BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 833 (Bonta) - Child care and development services:
individualized county child care subsidy plan: County of
Alameda.
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|Version: June 16, 2015 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: July 6, 2015 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill authorizes the County of Alameda to
establish a five-year pilot program for purposes of developing
and implementing an individualized county child care subsidy
plan that meets the particular needs of families in the
community.
Fiscal
Impact:
Alameda County individualized subsidy plan: Potential loss of
savings in the low millions to the extent the plan allows more
of the county's funding allocation to be expended.
State Department of Education indicates minor and absorbable
costs to review and approve contract amendments and other
related activities.
AB 833 (Bonta) Page 1 of
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Background:1) Existing law:
1)Establishes the Child Care and Developmental Services Act to
provide child care and development services as part of a
coordinated, comprehensive, and cost-effective system serving
children from birth to 13 years old and their parents
including a full range of supervision, health, and support
services through full- and part-time programs. (Education
Code § 8200, et seq.)
2)States legislative intent that all families have access to
child care and development services, regardless of demographic
background or special needs, that families are provided the
opportunity to attain financial stability through employment,
while maximizing growth and development of their children, and
enhancing their parenting skills through participation in
child care and development programs, among other things. (EC
§ 8202)
3)Establishes several programs providing subsidized child care
and development services that service low-income families who
are working, seeking work, in training, or providing community
service. These programs are administered by the State
Department of Education (SDE) and require the Superintendent
of Public Instruction (SPI) to adopt rules and regulations on
eligibility, enrollment, family fees, provider rates, and
priority services. (EC § 8235 and 8263)
4)Authorizes a pilot project in San Mateo County (since 2004)
and San Francisco City and County (since 2006) that allows the
counties to develop and implement an individualized county
child care subsidy plan in recognition of the high-cost of
living in those counties. (EC § 8235 and 8263)
Proposed Law:
This bill authorizes Alameda County, as a pilot project, to
develop and implement an individualized county child care
subsidy plan. It requires that the plan ensure that child care
subsidies received by the county are used to address local
needs, conditions, and priorities of working families in the
community.
This bill requires that the plan include all of the following:
AB 833 (Bonta) Page 2 of
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1. An assessment to identify the county's goal for its
subsidized child care system, including whether the current
structure of subsidized child care funding adequately
supports working families, and whether the county's child
care goals coincide with the state's requirements for
funding, eligibility, priority, and reimbursement. It must
also identify barriers in the state's child care subsidy
system that inhibit the county from meeting its child care
goals.
2. Development of a local policy to eliminate state-imposed
regulatory barriers to the county's achievement of its
desired outcomes for subsidized child care, as specified.
The SDE is required to approve an application to amend an
existing contract if the plan is modified.
3. The local policy may supersede state law concerning
child care subsidy programs only for the following areas:
eligibility criteria, fees, reimbursement rates, and
methods of maximizing the efficient use of subsidy funds.
4. Recognition that all funding sources utilized by direct
service contractors that provide child care and development
services in the county are eligible to be included in the
county's plan.
5. Establishment of measurable outcomes to evaluate the
success of the plan to achieve the county's child care
goals and to overcome any barriers identified in the
state's child care subsidy system.
This also bill requires the county to submit an annual report to
the Legislature, State Department of Social Services, and SDE
summarizing the success of the county's plan, and the ability to
maximize the use of funds and to improve and stabilize child
care in the county, including demonstration of an increase in
the aggregate days a child is enrolled in child care in the
county, as specified.
AB 833 (Bonta) Page 3 of
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Related
Legislation: AB 260 (Gordon, Ch. 731, 2013) extends the
individualized county child care subsidy pilot plans for San
Mateo County to July 1, 2018 and San Francisco County to July 1,
2016.
AB 1326 (Simitian, Ch. 691, 2003) created a five-year child care
subsidy pilot program in San Mateo County that permitted the
county to revise its local child care system to meet the
particular needs of San Mateo County residents.
Staff
Comments: According to the author's office, this bill is
modeled after the individualized subsidy pilot plans in San
Mateo and San Francisco counties, both of which implemented
plans to address the unintended consequences for families living
in a high cost county.
The individualized child care subsidy pilot program in San Mateo
and San Francisco counties was established to increase
subsidized child care access and options in two counties with a
high cost of living. Under the pilot program, both counties'
local policies approved by the SDE allowed them the flexibility
to provide subsidized child care to families whose income levels
would have made them ineligible in other parts of the state, to
pay increased reimbursement rates to child care providers, and
to temporarily reallocate funds among providers when one
provider was not going to be able to fully expend the funding in
its contract to maximize county-level use of the contract
dollars and services. The pilot program did not provide the
counties additional funding for subsidized child care; it simply
made it easier for the two counties to spend the funding they
were allocated annually. As intended, the pilot resulted in
more subsidized child care money being spent on subsidized child
care in those counties, and less reverting back to the state
General Fund.
In 2002-03, the year before the pilot began, San Mateo County
was unable to spend 15 percent of its allocation, and returned
that money to the General Fund. By contrast, in 2011-12, it was
AB 833 (Bonta) Page 4 of
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unable to spend only 3.6 percent of its allocation, and returned
$652,580 to the state. San Francisco County returned $1,134,639
- 2.3 percent of its allocation, in 2011-12.
According to the SDE, Alameda County returned 5 percent, 4
percent, and 8 percent of its contracted child care dollars to
the state in 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14, respectively. If
the outcomes of this pilot are similar to those in San Mateo
County and San Francisco County, Alameda County could
potentially retain this funding to provide additional services,
which averages over the three years to be about $3.3 million.
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