Welfare reform has become an agenda item on almost every state legislator's schedule since Gov. Robert P. Casey's brief reference to a welfare reform plan during his State of the Commonwealth address and welfare cutbacks in his proposed 1994-95 budget.

State Sen. J. Doyle Corman, R-Centre, is one of those in the process of co-sponsoring a welfare reform bill to encourage self-sufficiency and crack down on welfare abuse.

His proposal, Senate Bill 516, would impose a 90-day residency requirement on welfare recipients who do not have dependent children. The bill's purpose is to prevent recipients of other states' benefits from also collecting welfare in Pennsylvania.

Recipients between the ages of 45 and 55 would have to take part in job training, community service, education or betterment programs to continue receiving benefits.

The bill also includes a "Learnfare" provision requiring children older than 8 to attend school regularly as a condition for their families to receive assistance.

Although Casey was purposely not specific in his budget statement, Corman said Casey's ideas might be similar to his bill or their proposals could differ slightly. Overall, the purpose of any welfare reform package would be to get welfare dependents off welfare and get them to work, he said.

Casey's plan would end year-round cash benefits, averaging $205 a month, for up to 29,000 single people older than 45 unless a doctor certifies they cannot work. Instead, they would get cash aid for two months every two years.

Pennsylvanians who now get three cash payments a year would also see their benefits drop to two payments every two years. That program helps roughly 160,000 people annually.

Kevin Campbell, deputy press secretary for the Department of Public Welfare, said Casey's budget proposes a restructuring procedure that primarily changes the welfare general assistance program. The general assistance program is currently composed of chronic and transitional welfare recipients.

Chronic need is provided year-round for people under 18 and over 45, Campbell said. Transititional need is provided only 90 days per year to people between 18 and 45 who are able to work, he said.

As a part of Casey's welfare reform, he is proposing to do away with all age qualifications -- focusing instead on a person's ability to work, he said. The chronically needy classification would be eliminated and the transitional need would be changed from 90 days to 60 days.

Statewide, the total welfare general assistance serves 170,281 people -- 130,953 chronic recipients and 39,328 transitional recipients, Campbell said. By doing away with chronic aid for people who can work, about 29,464 recipients would be moved from chronic to transitional aid, he said.

In Centre County, about 618 people get general welfare assistance in a given month -- 425 chronic need recipients and 193 transitional need recipients, Campbell said. About 96 people will be transferred to transitional aid, he said.

Those proposed cutbacks should save Pennsylvania about $88 million per year, he said, adding that the savings are "modest savings."

Auditor General Barbara Hafer announced that the Centre County welfare office completed an audit estimating that about $26,000 was payed to local welfare recipients.

Through random samples, auditors reviewed 220 of the office's 1,071 cases between April 12, 1991 and August 27, 1993 to determine if office personnel properly disbursed authorized benefits to eligible recipients and to notify welfare personnel of ineligible persons receiving assistance.