BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 1809 (Lopez) - CalWORKs eligibility: asset limits
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|Version: June 15, 2016 |Policy Vote: HUMAN S. 4 - 1 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Debra Cooper |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: AB 1809 would eliminate asset limitations for CalWORKs
program eligibility and participation, and makes conforming
changes.
Fiscal
Impact:
Estimated costs of $12 million in fiscal year 2016-17 and
ongoing costs of $81.8 million per year due to administrative
costs for cases that would be newly eligible and no longer
discontinued and for associated grant costs (including
CalWORKs assistance, CalWORKs Employment Services, and
CalWORKs Child Care). (TANF/GF)
Unknown, but likely significant costs to the Department of
Social Services (DSS) for automation changes.
AB 1809 (Lopez) Page 1 of
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Potential cost savings for counties of $0.8 million in fiscal
year 2016-17 and ongoing savings of $1.5 million per year due
to a reduction in administrative workload for determining a
family's assets.
Background: The CalWORKs program, which implements the federal TANF
program, is a welfare program that gives cash aid and
employment-related services to eligible California families. DSS
is charged with program supervision at the state level, and
counties administer the caseloads at the local level. The
CalWORKs program is funded with a mix of federal, state, and
county funds. The average monthly cash grant for a family of
three on CalWORKs (one parent and two children) for 2016-17 is
$497.35 and the maximum monthly grant if the family has no other
income and lives in a high-cost county is $704. According to
recent data from DSS, approximately 497,000 families rely on
CalWORKs.
California's CalWORKs asset rules were enacted in 1997 when the
state's 1996 Welfare Reform Act was implemented. California's
asset test for CalWORKs participation limits the value of assets
or resources that a family may own. The asset test requires
families to have no more than $2,000 in specified assets ($3,250
if there is a person over 60 years old in the household) and
requires a family's vehicle, if they own one, to have a value of
no more than $9,500. A family's home, cash value of life
insurance policies, and pensions funds are excluded from
consideration. The asset test for CalFresh eligibility was
eliminated in July 2009.
Based on the CalWORKs Report on Reasons for Discontinuances of
Cash Grant (CW 253) and the CalWORKs Report on Reasons for
Denials and Other Non-Approvals of Applications (CW 255) for the
time period of April 2014 through March 2015, the cases
discontinued and application denials represents approximately
0.1% of the overall CalWORKs caseload each month (cumulatively,
approximately an average of 5,500 cases per year).
According to a 2015 report from Howard University, eight states
have eliminated their TANF asset tests and, in states where
there were sufficient data, eliminated asset tests for TANF
did not result in an increased caseload. The report found that
AB 1809 (Lopez) Page 2 of
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California spends an estimated $6.4 million per year on asset
test verification. Furthermore, only 2% of the intake cases
exceeded the cash asset limit and 0.001% exceeded the vehicle
asset limit.
Proposed Law:
This bill would repeal various sections of the Welfare and
Institutions Code that specify allowable values and nature of
personal property, savings, and motor vehicles for purposes of
determining eligibility for the CalWORKs program, as specified.
Related
Legislation:
AB 197 (Stone, 2013) would have eliminated the requirement that
county welfare departments assess the value of a vehicle when
determining eligibility for CalWORKs participation. This bill
was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
AB 2353 (Hernandez, 2012) would have eliminated the requirement
that county welfare departments assess the value of a vehicle
when determining eligibility for CalWORKs participation. This
bill was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
AB 1182 (Hernandez, 2011) would have eliminated the requirement
that county welfare departments assess the value of a vehicle
when determining eligibility for CalWORKs participation. This
bill was vetoed by Governor Brown.
AB 1058 (Beall, 2009) would have eliminated the requirement that
county welfare departments assess the value of a vehicle when
determining eligibility for CalWORKs participation. This bill
was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
AB 2368 (Fuentes, 2008) would have eliminated the requirement
that county welfare departments assess the value of a vehicle
when determining eligibility for CalWORKs participation. This
AB 1809 (Lopez) Page 3 of
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bill was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
AB 167 (Bass, 2007) would have repealed the asset test for
CalWORKs eligibility if a household contained a member who was
aged or has a disability. This bill was held in the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
Staff Comments: Potential costs savings are based on county
eligibility workers spending approximately 7.5 minutes
determining assets for each case. Counties receive a single
allocation to administer their CalWORKs programs. This bill will
save time and reduce workload for county eligibility workers;
however the state will only achieve cost savings if a county's
single allocation is further reduced, which is unlikely as
county welfare departments have sustained hundreds of millions
of dollars in cuts in recent years.
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