BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 1460 Page 1 Date of Hearing: August 6, 2014 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Mike Gatto, Chair SB 1460 (Beall) - As Amended: August 4, 2014 Policy Committee: Human Services Vote: 6 - 0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: Yes Reimbursable: No SUMMARY This bill is a Senate Human Services Committee bill that brings California's child welfare laws into compliance with federal laws and regulations regarding the Multi Ethnic Placement Act (MEPA), the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, the Adam Walsh Act, tribal child welfare, resource family approval, and others. Specifically, this bill: 1)Requires county recruitment of potential foster parents to include diligent efforts to recruit individuals who reflect the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity of foster children. 2)Provides a county child welfare agency or county probation department may request and receive a relative's name, social security number, most recent address, telephone number, place of employment or other contact information to identify, locate and notify relatives of children who are the subject of juvenile court proceedings, including all grandparents, adult siblings, and other adult relatives of the child as specified. 3)Requires a probation officer to explain why siblings are not placed together and what efforts the probation officer is making to place the siblings together or why making those efforts would be contrary to the safety and well-being of any of the siblings. 4)Provides a ward's attorney and the attorney for the siblings of the ward be notified by the placement agency if there is a need for a change in placement that will result in the separation of siblings currently placed together. SB 1460 Page 2 5)Allows additional counties to participate in the early implementation of the "resource family" pilot project regarding new standards for foster homes. Provides a federal criminal offender record check be received for all adults residing in a resource family home as a condition of approval and makes other technical and conforming changes regarding resource families. 6)Allows tribes to receive criminal history and child abuse information from DOJ and establishes the requirements for tribes to complete the approval for tribal foster homes. Authorizes DOJ to charge a fee for providing this information to the tribe. 7)Provides for the transfer of Indian child case records from a county to tribal jurisdiction. FISCAL EFFECT 1)Negligible costs to the Department of Social Services. 2)On-going, likely non-reimbursable, costs in the range of $15,000 to county probation departments for duties regarding sibling placements. Proposition 30, passed by the voters in November 2012, eliminated potential mandate funding liability for any new program or higher level of service provided by counties related to realigned programs. COMMENTS 1)Purpose . California statute must comply with federal requirements pertaining to child welfare in order to ensure the uninterrupted flow of California's Title IV-E allocation for child welfare services, which is over $1 billion annually. This bill implements necessary changes to statute identified by the California Department of Social Services. Recent amendments substantially amended the bill. 2)Background . a) The Multi Ethnic Placement Act (MEPA) . MEPA requires states to have an identifiable process in place to recruit potential foster parents and adoptive parents that reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the state for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed. State statute authorizes counties to operate recruitment programs to ensure an adequate number of foster homes are available SB 1460 Page 3 to meet their child welfare placement needs. However, statute neither addresses the recruitment of foster families who reflect the diversity of children for whom foster homes are needed nor requires the diligent recruitment of adoptive homes. b) The Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) . FPLS is a national automated service provided by the Office of Child Support Enforcement to help states locate custodial and noncustodial parents for child support and to establish, modify and enforce child support obligations. The FPLS and its state-level counterpart, the California Parent Locator Service (CPLS) provides access to a parent's address, employment, income, assets, and social security number information. AB 1751 (Pan) Chapter 637, Statutes of 2012, allowed county child welfare departments and county probation departments to access the FPLS and CPLS for the purpose of locating a child's non-custodial parent. However, this authority did not extend to finding other relatives of a child, as provided for under federal law. c) The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 . This Act requires states to make diligent efforts to place siblings in out-of-home care together, unless doing so would be detrimental to the health and safety of one of the siblings. State statute was revised to conform to this provision, however the changes failed to clearly state that probation officers are required to make these efforts as required by federal law. d) Adam Walsh Act . This Act requires a fingerprint check of a national criminal records database as well as a check from the state child abuse and neglect registries before any prospective foster or adoptive parent may be approved for placement of a child. Current state statute requires state criminal history information be received and processed for clearance prior to approval. However, as a result of the previously slow process time for the federal records check, the Resource Family Approval background check process merely requires the federal check be submitted, and does not require that the results be received, prior to approval. SB 1460 Page 4 e) Tribal Child Welfare . Federal law (ICWA) requires that Indian children be placed first in a foster home of the child's tribe. With the exception of the criminal background standards, existing federal and state law allows tribes to approve foster homes based on tribal rather than state standards. Existing state law does not allow tribes to receive criminal background and child abuse information from DOJ for the purpose approving foster homes unless they have a Title IV-E agreement (only two of 113 have an agreement). Therefore, in order to approve a tribal home, the tribe must request the state or county review the criminal background information and provide a clearance or denial. Because this is done only on a child-specific basis, after a child is removed, when tribal children are removed they must be placed somewhere else while the approval process is completed for a tribal family. As a result, counties cannot comply with federal ICWA placement preference requirements and children experience additional trauma and disruption. f) Resource Families . Current state law establishes new standards for foster homes, called "resource families" to be tested in five counties before authorizing the program statewide. In order to meet federal requirements that foster care standards apply across all foster homes statewide, additional counties need to implement the new standards during the piloting phase in order to achieve implementation statewide within the required timeframes. Without statutory authority for additional counties to participate, these counties would not be able to receive federal financial participation in foster care payments to resource families. 1)Chaptering Issues . a) Both this bill and AB 1658 (Jones-Sawyer), pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee, amend Section 10618.6 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. If both bills advance, the author may wish to consider amendments to avoid chaptering out conflicts. b) Both this bill and SB 1252 (Torres), pending on the Senate Floor, amend Section 11403.2 of the Welfare and Institutions Code. If this bill passes out of this committee, the author may wish to consider amendments to avoid chaptering out conflicts. SB 1460 Page 5 Analysis Prepared by : Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081