BILL ANALYSIS
AB 665
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Date of Hearing: May 20, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 665 (Torrico) - As Amended: May 13, 2009
Policy Committee: Human
ServicesVote:7 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill expands the use of federal Improving Adoption
Incentive bonus funding to include other types of permanency for
older children, including guardianship and reunification.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Authorizes the use of federal Improving Adoption Incentive
bonus funding for any legal permanency outcome for older
children, rather than requiring it be spent only on adoptions.
2)Specifies that the bonus dollars are to be continuously
appropriated to the Department of Social Services (DSS) for
allocation to counties or to the DSS for counties in which DSS
serves as the adoption agency, regardless of fiscal year,
based on documented legal permanency outcomes for older
children in each county.
3)Requires counties or DSS to expend incentive bonuses to
improve or sustain legal permanency outcomes for older
children.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)The state is expected to receive approximately $1 million in
new federal adoption incentive bonus funds. This bill would
allow those funds to be spent on a broader range of permanency
options for older foster children.
2)This bill continuously appropriates federal Improving Adoption
Incentive bonus funding. The proposed continuous appropriation
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of funds is contrary to general committee policy to avoid
continuous appropriations.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to the author, at any given time,
approximately 45,000 (60%) foster youth in California are nine
years of age or older. It is well documented that as a foster
youth ages, he or she is less likely to find a permanent home.
What is also well documented is that high percentages of
foster youth who do not find a permanent family, exit foster
care and may find themselves homeless and/or incarcerated.
This bill seeks to ensure that federal incentive payments
awarded to California for its successful efforts in increasing
the number adoptions of foster youth, ages nine or older, will
be distributed to counties to fund additional activities that
would further increase permanent homes for this group of
children. The incentive dollars may be used for services such
as post adoption services, family finding to locate relatives,
guardianship recruitment of adoptive families who will make
homes for entire sibling sets, preparing youth for permanency,
and numerous other services for children and family. The
author believes that the current language in statute needs to
be aligned with recent changes in federal law. The author
further states that directing this money to counties will not
create a negative fiscal impact on state general funds.
2)Adoption Incentive Grant program . In October of 2008,
President Bush and Congress passed some of the most
significant foster care legislation in recent time. The
Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act,
among other provisions, renewed the 11-year-old federal
Adoption Incentive Grant Program. The program was created to
provide financial rewards to states for increasing numbers of
adoptions from foster care above established baselines. The
act made the following changes:
a) Renewed the program for five additional years;
b) Doubled the incentive bonuses to states, from $4,000 to
$8,000, per adoption of older foster youth;
c) Doubled the bonuses, from $2,000 to $4,000, for
adoptions of special needs foster youth;
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d) Created a $1,000 payment per foster care youth adopted
that exceeds the state's highest rate of all adoptions from
foster care; and
e) Updated the adoption baseline year, from 2002 to 2007,
that states receive incentives.
Bonuses are calculated on the number of increased adoptions
year over federal fiscal year (FFY) by the incentive amount
per category of child (e.g. special needs foster youth, older
foster youth) using the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and
Reporting system (AFCARS). The federal program stipulates
that the bonus money must be reinvested into services for
children and families and that the funds cannot be used to
supplant existing programs or as a match for other foster care
federal funds. California would receive the bonus money one
year later and will have 24 months to expend it.
Per AFCARS, in FFY 2008, California finalized 7,580 adoptions,
and in FFY 2007, 7,481. The difference represents an increase
of 99 more adoptions resulting in $1.093 million in federal
bonuses. California would receive this money on 2009-10. The
2009-10 budget proposes using this funding to increase
adoptions.
3)Foster Youth Outcomes . A recent study by the Casey Family
Program and the Harvard Medical School involving more than 600
case records and interviews with 500 former foster youth found
that a majority of these young people face major mental
health, education, and employment challenges. One-third of the
young people in the study had incomes at or below the poverty
level, one third had no health insurance, and nearly a quarter
had been homeless after foster care. In addition, the study
found that the rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
in this young population was more than twice as high as US war
veterans.
Other studies over the years have shown that ong-range
outcomes for youth who emancipate from California's foster
care system are, by any measure, disheartening. In FY
2000-01, approximately 4,355 youth emancipated from the
system. DSS reports that 65% of these youth needed safe and
affordable housing at the time of emancipation. Moreover, a
2007 report from the Children's Advocacy Institute at U.C. San
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Diego highlighted the following findings:
a) Less than three percent go to college.
b) 51% are unemployed.
c) Emancipated females are four times more likely to
receive public assistance than the general population.
d) In any given year, foster children comprise less than
0.3% of the state's population, and yet 40% of persons
living in homeless shelters are former foster children.
e) A similarly disproportionate percentage of the nation's
prison population is comprised of former foster youth.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081