she plans to meet with the department director, Lynn Bayer, next week to urge speedy availability of direct deposit.

``I think everything should be done to try to speed things up,'' she said.

The county has nearly 232,000 welfare families.