BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 433| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- THIRD READING Bill No: AB 433 Author: Chu (D) Amended: 3/26/15 in Assembly Vote: 21 SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE: 5-0, 7/14/15 AYES: McGuire, Berryhill, Hancock, Liu, Nguyen SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 7-0, 8/27/15 AYES: Lara, Bates, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza, Nielsen ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 74-0, 5/22/15 - See last page for vote SUBJECT: Public social services: CalWORKs SOURCE: Western Center on Law and Poverty DIGEST: This bill requires that CalWORKs benefits be continued for a child who dies until the end of the month following the death, and prohibits sanctions from being applied in that time period for a grieving parent's failure to comply with program requirements. This bill also requires a county to assist a grieving parent in accessing appropriate services and to provide information to the grieving parent about mental health services, as specified. ANALYSIS: Existing law: 1)Establishes under federal law the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to provide aid and welfare-to-work services to eligible families and, in California, administers TANF funds through the CalWORKs AB 433 Page 2 program (program). (42 U.S.C. 601 et seq., WIC 11200 et seq.) 2)Establishes income, asset and real property limits used to determine eligibility for the program, including net income below the maximum aid payment (MAP), based on family size and county of residence, which is around 40 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL). (WIC 11450, 11150 et seq.) 3)Establishes a 48-month lifetime limit of CalWORKs benefits for eligible adults, including 24 months during which a recipient must meet federal work requirements in order to retain eligibility. (WIC 11454, 11322.85) 4)Requires all individuals over 16 years of age, unless they are otherwise exempt, to participate in welfare-to-work activities as a condition of eligibility for CalWORKs. (WIC 11320.3, 11322.6) 5)Establishes the number of weekly hours of welfare-to-work participation necessary to remain eligible for aid, including requirements for an unemployed parent in a two-parent assistance unit, as specified. (WIC 11322.8) 6)Subjects an individual receiving CalWORKs benefits to a financial sanction, as specified, when he or she does not meet the program requirements without good cause, and establishes a corrective action process, which includes communication between the county and the individual. (WIC 11327.4, 11327.5) 7)Requires a county to excuse a CalWORKs recipient from welfare-to-work participation for good cause when the county has determined the recipient has a condition or is faced with a circumstance that temporarily prevents or significantly impairs the recipient's ability to be regularly employed or to participate in welfare-to-work activities. Requires a county welfare department to review a good cause determination to establish its continuing appropriateness, as specified, no less than every three months, and requires a recipient that has been granted good cause to provide information to the county, including written documentation, as required, to complete the review. (WIC 11320.3(f)) AB 433 Page 3 8)Requires a family's aid be calculated based on the number of needy of family members, as specified, including aid for a pregnant, childless woman. (WIC 11450 et seq.) This bill: 1)Prohibits the levying of sanctions for a grieving parent's failure or refusal to comply with the program requirements during the month in which a child in the assistance unit died, or the following month. 2)Requires a county upon receiving notification of the death of a child in a CalWORKs assistance unit to do the following: a) Assist a grieving parent in accessing services for which the parent may be eligible. These services may include, but are not limited to, nutrition supplement programs, housing assistance, and other cash aid programs. b) Provide information to the grieving parent about mental health services, including, but not limited to, information about, and a referral to, services provided by the county human services agency, if appropriate. 3)Defines "grieving parent" to mean an aided adult who is required to participate in welfare-to-work activities and who experiences the death of a child in his or her assistance unit. 4)Requires that, for purposes of determining a family's MAP, the number of needy persons in the same family shall not be decreased because of the death of a child in the assistance unit for the month in which the death occurred, or the following month. 5)Requires that any aid paid to a family experiencing a death of a child shall not be deemed an overpayment unless the county determines, as specified, that the assistance unit would have been subject to overpayment recovery, and the county would have sought recovery, even if the child had not died. 6)Requires the state to reimburse local agencies if the AB 433 Page 4 Commission on State Mandates determines this bill contains state-mandated costs, as defined. Background TANF and CalWORKs. California has the highest poverty rate in the nation - just under one-quarter of residents are living at or below FPL. These families earn no more than $20,090 per year for a family of three. One of California's most essential anti-poverty strategies is the CalWORKs program, which provided cash assistance to approximately 540,000 families in 2014, including more than one million children. Nearly 80 percent of the children are under age 12 and almost 40 percent are under age five. Federal funding for CalWORKs comes from the TANF block grant. A grant to a family of three in a high-cost California county is $704 per month, or $8,448 per year, which is approximately 42 percent of FPL. This grant translates to $23.46 per day, per family, or $7.82 per family member, per day to meet basic needs, including rent, clothing, utility bills, food, and anything else a family needs to ensure children can be cared for at home and safely remain with their families. In 1989, a similar CalWORKs grant was worth about 81 percent of FPL, and 55 percent in 1997. Part of the reason for this decline has been a series of changes over the past five years including significant grant cuts, the elimination of a Cost of Living Adjustment, and a major restructuring of the welfare-to-work activities, requirements and time limits. At the same time the value of the grant has decreased, the program has changed adult eligibility from a 60-month lifetime limit to a 48-month limit, with strict requirements on work participation to remain in the program after 24 months. Assistance calculation. Benefits for the CalWORKs program are established in statute, and calculated based on the number of needy family members, special needs of any family members, income and assets. Statute requires that benefits be paid to a pregnant woman, who qualifies for aid and prohibits benefits be paid for a child who was born within 10 months of a family's commencement of benefits, per the Maximum Family Grant rule. AB 433 Page 5 Sanctions and good cause exemptions. Sanctions can be imposed if a participant fails or refuses to comply with a CalWORKs requirement, to agree to a welfare-to-work plan, show proof of satisfactory progress in an agreed-upon activity, or to quit or refuse a job without a good reason for doing so. If efforts at conciliation are unsuccessful, one or both parents can be excluded from the assistance budget for a specified time. Counties are required to excuse CalWORKs recipients from participation in a welfare-to-work activity if the county determines that a condition or other circumstance exists that temporarily prevents or significantly impairs a recipient's ability to be regularly employed or to participate in welfare-to-work activities. Counties may grant good cause exemption for a number of reasons, including a lack of necessary supportive services, a lack of access to child care or that the recipient is a victim of domestic violence. Because statute does not limit the reasons for an exemption, counties could grant a good cause exemption for a parent who has suffered the loss of a child. Child deaths. The California Department of Social Services does not have data on the number of children who die each year while participating in the CalWORKs program. However, the Assembly Appropriations Committee projected an estimate based on California's child mortality rate of 14/100,000, and studies that indicate that low-income children die at higher rates than other children. Assuming a mortality rate of up to twice the state rate, up to 280 children would die each year. FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.:YesLocal: Yes According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, this bill will result in ongoing increase in CalWORKs grant costs, potentially in the range of $60,000 to $110,000 (General Fund) annually, to provide grant aid to affected families in the month of the child's death and one month thereafter, that otherwise would not have been provided and/or recovered through the overpayment collection process. There are likely minor, if any, increased CalWORKs grant costs (General Fund) due to the prohibition on AB 433 Page 6 sanctioning a grieving parent in the month of the child's death and the month thereafter. As counties can currently provide a good cause exemption to avoid imposing sanctions, it is estimated that sanctions occur infrequently under existing law. This bill also will result in one-time minor, absorbable costs (General Fund) associated with any automation changes necessary to effectuate the provisions of this bill, and potentially state reimbursable, but likely minor, administration and services costs (General Fund) to counties associated with assisting these families as prescribed in this bill. SUPPORT: (Verified 8/28/15) Western Center on Law and Poverty (source) California Alternative Payment Program Association California Black Health Network California Catholic Conference of Bishops California Communities United California Immigrant Policy Center Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations Courage Campaign Friends Committee on Legislation in California March of Dimes Foundation National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter St. Anthony Foundation OPPOSITION: (Verified8/28/15) Department of Finance ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: The bill's sponsor, Western Center on Law and Poverty, writes in support that "when a parent lacks time to grieve or to care for the deceased child's sibling(s), AB 433 Page 7 it can be destabilizing and lead to long-term mental health and behavioral health challenges for those children. ? There may be nothing more difficult than losing a child. AB 433 aims to make CalWORKs more responsive, accommodating and accountable to families experiencing the profound grief of having lost a child by automatically exempting the adult in the household from the work requirement for a short period and extending their CalWORKs grant at the prior level for one month." ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION: The Department of Finance opposes this bill because "it unnecessarily imposes a new state mandate on counties. Counties currently have the ability to provide CalWORKs recipients a good cause exemption from welfare-to-work activities and information to various supportive services when a child in an assistance unit dies. In addition, this bill results in increased CalWORKs grant costs to provide families an additional month of benefits in the event the household experiences a child death. Because the budget fully allocates available federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant funds, all costs resulting from this bill will be borne by the General Fund." ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 74-0, 5/22/15 AYES: Achadjian, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, Patterson, Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins NO VOTE RECORDED: Alejo, Jones, O'Donnell, Olsen, Waldron, Weber Prepared by:Mareva Brown / HUMAN S. / (916) 651-1524 8/30/15 19:42:12 AB 433 Page 8 **** END ****