BILL ANALYSIS Ķ
AB 427
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Date of Hearing: May 27, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
427 (Weber) - As Amended May 6, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill excludes all or a portion of the basic allowance for
housing received by active duty military personnel from income
calculations, for purposes of determining eligibility for child
care and development programs.
AB 427
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FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Minor and absorbable costs to the California Department of
Education (CDE) to amend its regulations and train employees
on the new requirements.
2)Statewide, if there is no additional appropriation to support
the increased number of families who would become eligible for
subsidized childcare as a result of this bill, waiting lists
would grow.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. According to the author, "Currently, due to an
emergency regulation passed back in 2007, preschool
contractors with written approval from the Department of
Education can exclude the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH)
given to military families from being factored into
eligibility for state preschool. This bill simply seeks to
both streamline and expand this process, by codifying the
exclusion of the BAH along with expanding it to more childcare
services. Many of these military families should be eligible
for state funded childcare services, but they do not qualify
because an earmarked affordable housing allowance inflates
their calculated income. These children are a population in
need and deserve to have access to high quality childcare."
When housing allowances are excluded, more military families
would qualify for childcare.
AB 427
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With waiting lists common statewide, excluding BAH would give
military families enrollment priority over other
income-eligible families.
2)Basic Allowance for Housing. The United States Government, in
addition to providing a base salary, provides additional
monthly allowances for various purposes (e.g., for clothing,
housing), all of which are reported as monthly or annual
income on the military's Leave and Earnings statement. The
amounts of the allowances vary according to rank, length of
service, and geographic location. The BAH is provided to those
military personnel who do not live in military housing units
or units that are no longer military-operated housing units.
In California, the beginning BAH for personnel with dependents
range from the mid $800's for areas such as Twenty Nine Palms
and China Lake, to $3,651 for San Francisco. The ranges
increase according to rank. This bill proposes to exclude the
BAH as income for purposes of determining eligibility for
childcare programs.
3)State Preschool. Current regulations allow a state preschool
contractor to exclude the BAH from consideration when
determining eligibility and income ranking for families that
include specified active military personnel (consistent with
the individuals identified in this bill), provided the
contractor has prior written approval from the California
Department of Education (CDE). The regulation also requires
the state preschool program for which this exclusion is
provided to be on or in close proximity to a military base,
and it requires that first priority for program vacancies be
provided to children pursuant to all statutorily mandated
priorities, which are consistent with the priorities outlined
for subsidized child care programs.
AB 427
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This bill expands the BAH exclusion to additional types of
childcare and eliminates the requirement for a state preschool
contractor to be granted written approval from CDE prior to
excluding the BAH from eligibility considerations.
4)Prior Legislation. AB 170 (Saldaņa), 2007, was held in this
Committee's suspense file, would have excluded the basic
allowance for housing provided to military families from being
counted in state preschool services eligibility
determinations. Title 5, CCR, Section 18134 was subsequently
established through emergency regulations.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
319-2081