Lucy Ross, left, and Jennie Tesch, both of Lawrence, testified Monday in favor of a bill that would strengthen work requirements for people who receive cash and food assistance through the state. Ross said the employment preparation she received from Tesch, a contractor with the state, helped her land a job and become self-sufficient.

Topeka ? After passing a welfare restriction bill last year that drew national media attention, Kansas lawmakers are now considering another bill that would impose even more requirements on poor people who receive cash and food assistance.

The Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee heard testimony Monday on a bill that would require all adults in a household that receives benefits, not just the recipient, to verify their identities and incomes. And it would subject all adult household members to the same work requirements as the person receiving benefits.

It would also subject people to monitoring for possible fraud if they request four or more replacement benefit cards in a 12-month period. And it would suspend benefits to recipients if they don’t cooperate with fraud investigations, or if they win $10,000 or more in a Kansas Lottery jackpot.

Senate Bill 372 comes on the heels of a bill lawmakers passed last year that, among other things, prohibited welfare recipients from using their benefits cards to withdraw more than $25 a day from an ATM and from spending their benefits at a variety of places, including liquor stores, casinos, tattoo parlors and lingerie shops.

Lucy Ross, left, and Jennie Tesch, both of Lawrence, testified Monday in favor of a bill that would strengthen work requirements for people who receive cash and food assistance through the state. Ross said the employment preparation she received from Tesch, a contractor with the state, helped her land a job and become self-sufficient.

During a hearing Monday, the committee heard tearful testimony in favor of the bill from Lucy Ross, a Lawrence resident who said the state’s work requirements, and the support she received from a local counseling agency, enabled her to turn her life around and become self-sufficient.

Ross said she was homeless, jobless and living out of her car in 2012 when she moved to Lawrence to stay with a friend, and then learned she was pregnant again. But that arrangement didn’t last long and she eventually took refuge in the Lawrence Community Shelter.

While there, Ross said she enrolled in an employment preparation program run by Jennie Tesch, a contractor who works with the Kansas Department for Children and Families.

“She helped me with my resume, prepare for interviews, my attire and she could tell that I was determined,” Ross said. “Even though I was pregnant, I was still determined to get out of the shelter and out on my own and provide for my family.”

After going through periods of health problems and other financial crises, Ross said she finally landed a full-time job with benefits in 2015, working for a company that does child support collection for DCF.

Sandra Kimmons, director of economic and employment security at DCF, said the agency began imposing work requirements for able-bodied adults receiving welfare benefits in 2013. That policy was codified into law with passage of last year’s legislation.

She said that in the first nine months of the policy, the rate of employment among that population tripled, to 34.7 percent.

“The goal is to support, which provides dignity and purpose to our recipients,” she said.

But Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, questioned whether Ross would have been able to remain on assistance for as long as she did under the rules that now exist in the program.

Rebekah Gaston, director of the childhood hunger initiative at Kansas Appleseed, a Lawrence-based advocacy agency, said the new requirements have put a heavy burden on people who qualify for benefits, and the proposed bill would only make the problem worse. She urged lawmakers to reject the bill, and also to go back and repeal some of the new requirements added in last year’s bill.

“I think everyone in this room and most policymakers and advocates would agree that lifting Kansans out of poverty is an important policy goal,” she said. “However, the disconnected patchwork approach that we’ve been taking over the past few years, including an ever-lengthening to-do list for recipients, cutting off benefits for extended periods of time, even for minor infractions, and excluding new groups from eligibility entirely is not going to reduce poverty in Kansas.”

But Sen. Jacob LaTurner, R-Pittsburg, challenged Gaston about the idea of loosening restrictions.

“You mentioned the benefits of children being on a safety net program,” he told Gaston. “The benefits of a child having a parent that’s working and is productive in society has to be far greater than relying upon safety nets.”

But Gaston said child care assistance and food assistance programs support families that are working.

“And that’s why these programs are so important,” she said. “Because cash assistance is able to serve as a short-term stopgap to make sure that a family can afford diapers, or transportation, or a cellphone so they’re able to call and get a job during that temporary time.”

The committee has not yet announced when it plans to vote on sending the bill to the full Senate.