BOSTON (AP) – About 10,000 state residents receiving welfare benefits, many of them disabled, would have to find work under new rules recommended by a state panel.

The proposal also would require many welfare recipients who already work to put in more hours, perhaps as many as 34 a week, up from the current maximum of 30 per week.

The proposed changes would put Massachusetts in compliance with federal welfare regulations, officials said.

They would require as many as 5,600 disabled people to meet work requirements while pushing the number of welfare recipients in the state who have to work from about 12,700 to about 22,000.

Department of Transitional Assistance Commissioner John A. Wagner hailed the proposed changes.

“The disabled populations historically have been put aside and exempted and ignored,” he told the Boston Globe. “What we’re saying is that even folks with disabilities, given appropriate support, can engage in productive work activities.”

Wagner created the Welfare Reform Advisory Committee in July to prepare for the new federal requirements. The committee included advocates, government officials, educators and people with expertise in fields relevant to welfare recipients.

The committee’s co-chairman, Jeffrey J. Hayward, said the state generally has used a looser definition of disabled than the federal government, and only those who have met the state standard, but not the federal one, will have to comply with work requirements.

“No one ever said we are going to take a severely disabled person and make them eligible for a work requirement,” said Hayward, vice president of United Way of Massachusetts Bay. “If you are severely disabled, you are eligible for Social Security disability, and by that federal definition you are exempt.”

The committee also recommended expanding the definition of work so it includes caring for a disabled family member, taking English language classes, and even going to high school. The current requirements also include some classes and job training as well as some substance abuse treatment programs.

The report calls on the state to put enough money into its welfare program to ensure that welfare recipients, especially those with disabilities, are properly assessed and that child care and job training are available to help those who can work.

The report also says that “meeting the needs of all recipients will require a significant increase in funding,”, although the panel did not estimate how much additional money will be needed.

Panel member Deborah Harris, however, wrote in dissenting remarks attached to the report that the DTA “had a preconceived agenda to eliminate exemptions before the committee even began meeting.”

“We strongly agree that we need to provide more opportunities for people with disabilities and other people who are currently exempt from time limits and work requirements in Massachusetts,” said Harris, of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. “Where we part company is where the department says they have to hold a gun to their people’s heads in order to provide opportunities.”

Massachusetts overhauled its welfare system in 1995, when there were about 103,000 families receiving $693 million a year in assistance. Today, about 49,000 families receive about $313 million per year, with an additional $53 million spent on child care for them.

AP-ES-11-25-04 0843EST