Here’s the gap between government program recipients and the policymakers behind the programs

Guest:	Miles Murphy
Title:	Senior manager, research and government solutions, National Academy of Public Administration
Summary:	Changes to Washington DC's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program sparked a debate about policy. A National Academy of Public Administration working group focused on something different: how the program was actually working for the people living with it. Here's what the studies revealed.

The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton provides expert insights on current events in the federal community. Read more interviews to keep up with daily news and analysis that affect the federal workforce. Reach out to Terry and the Federal Drive producers with feedback and story ideas at FederalDrive@federalnewsnetwork.com.

Interview transcript

Terry Gerton I want to start with this new report out from the National Academy of Public Administration. It deals with the 2025 Public Assistance Amendment Act, but not about the act itself, how the District of Columbia’s Department of Human Services implemented it. Why was it so important to make that distinction as you began this work?

Miles Murphy Well, I think the biggest distinction there is that there was a lot of frustration from many different groups when the budget process was going into place in D.C., no different from a lot of years frankly, but that this year in particular there were tremendous cuts to a lot social programs and new requirements being put in place that had not been discussed for around a decade on the [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families] program. The report details the longer history of how that all came into place, but that ultimately there were going to be drastic changes with regards to work requirements for SNAP and other things. But with TANF, we were looking in particular at an establishment of hardship policy, which is not something that had been formally put in place. But then also stricter sanctions on people who are not participating in TANF fully, as well as stepping down those that were beyond 60 months’ time on TANF in the District, which is something that the District had not really been enforcing aggressively and, as you might imagine, does cause some challenges for both capacity of staff and funding.

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Terry Gerton As you went through this process, you convened a number of working groups. And what’s interesting to me is you brought together customers, advocates, service providers, council staff and agency officials. So it really is a pretty comprehensive mix. What did you hear there by getting all of those people together that a more traditional approach to this study might’ve missed?

Miles Murphy Well, as you know from a lot of the Academy’s work, we generally go with individual interviews or maybe small groups when we’re trying to assess a situation. Not because of lack of interest at the collective opinion, but because we’re try to manage hundreds of interviews in a study. However, in this case, we were told by the District, DCDHS, that they wanted us to convene working groups and really bring in all of these stakeholders to have discussion. Which we were ecstatic about, for one, because it lends to a lot more interesting insights whenever you have more people in the room that are providing opinions, and in this case, we had just about everyone that could be connected to the TANF program represented. We also, in addition to the working groups, made sure to touch base in those small groups and interviews, too, so every stakeholder group was spoken with either as a group or individually as well — especially the customers of TANF. We, I believe, had three small group sessions spending four-and-a-half, five hours with over 50 individuals to hear as many perspectives as we could, and presented all of those at the first working group as well to try to ensure that everyone had their voice shared there, as many as we can allow, at least. And I think the most significant things that came away from that was, one, that everyone agreed on things you wouldn’t necessarily expect. For one, customers in the room and the working group very much were in favor of sanctions for people who are not participating. We can’t say that that opinion holds writ large amongst the TANF population, but there was no really objection to sanctions being used for those that are not participate in the program. Because those participating want the program to work, want the program to function for them and want to be successful and acknowledge that they’re following the program — and don’t appreciate that others are not following the rules of the program. And then the other, I think, really useful opportunity was a chance for the council members, not just their staff; we had three council members there as well. They were able to sit in and listen and hear directly from customers, customers speaking to agency staff who were able respond appropriately, and customers speaking with the advocates in the room who are able to hear those perspectives, how agencies interpret it. And council members getting the front-row view of that without having to be on the council, in that formal capacity. So it was a really great learning opportunity for everyone. And then we all agreed that we missed a stakeholder group, because we had our TEP providers there who are the liaisons getting people trained and to work opportunities, but we did not have the business community in the room. And we all sort of acknowledged it at the end that, gosh, we were missing a piece of this project. You know, we still, I believe, came away with great results. But it would have been even better if we could have had some of them featured as well.

Terry Gerton Miles Murphy is senior manager, research and government solutions at the National Academy of Public Administration. So, Miles, as you went through all of the listening and the working group sessions, did any one theme kind of rise above the rest? What surfaced most consistently?

Miles Murphy Yes. Communication and clarity. There was, from every stakeholder group, an impression, for one, different impressions of what the 2025 Act required. Customers were hearing different things depending upon who they called, and that not every staff member at DHS knew exactly how it was going to be implemented, and that every D.C. agency that might have a touch point with TANF did not know exactly what was being put in place. So how is a customer or a TEP provider supposed to successfully navigate these changes, even though they hadn’t put in place yet, but these incoming changes, if they’re getting different answers? And so that communication needs to go both directions, needs to be clear, needs to be consistent.

Terry Gerton Was there anything that you think, related to communication or any of the other findings, that would have been different if you’d had the business community better represented in your groups?

Miles Murphy I think that the business community may not have necessarily improved communication consistency or clarity, though it would have given another opportunity for DHS to ensure the message is being shared effectively with everyone. The business community not being there was more that we need to find better opportunities to provide people on TANF and other workforce-related programs job opportunities that meet their skill sets, that are interesting, and that lead to careers and are not just more one-off job opportunities satisfying requirements. And that’s where connecting with these business leaders that are part of the TEP program, or that aren’t, is going to help make the program more effective.

Terry Gerton Does that get to the implementation capacity-finding? That was certainly a priority in the report.

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Miles Murphy Yes and no. You know, obviously the goal of the TANF program and some more workforce programs is to help people find jobs and move themselves out of situations where they need those social services. However, the implementation capacity of, you know, DHS and the D.C. agencies associated with it is very much controlled by their own workforce, their own funding, their own time commitments and that clear, consistent communication across the board. The implementation will be a challenge for any changes to TANF because you have a population of people that are already stressed in a number of different ways, and it is difficult to communicate everything perfectly to everyone coming from so many different backgrounds and challenges.

Terry Gerton As you’ve gone through the report, did you see, then, from DCDHS an indication that they might be willing to put more of the budget behind this to improve capacity?

Miles Murphy I know that DCDHS would love to have more budget behind it, though only so much within their control. I will say that they were, even before we made it I think to the final working group or shortly thereafter, had already started taking some of the recommendations that they were hearing in the room and we discussed including in the report and starting acted on them. The websites were being updated to more clearly express the potential upcoming changes of the act and they were working on notifications to go out to customers and really putting a lot of time into providing a much more clear and robust hardship policy for customers and their own staff to navigate.

Terry Gerton That’s a great indication of how well the report hit the target for DCDHS. But let’s talk about this a little more broadly, because while this report focuses on TANF in the District, many agencies at state and local governments as well as the federal level struggle with implementing difficult policy changes. So, what lessons from this effort do you think apply beyond the TANF program?

Miles Murphy An excellent question. I think that first and foremost, there’s a lot of consistency across these programs that communication is a key factor. A lot of policy is written not necessarily behind closed doors, but not with every stakeholder involved. And then it is implemented by staff that are generally more expert than their colleagues who are working on other programs or people who actually will administer these programs at the federal, state, local, or even sometimes nonprofit level. And so what you see from this is when everyone was in the room communicating, they were hearing that there’s still confusion on things that everyone thought was clear, that there is still misinterpretation of what this means based on who’s hearing it and how it’s being said. And that just because the policy sounds really good on paper, and that everyone in the room of experts agrees, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be implemented correctly, effectively, or elicit the outcomes that you’re hoping for — or that some of these programs are required to meet. And that’s actually something that some the experts we spoke with at the APHSA as well as the Urban Institute said, is that there are some TANF programs that are trying to do things different and innovative, but when you scale them up, they’re not necessarily getting the outcomes that they need at the scale that they need in order to satisfy program requirements. And so it’s, then again, a budget issue. You only receive so much federal funding; how much do you dedicate to TANF to explore things that are not actually addressing the program outcomes that the federal government expects? Not that they’re not getting results, but they’re not getting the outcomes that are necessarily desired.

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