CHAPTER 297

An Act to amend and reenact §§ 638-44 and 63-101, 638-106, as amended,
and 68-110 of the Code of Virginia, authorizing the Commissioner of
Public Welfare to receive grants-in-aid, funds and gifts, defining terms
used in the Virginia Public Welfare and Assistance Law, requiring
the Commissioner of Public Welfare to reimburse localities for cer-
tain expenditures under the provisions of the Virginia Public Welfare
and Assistance Law, and relating to certain allocations of funds by the
State Board for public assistance.
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That §§ 63-44, and 63-101, 63-106, as amended, and 63-110 of the
Code of Virginia, be amended and reenacted as follows:

63-44. The Commissioner is authorized to receive, for and on be-
half of the State and its subdivisions, from the United States and agencies
thereof, and from any and all other sources, grants-in-aid, funds and gifts,
made for the purpose of providing, or to assist in providing for old age
assistance, medical assistance for the aged, aid for the permanently and
totally disabled, funds for child welfare services and civil defense, aid to
dependent children, and general relief, or any of them, including expenses
of administration. All such funds shall be paid into the State Treasury.

§ 63-101. The following terms, whenever used or referred to in this
law shall have the following meaning, unless a different meaning clearly
appears from the context:

(a) “Applicant” means a person who applies for public assistance, or
for whom assistance is applied for, under this law, except that in Chapter
6 of this title it means a person who applies for old age assistance, and in
Chapter 8 of this title it means a blind person who applies for aid to the
blind or for whom aid to the blind is applied for, under this law;

(b) “Aid” in Chapter 7 of this title means aid to dependent children;
‘“faid’”’ in Chapter 8 of this title means aid to the blind;

(c) “Aid to dependent children’ means money payments with res-
pect to a dependent child or dependent children, or for medical care (in-
cluding hospitalization) on behalf of such child or children;

(d) “Aid to the blind” means money payments to blind individuals,
or for medical care (including hospitalization) on behalf of such persons;

(d1) ‘‘Aid to the permanently and totally disabled” means money
payments in accordance with § 63-220.1 of the Code of Virginia to a person
who is disabled, or for medical care (including hospitalization) on behalf
of such person;

(e) “Assistance” means old age assistance;

(f) “Blind person” means an individual who has, with correcting
glasses, twenty /two hundredths vision or less in the better eye;

(z) “Commission” means the Virginia Commission for the Visually
Handicapped ;

- (h) “Commissioner” means the State Commissioner of Public Wel-
are;

(i) “Dependent child” means a child under the age of sixteen or, if
regularly attending school, under the age of eighteen, who has been de-
prived of parental support or care by reason of the death, continued absence
from the home, or physical or mental incapacity of a parent, and who is
living with his father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister,
stepfather, stepmother, stepbrother, stepsister, uncle, or aunt in a place of
residence maintained by one or more of such relatives as his or their own

ome;

(j) “Federal Social Security Board” means the Social Security Board
created under Title VII of the Federal Social Security Act, enacted by the
Congress of the United States and approved August fourteenth, nineteen
hundred and thirty-five, and any department or agency which may here-
after be designated or created as the successor of such Board;

(k) ‘General relief’? means money payments and other forms of relief
provided for in Chapter 9 of this title;

(1) ‘Local board” means the local board of public welfare in each
county and each city of the second class, and the officer in charge of the
department or division of public welfare in a city of the first class, as
provided in §§ 63-50 to 63-60;
(m) ‘Local superintendent” means the local superintendent of public
welfare provided for in §§ 63-75 to 63-85;

(n) “Old age assistance” means the money payments to needy persons
sixty-five years of age or older, as provided for in Chapter 6 (§ 63-115 et
seq.) of this title, or for medical care (including hospitalization) on behalf
of such persons;

(o) “Person” means an individual;

(p) “Public assistance” means and includes assistance, old age assist-
ance, medical assistance for the aged, aid, aid to dependent children, aid to
the blind, aid to the permanently and totally disabled, and general relict;

(q) “Recipient” means any person who receives public assistance
under this law, except that in Chapter 6 of this title it means any person
who receives old age assistance, and in Chapter 8 of this title it means any
person who receives aid to the blind;

(r) “Secretary” means the Executive Secretary of the Virginia Com-
mission for the Visually Handicapped;

(s) “State Board” means the Board of Welfare and Institutions;

(t) “Merit system plan” means those rules and regulations promul-
rated by the State Board in the development and operation of a svstem of
personnel administration meeting requirements of the Federal Social
Security Board.

§ 63-106 (a) The Commissioner shall monthly reimburse each county
and city to the extent of one dollar of State money for each sixty cents of
local money expended for old age assistance, medical assistance for the aged,
aid to dependent children, aid to the permanently and totally disabled, and
general relief, under the provisions of law, except as otherwise provided
by law: Such funds as are received from the United States and agencies
thereof as grants-in-aid for the purpose of providing, or assisting in pro-
viding, for old age assistance, medical assistance for the aged, aid to de-
pendent children, aid to the permanently and totally disabled, and general
relief, shall monthly be paid by the Commissioner to each county and city as
reimbursement of the federal share of such grants as have been paid by
each county and city under the provisions of this law. In any case where
there shall be a board representing two or more counties and/or cities
as provided in § 63-51, the Commissioner may monthly reimburse the
localities represented by such board as they may agree. Administrative
expenditures incurred by the localities in connection with old age assistance,
medical assistance for the aged, aid to dependent children, aid to the
permanently and totally disabled, and general relief, shall be ascertained
by the State Board, and the Commissioner shall monthly reimburse each
county and city therefor out of State and federal funds in funds in an
amount not less than fifty per centum nor more than sixty-two and one
half per centum of such administrative costs.

(b) Claims for reimbursement shall be presented by the local board
to the Commissioner, and shall be itemized and verified in such manner
as the Commissioner may require. Such claim shall, upon the approval of the
Commissioner, be paid out of funds appropriated by the State and funds
received from the federal government for the purposes of this law, to the
treasurer or other fiscal officer of the county or city.

§ 63-110. The State Board shall determine what portion of the funds
appropriated by the General Assembly shall be used for old age assistance,
medical assistance for the aged, aid to dependent children, and general re-
lief, respectively, including costs of administration and shall allocate the
funds accordingly. The State Board may during any fiscal year make
such changes in such allocations as it shall deem proper. Provided, how-
ever, that the original annual allocation of general relief funds to the
several counties and cities shall be on the basis of population as shown
by the last preceding United States census. If the population of any city
has been, since the last preceding United States census, or shall here-
after be increased through the annexation of any territory, such increase
shall for the purpose of this law, be added to the population of such city
as shown by the last preceding United States census, and a proper re-
duction made in the population of the county or counties from which the
annexed territory was or is acquired. Subsequent allocations to the
localities may, in the discretion of the State Board, be based upon the
need for general relief funds in the respective localities.

For like purposes there is also appropriated all funds which shall
pursuant to § 63-129, be paid into the State Treasury on or before June
thirtieth, nineteen hundred and forty-two.

All funds received from the United States and agencies thereof, and
from other sources, as grants-in-aid and gifts, for the purpose of providing,
or to assist in providing, for old age assistance, medical assistance for the
aged, aid to dependent children, and general relief, including the costs
of administration of these programs as set forth in this law and paid
into the State treasury on or before June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and
forty-two shall be used to assist in the expenditures and reimbursements
as provided in paragraphs numbered (1), (2), and (8) of the preceding
section.