BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 959
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Date of Hearing: May 4, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 959 (Jones) - As Amended: April 12, 2011
Policy Committee: Human
ServicesVote:6 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill extends by one month the time in which county welfare
departments can restore CalWORKs benefits without requiring a
new application to recipients who are late in turning in their
CalWORKs quarterly reports.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)To the extent this legislation allows counties to avoid
requiring recipients to reapply for benefits, it would result
in administrative savings in both the CalWORKs and CalFresh
programs.
2)This bill is unclear as to whether or not "restoring" benefits
is intended to mean that recipients will be retroactively paid
for the time in which they failed to report. However,
requiring a discontinuance notice to be rescinded suggests
that is the intent of this legislation. Therefore, for every
1,000 recipients who submit their CalWORKs quarterly reports
one month late, it would cost $460,000 (TANF/GF).
3)Federal law may prohibit states from retroactively paying
CalFresh (food stamps) recipients for benefits that they lost
during the time in which they did not report. However, those
recipients would be eligible for transitional CalFresh
benefits and therefore should not see a reduction in their
benefits due to a failure to report by the first of the month.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . This bill, sponsored by San Diego County, is
AB 959
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intended to reduce the number of applications being processed
by the county by allowing them to by-pass the reapplication
process in cases where a recipient is late in filing the
required quarterly reports. Under this legislation, if a
recipient submits a complete quarterly report and all of the
required verifications before the last day of the month during
which it is due, the county is able to restore the benefits to
the household without requiring a new application or
interview.
2)Potential Amendments Needed . The author should work with the
United States Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition
Services to determine whether or not the language contained in
this bill is allowable under federal law. It may be that the
bill needs to be amended to clarify that retroactive payments
will be made for the CalWORKs program but not for the CalFresh
program.
3)Chaptering Problem . AB 6 (Fuentes) repeals the section of the
code that this bill seeks to amend. In addition, AB 1400
(Committee on Human Services) amends this code section.
Chaptering language will eventually be necessary in all three
bills.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081