Negotiating between layers of government for social welfare policies
Winston explains her thoughts on the importance of leadership in negotiating between federal, state, and local government in order to establish a social welfare program that is beneficial to most people. In her description, the role of a state administrator such as herself is that of a mediator between federal government, from where most welfare funding came, and counties, where funding was filtered accordingly. Her comments are illuminating of the ways in which different branches of government operate together in policies of social welfare.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Ellen Black Winston, December 2, 1974. Interview G-0064. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ANNETTE SMITH:
-
Andrew Doblestein started a dissertation on your years as Welfare
Commissioner, at Duke. He says that your success as Welfare Commissioner
was based on your ability to build political support on all levels of
government, local, state and federal. Do you agree with that assessment
of your . . .
- ELLEN WINSTON:
-
I would say this, that in administering public welfare in North Carolina
you must work with all three levels. You must work with the federal
government because they control a great deal of the money They are
responsible for many of the controlling policies with which one has to
cope. There is no question about the momentous role of the federal
government in social welfare. Of course the program was a federal-state
partnership so that meant that one had to work closely with those areas
of state government that could have some impact on the program the
legislature, the Bureau of the Budget, the Governor's office, the
Attorney General's office, your colleagues in other departments in
government. The end result was services to people, in the community
where our county government carries the
responsibility. Actually, here in North Carolina we expected the
counties to have a larger share in the welfare picture than was true in
many other states. The majority of the states today are state
administered programs. What we had, I thought, was perhaps the best of
two worlds. Under the law, we had county administered, state supervised
programs. The way to handle that is to give strong leadership at the
state level so that working with the counties, you move the program
ahead. I had, on the other hand, a friend who operated a program that
was state administered but the counties had so much responsibility in
the way he carried out the program that it really wasn't very different
from the one in North Carolina. It's how you manage, really, in terms of
whether or not the program is really guided at the state level. And when
you get to that point, you don't have too much difference in state
administration and state supervision. A lot depends on the
administrator, frankly, the administrator and the other people at the
state level who have the potential for giving leadership. If they
exercise it, you are in fine shape, I think, with local administration.
If you don't, then you are bound to have all kinds of troubles, because
counties vary so much in their social philosophy and their abilities to
move ahead.
- ANNETTE SMITH:
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That's true, especially in North Carolina with some very poor counties
and then larger ones.
- ELLEN WINSTON:
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That's right.