Following up on some leads from the Senate's cost-cutting efforts committee, which I chaired in 2010, I have been meeting quietly for months with concerned constituents in an attempt to learn more about waste, fraud and abuse in our welfare system.

Included in the 2011-12 state budget was over $400 million in cuts to the Department of Public Welfare (DPW), in an effort to remove beneficiaries who are not eligible under state and federal law. One new law includes random drug testing for welfare applicants who have been convicted of a prior drug felony. Recently, the department announced that it will begin a pilot program in Schuylkill County to see how the law can be implemented statewide.

The department will randomly drug test applicants for, as well as current recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and General Assistance, who have been convicted of a felony drug offense within the past five years, and applicants who are currently on probation for a felony drug offense

People at my town hall meetings throughout the district repeatedly tell me they would like to see serious reforms to stop giving a "free ride" to individuals who should not receive taxpayer-funded benefits, and instead target state assistance to for people who genuinely deserve it. This action is long overdue in a department that consumes 30 percent of the state budget.

This pilot program will seek to learn how much the state can save by removing individuals who continue to abuse illegal drugs, while at the same time they collect the hard-earned tax dollars of local constituents in the form of welfare benefits.

This initiative should send a very clear message: the "free ride" is over for those who break our laws and still seek to continue to receive public welfare benefits.

Senator David G. Argall