BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1471|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1471
Author: Assembly Budget Committee
Amended: 6/13/12 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE BUDGET & FISCAL REVIEW COMMITTEE : 11-0, 6/14/12
AYES: Leno, Alquist, DeSaulnier, Evans, Hancock, Liu,
Lowenthal,
Negrete McLeod, Simitian, Wolk, Wright
NO VOTE RECORDED: Emmerson, Anderson, Fuller, Gaines, La
Malfa
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : Not relevant
SUBJECT : Human Services Omnibus Budget Trailer Bill
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill contains the necessary statutory and
technical changes to implement the Human Services
provisions of the Budget Act of 2012.
ANALYSIS : This bill includes the following provisions:
1. Child Support Payment Trust Fund : For the 2012-13
fiscal year only, authorizes money in the Child Support
Payment Trust Fund accounts to be invested in specified
securities or alternatives that offer comparable
security, including mutual funds and money market
funds. The provision does not authorize an investment
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or transfer that would interfere with the objective of
the Child Support Payment Trust Fund.
2. Continues Suspension of Child Support Incentive
Payments : Extends the suspension of performance and
health insurance-related incentive payments to local
child support agencies (LCSAs) through the 2014-15
fiscal year. Existing law, in the absence of a
suspension, would award the ten highest performing
counties with an additional share of collections and
require the state to provide payments to LCSAs of $50
per case for obtaining 3rd-party health coverage or
insurance of Medi-Cal beneficiaries.
3. Continues Suspension of Fingerprint Fee Exemption :
Extends the suspension of a prohibition on the state
charging fees for fingerprinting in order to conduct
background checks of applicants for licenses to
operate specified community care facilities that serve
children.
4. Changes to Implementation Date for Sales Tax on
Support Services : Delays the date when the state can
implement existing law related to the extension of the
sales tax to apply to support services (i.e.,
homecare)- from July 1, 2010 to January 1, 2012. Under
existing law, corresponding supplementary payments
would be made to specified providers of those services.
5. Repeals Sections Related to Statewide Eligibility and
Enrollment Processing : Repeals a statute that was
enacted as part of the 2009 Budget Act that required
the Administration to develop a statewide eligibility
and enrollment determination process for the California
Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs),
Medi-Cal, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP, also known as CalFresh or food stamps) programs,
and directed the development of a comprehensive plan
with respect to a centralized eligibility and
enrollment process. Subsequent statutes changes
related to the Statewide Automated Welfare System have
obviated these requirements. Thus, this repeal
resolves potential statutory conflicts with respect to
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the state's information technology systems and
enrollment processes.
6. Reduction to CalWORKs Single Allocation : Permanently
extends a reduction to the CalWORKs Single Allocation
that has been in effect during each of the last three
fiscal years (while lowering the reduction from $375 to
$327 million GF annually). The Single Allocation funds
welfare-to-work employment services, Stage 1 child
care, and the counties' implementation of specific
program administration responsibilities. Over the last
few years, and again in the provisions of this bill,
the reduction has been accompanied by welfare-to-work
exemptions for parents with young children (one child
under the age of two or two children under the age of
six). This bill would also continue to allow counties
flexibility to redirect funding between specified
employment assistance and substance abuse treatment
funding sources.
7. Phase-in and Reporting Related to Cal-Learn Program :
Restores the operation of intensive case management
services provided through the Cal-Learn program within
CalWORKs. State funding for these services was
suspended during the 2011-12 fiscal year. From July 1,
2012 to March 31, 2013, inclusive, authorizes counties
to provide full or partial year funding, depending on
the pace of their progression to full implementation,
by April 1, 2013. Additionally requires the Department
of Social Services (DSS) to annually report specified
information related to the program to the budget
committees of the Legislature. The phase-in approach
included in this bill provides for savings in 2012-13
of approximately $5 million GF.
8. Moratorium on Group Home Rate-Setting : Permanently
extends the moratorium on the licensing of new group
homes or approvals of specified changes for existing
providers, with some allowable exceptions. This
moratorium was initially established as a part of the
2010 Budget Act. New provisions further limit, for one
year, exceptions for any programs with rate
classification levels below 10 to those associated with
a program change.
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9. Cost-of-Living Adjustment for Dual Agency Rates :
Requires annual adjustment by changes in the cost of
living (as measured by the California Necessities
Index) of rates payable for care and supervision of
children who are dually eligible for the Child Welfare
Services and Developmental Services systems. This
change is consistent with changes made last year to
foster family home and related rates in response to
litigation. Under the provisions of this bill, the
change to dual agency rates would begin retroactively
with the 2011-12 fiscal year.
10. Repeal of Medication Dispensing Machine Pilot :
Repeals statute that required the Department of Health
Care Services (DHCS) to establish a medication
dispensing machine pilot project for certain at-risk
Medi-Cal recipients. This pilot project was also
associated with a reduction, with some exceptions, in
authorized hours of service for In-Home Supportive
Services (IHSS) recipients that would have been
triggered if savings from the pilot had not been
achieved. This bill would repeal both of these
policies.
11. Extension of 3.6 Percent Reduction in Authorized IHSS
Hours : Extends, for the 2012-13 fiscal year, an
existing reduction of 3.6 percent in authorized IHSS
hours that is otherwise scheduled to sunset on July 1,
2013. This reduction is anticipated to save
approximately $58.9 million GF in 2012-13.
12. Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) Sharing :
Authorizes local public authorities or nonprofit
consortia to share Criminal Offender Record Information
(CORI) background reports with DSS in specified
circumstances. More specifically, allows the public
authority or nonprofit consortia to share this
information when an individual who is applying to
become an IHSS provider has requested from the
department an exception to a prohibition on his/her
ability to become a provider because of his/her
criminal record.
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13. Rate-setting for IHSS Public Authorities : Extends by
one year, to the 2013-14 fiscal year, the required time
by which DSS, in consultation with designated
stakeholders, must develop a new rate-setting
methodology for estimating the costs of public
authorities with respect to administration of specified
requirements related to the state's IHSS program.
14. Rehabilitation Appeals : Eliminates the
Rehabilitation Appeals Board, which currently serves as
the entity which hears appeals by applicants for, or
clients of, programs provided by the Department of
Rehabilitation. Instead provides for fair hearings to
be held before an impartial hearing officer and
establishes standards, training, and due process
requirements related to those fair hearings.
15. Kids' Plates Funding : Amends existing requirements
related to distribution of funds in the Child Health
and Safety Fund that are derived from the Have a Heart,
Help Our Kids specialized license plate program (Kids'
Plates). Specifically, redirects $501,000 from child
abuse and injury prevention programs to support
specific Department of Social Services' (DSS)
responsibilities related to child day care licensing.
16. Child Welfare Services Automation System : Requires
DSS to use specified funding included in the 2012
Budget Act for the next steps necessary to move forward
with the recommendation of the Child Welfare Automation
Study Team (CWAST) to proceed toward procuring a new
information technology system to replace the existing
Child Welfare Services/Case Management System
(CWS/CMS). Further, requires the Office of Systems
Integration (OSI) and the department to report the
results of these activities, in addition to key
milestones and anticipated timelines, to the
Legislature by March 1, 2013, for review during 2013
budget hearings.
17. Assessment of Automation Costs : Requires DSS and OSI
to have a qualified 3rd party conduct a
cost-reasonableness assessment of specified costs
related to changes in the Statewide Automated Welfare
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System (SAWS). More specifically, requires this
assessment with respect to costs that will be proposed
by the project vendor in order to consolidate two of
the state's three existing consortia systems into one
new consortium (leaving the state with a two-consortium
system). This migration will consolidate data and
functionality for the counties currently served by
Consortium-IV into the Los Angeles Eligibility,
Automated Determination, Evaluation and Reporting
(LEADER) Replacement System, which is newly being
developed. The cost reasonableness assessment is
intended to assist the state in determining whether the
proposed overall costs for this migration are within
range of reasonableness, based on specified factors.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: Yes Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: Yes
CTW:nl 6/14/12 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED
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