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House advances measure to form advisory committee on TANF "stop-the-clock" criteria
Summary
Rep. Litback introduced a first-substitute bill to create an advisory committee in the Department of Workforce Services to define eligibility for "stop-the-clock" pauses in the 36-month TANF time limit; sponsors said the bill does not implement the policy, only sets criteria. Members questioned membership and fiscal implications.
Representative Litback introduced the first substitute to House Bill 139 to establish an advisory committee within the Department of Workforce Services tasked with recommending criteria for "pause the clock" measures that would exclude certain months from the 36-month time limit on Utah's Family Employment Program.
Litback told the House the measure does not itself implement any stop-the-clock policy; instead it would create the committee and require it to define the criteria and membership needed to identify families facing "severe, persistent and multiple barriers" to self-sufficiency, such as mental-health needs, disabilities and child-care constraints. The sponsor said thirty-one other states use similar tools.
Members asked whether the committee would include consumer or community advocates and whether existing councils (state and regional workforce and FACT programs) could carry out the work. A member cited the fiscal note and said the bill shows a $52,000 budget item and warned implementation could cost substantially more if recommendations were funded, quoting a possible upper-end figure raised during debate.
Litback and other supporters said the Department can absorb the committee's basic costs within its budget and emphasized that H.B. 139 does not enact any benefits extensions; it only establishes criteria for future consideration. Opponents, including Representative Snow, said they preferred using existing structures and questioned the need for a new committee.
The bill was debated under a motion to cut off further discussion. The transcript records discussion and procedural motions but does not include a final recorded roll-call for H.B. 139 on the floor in these segments.
