Leone v. Blum
| Decision Date | 10 March 1980 |
| Citation | 73 A.D.2d 252,425 N.Y.S.2d 836 |
| Parties | In the Matter of Lenore LEONE, Petitioner, v. Barbara BLUM, as Acting Commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services, et al., Respondents. In the Matter of Mary DELMAR, etc., Petitioner, v. Barbara BLUM, as Commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Leonard S. Clark, Nassau/Suffolk Law Services Committee, Inc., Hempstead (Ira S. Schneider, Baldwin, of counsel), for petitioner Leone.
Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen., New York City (Gerald Slotnik, New York City, of counsel), for respondent State Commissioner in the Leone proceeding.
Leonard S. Clark, Nassau/Suffolk Law Services Committee, Inc., Hempstead (Stephen Latzman, Hempstead, of counsel), for petitioner Delmar.
Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen., New York City (Maryellen Weinberg, New York City, of counsel), for respondent State Commissioner in the Delmar proceeding.
Before LAZER, J. P., and RABIN, GULOTTA and O'CONNOR, JJ.
Petitioners in these proceedings challenge the method by which the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services allocates public assistance in the categories of Aid to Dependent Children and Home Relief under section 131-a of the Social Services Law and the accompanying regulations.
We hold that the Commissioner's proration method as applied to households which include members who are the recipients of Federal benefits under the Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program and the Supplemental Security Income program is invalid as a matter of law.
The underlying facts are essentially undisputed.
In the first proceeding the petitioner, Lenore Leone, resides in a household consisting of herself and her two minor children, Stephanie and Antonio. Sometime prior to June 30, 1977, the Suffolk County Department of Social Services re-evaluated Mrs. Leone's three-person grant of public assistance in the category of Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) (Social Services Law, § 343 et seq.) and, on or about August 16, 1977, notified the petitioner that her shelter allowance was being reduced in order to reflect her daughter's loss of eligibility for ADC due to her receipt of Federal benefits under the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance program (OASDI). The department indicated that Mrs. Leone would henceforth be receiving only a pro rata (two-thirds) portion of her prior allowance, the foregoing in recognition of the continuing eligibility of only two persons in her three-person household. As has already been indicated, this calculation was directed only toward the "shelter" portion of her total ADC grant, which included regular recurring monthly "needs" as one item and shelter (along with heating fuel) costs as a separate item (see Social Services Law, § 131-a).
During the fair hearing conducted at her request, Mrs. Leone testified that she had been paying at least a portion of her utility bills with funds obtained from her daughter's OASDI benefit checks, and that she would have been able to save a portion of these Federal benefits for her daughter's education had she been receiving a shelter allowance in the amount set forth in section 352.30 of the State commissioner's regulations for a two-person household, rather than the prorated (lesser) amount payable for two-thirds of a three-person household (see 18 NYCRR 352.30(a)). The determination of the State Commissioner, in essence, affirmed the decision of the local agency but expanded thereon by providing that petitioner's entire ADC grant should be prorated by two-thirds. The Commissioner's calculation was as follows:
Shelter (2/3ds of the actual rent of
$250) .................................... $166.67
Fuel (2/3ds of the maximum allowance
for a three-person grant, i.e., $33) ...... 22.00
"Basic Needs" (2/3ds of a § 131-a grant
for three persons, i.e., $200) ........... 133.33
TOTAL NEEDS .............................. $322.00
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Mrs. Leone argues that her allowance should not have been prorated, and that it should have been fixed at the (higher) amounts set forth in the appropriate schedules for a two-person ADC household (e. g., the figure set forth in section 131-a of the Social Services Law as "basic needs" for a two-person ADC household is $150 per month rather than the $133.33 allowed petitioner). In opposition, the State Commissioner has cited, inter alia, Matter of Padilla v. Wyman, 34 N.Y.2d 36, 356 N.Y.S.2d 3, 312 N.E.2d 149, app. dsmd. 419 U.S. 1084, 95 S.Ct. 672, 42 L.Ed.2d 677 and section 352.30 of the regulations, which, at the time of the decision, provided, in pertinent part:
"For budgetary purposes the agency shall include in its estimate of need and application of income all persons applying for or receiving public assistance and care and living as a unit within, the same household" (18 NYCRR 352.30(a)). 1
The Commissioner's position, as stated in her "Decision After Fair Hearing", is as follows:
"The (petitioner's) budget should be computed on a household of three persons and since appellant's child's income from social security (OASDI) is sufficient to meet her prorated 1/3 share of the total needs, the agency is required to provide grants based on (a) 2/3 prorated share of the needs for a household of three persons."
In the second matter the petitioner, Mary Delmar, and her spouse, Anthony, were recipients of public assistance in the form of Home Relief (Social Services Law, § 157 et seq.). As a condition thereof, Mrs. Delmar was required to and did apply for benefits under the Federal Supplemental Security Income program (U.S.Code, tit. 42, § 1381 et seq.) in January, 1978 (18 NYCRR 370.11(b)) and on May 26, 1978 her application was accepted and her eligibility was found to be retroactive to January 1, 1977. The Social Security Administration thereupon issued petitioner's initial "benefits" check and, following routine procedure, forwarded same to the "local" agency, the Nassau County Department of Social Services (see Social Services Law, § 158, subd. (a); 18 NYCRR 370.11). The local agency, in "recouping" from that check what it had paid to the petitioner as "interim assistance" during the retroactive period, determined, inter alia, that the interim public assistance advanced to petitioner had exceeded the amount of the initial benefits check, and therefore deducted (i. e., recouped) the full amount of that check pursuant to section 370.11 of the regulations (18 NYCRR 370.11(d)). 2
Upon being informed of the agency's determination, petitioner, who was no longer eligible for public assistance because of the amount of her monthly SSI benefits, requested a fair hearing to examine the method by which the local agency had calculated the amount of public assistance advanced to her during the retroactive period. At the August 10, 1978 hearing, the agency indicated that the amount deducted had been calculated by "prorating" the couple's public assistance grant during the retroactive period, and that petitioner's pro rata "portion" had thus been determined to be one-half of the monthly two-person grant. In opposition, petitioner argued that the foregoing was inequitable and that her distributive share for the purposes of recoupment should only have been the incremental cost of including her in the grant, i. e., the excess over the amount which would have been payable to her eligible spouse as a one-person household. 3 Needless to say this "incremental" amount was substantially less than the "pro rata" figure relied on by the local agency. The State Commissioner agreed with the calculation of the local social services agency, whereupon the instant proceeding was commenced.
We hold that the proration method employed by the State Commissioner in each of these cases violates State and Federal law, as well as the Commissioner's own regulations. Accordingly, both determinations must be annulled and the matters remanded to the Commissioner for further proceedings.
At the outset, we acknowledge the fact that the State Commissioner's interpretation of the rules and regulations promulgated by her under the auspices of the Social Services Law is entitled to great weight (Matter of Howard v. Wyman, 28 N.Y.2d 434, 322 N.Y.S.2d 683, 271 N.E.2d 528) and we accept, as a principle of general applicability, that it is sound economic practice to calculate public assistance allowances in such a way as to take into account the fact that the purchasing power of a dollar increases as the size of the household increases, i. e., through "economies of scale" which are achieved by the pooling of resources and purchasing in larger quantities. Indeed, the constitutionality of this practice as incorporated into section 131-a of the Social Services Law and its accompanying regulations (see, e. g., 18 NYCRR 352.1, 352.2, 352.3 and 352.5) to reduce the per capita amount of public assistance in multiperson households has been sustained by the Court of Appeals in Matter of Padilla v. Wyman, 34 N.Y.2d 36, 40, 42, 356 N.Y.S.2d 3, 5, 7, 312 N.E.2d 149, 151, 152, supra, wherein the court explained:
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