Los Banos Rotary Club History
Welfare Head Is Rotary Speaker

Kenneth Williamson, head of the Merced County Welfare Department, Tuesday noon gave members of the local Rotary Club a resume of the work his department is doing in this county, and explained the sources and the amounts of revenue required to carry the local case load.

Tracing its history from the days of the S.R.A. and State Unemployment Relief, Williamson said the state has transferred administration of the relief work to county boards of supervisors in order to obtain more efficient control, and to forestall undesirable efforts of small pressure groups in the state legislature who under the original plan were able to in invoke sudden and drastic pressure to secure alterations of the law to their own liking.

Though the supervisors act as an administering body they are supervised by the State Department of Public Welfare, and are rigidly bound by state law as to standards and regulations, and have little or nothing to say as to the amount of aid to be given or whom shall receive it. State and federal funds supplement county taxes and the supervisors are required by law to provide such funds as are needed in the county tax rate.

Last month, Williamson said, Merced county gave aid to 379 dependent children at a cost of $14,523. aid to 900 needy aged last month cost $52,000, of which $4,000 represented county funds and the remainder from state and federal sources.

In addition to cases that qualify for state and federal fund aid, the county must care for certain incapacitated and unemployable persons who are unable to sustain themselves. Some 338 such persons received county aid last month.
Williamson said the several relief agencies are now spending about $12,000,000 a month in this state, and that this amount will soon be substantially increased because of newly enacted legislation allowing increased of recipient qualifications.

The speaker was introduced by program chairman J. L. Toscano.

September 9, 1947

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