BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 79|
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 79
Author: Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review
Amended: 6/17/15
Vote: 21
SENATE FLOOR: Not relevant
ASSMBLY FLOOR: Not available
SUBJECT: Human services
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill is the omnibus human services trailer bill.
This bill provides for statutory changes necessary to enact
human services-related provisions of the Budget Act of 2015.
Assembly Amendments delete the Senate version of the bill and
insert the current language.
ANALYSIS: This bill makes the following statutory changes to
implement the 2015-16 Budget Act:
Federal immigration assistance. Effective January 1, 2016, and
subject to annual funding in the Budget Act, the Department of
Social Services (DSS) must contract with qualified nonprofit
legal services organizations to provide application assistance
to persons residing in California who are eligible for, or to
renew, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Deferred
Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents
(DAPA) status. Specifically, the language:
1) Requires DSS to provide grants to qualified non-profit
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organizations who meet the definition of the Internal Revenue
Service 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(5).
2) Specifies the types of services that a nonprofit organization
may provide, including:
a) Services to assist with the application process for
initial or renewal of deferred action under the DACA
policy or the DAPA policy;
b) Services to provide legal training and technical
assistance to eligible non-profits;
c) Services to help obtain other immigration remedies for
people receiving DACA or DAPA application assistance; and
d) Services to assistance with naturalization or appeals
that arise from the process.
3) Defines the services that can be provided that assist the
application process to include: outreach, workshop
presentations, document review, Freedom of Information Act
requests, and screening services to assist individuals with
DACA, DAPA, naturalization, or other immigration remedies.
4) Defines "legal training and assistance" to include webinars,
in-person trainings, and technical assistance in the form of
answering questions via email, fax, or phone.
5) Requires that grants awarded must fulfill specified criteria,
including:
a) For nonprofits under 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(5) status,
have at least three years of experience handling
immigration cases; have conducted trainings on immigration
beyond staff persons; and are accredited by the Board of
Immigration Appeals under the U.S. Department of Justice's
Executive Office for Immigration Review, or be a Trust
Fund Program administered by the State Bar of California.
b) For a legal services organization that provides legal
training and technical assistance, have at least ten years
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of experience conducting immigration legal services and
receive funding by the Trust Fund Program administered by
the State Bar of California.
6) Requires grant recipients maintain adequate legal malpractice
insurance.
7) Requires DSS to report to the fiscal legislative committees
the following information:
a) Implementation timeline;
b) Participating entities awarded contracts and grants;
c) Number of applications submitted;
d) Types of services provided and in what language;
e) Ethnic communities served; and
f) Identification of further barriers and challenges to
immigration assistance and legal services related to
naturalization and deferred action.
8) Limits the amount of grant funds available to be advanced to
a qualified nonprofit to 40 percent.
9) Requires DSS, subject to available Budget Act funding,
provide grants to organizations that provide free education
and outreach information, services, and materials.
10)Defines the terms "education" and "outreach" to include
referrals to educational or legal services that support an
applicant's eligibility for citizenship or deferred action,
and the importance of participating in civic engagement as a
naturalized citizen. Education and outreach activities are
prohibited from including representation as legal counsel
that assists in the application process.
CalWORKs. This bill includes provisions pertaining to the
CalWORKs program, including:
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11)Housing Support Program (HSP). SB 855 (Budget and Fiscal
Review, Chapter 29, Statutes of 2014) established the
CalWORKs HSP and provides $20 million ($12 million General
Fund) ongoing to specified counties to provide evidence-based
interventions to families receiving CalWORKs who are at risk
for homelessness, or are homeless. Services could include
landlord outreach, housing search and placement, legal
services, and housing barrier assessment. Trailer bill
language:
a) Requires DSS to award funds, according to criteria
developed by the department in consultation with the
County Welfare Directors Association, to provide CalWORKs
housing support to recipients who are experiencing
homelessness or housing instability.
b) Authorizes counties to continue providing housing
support under the CalWORKs HSP to a recipient who may no
longer be income eligible for CalWORKs.
c) Makes other technical, non-substantive changes.
1) Child support pass-through for long-term sanction cases.
Federal law prohibits the Department of Child Support
Services from passing collected child support through to the
state on behalf of non-Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
(TANF) families and requires payments be made directly to the
family. In contrast, state law requires families to assign
support rights and requires counties to refer families on
CalWORKs to the Local Child Support Agencies. This bill
resolves the federal and state law conflicts, and exempts
long-term sanction cases from assigning their child and
spousal support rights to the state/county. Funding for these
cases is switched to non-maintenance of effort General Fund,
so these cases will no longer assign their child support to
the state.
2) Mid-year reporting requirement. Previous law requires a
CalWORKs recipient to report a drug felony conviction, as
specified, within 10 days. SB 855 (Budget and Fiscal Review,
Chapter 29, Statutes of 2014) made eligible adults who were
previously ineligible for benefits due to a prior felony drug
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conviction, effective April 1, 2015. AB 106 deletes an
outdated mid-period reporting requirement that is no longer
applicable.
Community Care Licensing (CCL). This bill amends the CCL
division within DSS' existing inspection frequency, by certain
facility type. Specifically, language increases the inspection
frequency from the current level of at least once every five
years, to once every three years for child care facilities; once
every two years for children's residential facilities; and
annual inspections for adult and senior care facilities. The
table compares existing law to the proposed inspection
requirements, by facility type and over time.
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|Facility Type |Existin | |
| |g Law | |
| | | |
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| | | | | |
| | |Stage |Stage 2: |Stage 3: |
| | |1: | | |
| | | |January 2018 |January 2019 |
| | |January | | |
| | |2017 | | |
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| | Inspections must occur at least once every. . . |
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| Child care | 5 | 3 years | 3 years | 3 years |
| facilities | years | | (unchanged | (unchanged |
| | | | from stage | from stage |
| | | | 1) | 1) |
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| Children's | 5 | 3 years | 2 years | 2 years |
| residential | years | | | (unchanged |
| care | | | | from stage |
| facilities | | | |2) |
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|----------------+--------+---------+--------------+---------------|
| Adult and | 5 | 3 years | 2 years | 1 |
| senior care | years | | |year |
| facilities | | | | |
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The CCL division will continue to conduct random inspections on
at least 30 percent of all facilities annually, as is current
practice.
Child Welfare Services. This bill contains the following
provisions pertaining to child welfare services, including:
3) Approved Relative Caregiver (ARC) program. SB 855 (Budget and
Fiscal Review, Chapter 29, Statutes of 2014) established the
ARC Option Program and provided an ongoing annual
appropriation of $30 million General Fund, to be adjusted
annually by California Necessities Index (CNI). Under the ARC
program, relative caregivers receive an applicable regional
per-child CalWORKs grant, plus the General Fund portion in an
amount that provides a rate equal to the basic foster family
home rate (based on the age of the child). Participating
counties are provided General Fund, based on the a county's
number of eligible ARC placements in the county as of July 1,
2014. If the county-specific ARC caseload exceeds the
baseline caseload of July 1, 2014, the county must be
responsible for making the full ARC payments and responsible
for the county-share of the CalWORKs payment. The langauge
streamlines the application process for grant payments,
maximizes federal funding, and ensures that families do not
experience a break in services or payment. Specifically, the
language specifies:
a) Foster children and non-minor dependents (NMDs), who
are eligible to receive an ARC payment will be placed into
a separate assistance unit.
b) The CalWORKs portion of the payment will be the exempt
maximum aid payment for an assistance unit of one.
c) If the relative caregiver is needy, his or her
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assistance unit size will include the number of ARC
children, or NMDs, only for pruposes of determining
program income and eligiblity of the CalWORKs assistance
unit. For purposes of calculating the grant amount for the
needy caregiver, the ARC child and NMD is excluded.
d) Foster care resource limits will be used to determine
eligiblity of an ARC child and NMD.
e) Overpayments will be collected pursuant to existing
foster care program requirements.
f) County of court jurisdiction has payment responsibliy
for ARC children and NMDs.
g) An approved relative caregiver is exempt from
Statewide Fingerprint Imaging Systems, reporting,
immunization, and other CalWORKs requirements.
h) The General Fund appropriation must be increased
annually by an amount greater than the CNI to ensure that
the caregiver payments get a full CNI adjustment.
i) The General Fund portion of the ARC payment may be
countable towards maintenance-of-effort (MOE), only if the
General Fund is not counted as MOE for another purpose.
j) DSS must presume that counties have opted-out of the
program if funding for the base period is reduced under
specified conditions, unless a county notifies DSS in
writing of its intent to opt-in within 60 days of the
enactment of the state budget.
aa) In a circumstance whereby a county decides to no
longer participate in the ARC program, the county must
provide at least 90 days notice to the approved relative
caregiver(s) that the per child per month payment will be
reduced, and the date the reduction will occur.
1) Intensive Treatment Foster Care (ITFC) rate extension. ITFC
offers an alternative, family-like setting for foster
children who would otherwise be placed in group homes Rate
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Classification Level (RCL) 9 through 11. SB 1013 (Budget and
Fiscal Review Committee, Chapter 35, Statutes of 2012)
authorized the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR) effort to
develop recommendations related to the state's current rate
setting system, and to services and programs that serve
children and families in the continuum of Aid to Families
with Dependent Children-Foster Care (AFDC-FC) eligible
placement settings. In addition, SB 1013 provided for an
interim increase in rates, including a CNI increase, intended
to ensure providers keep pace with the costs of providing
care, recruitment, and retaining qualified foster caregivers
for children needing intensive treatment in a home-based
setting. Trailer bill language that includes the following
provisions:
a) Extends, from June 30, 2015 to December 31, 2016, the
applicable interim period for specified modified service
and rate levels, which support modified in-home support
counselor hours per month, apply.
b) Extends, from June 30, 2015 to December 31, 2016, the
interim period for which specified modified serve and rate
levels, that support the modified standard rate schedule,
apply.
c) Requires the rate for the modified standard rate be
adjusted for the CNI on July 1, 2015, and on July 1, 2016.
Adult protective services. The department shall, to the extent
funding for this purpose remains with the department, establish
one full-time position which reports to the director to assist
counties with the following functions in their operation of the
adult protective services system
1991 Realignment. AB 85 (Committee on Budget, Chapter 24,
Statutes of 2013) modified 1991 Realignment Local Revenue Fund
(LRF) distributions to capture and redirect county savings
resulting from the implementation of federal health care reform
effective January 1, 2014. AB 85 established the Family Support
Subaccount within the LRF beginning in 2013-14. The Family
Support Subaccount receives sales tax revenues redirected from
the Health Subaccount, which then redistributes the funds to
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counties for the CalWORKs program. While this redirection
mechanism frees up General Fund resources to pay for Medi-Cal
costs, according to the Administration, the process to achieve
this is significantly burdensome for the State Controller's
Office and the Department of Finance. The language eliminates
the need to redirect sales and use tax and vehicle license fee
revenues between the Health and Social Services Subaccounts and
makes other necessary technical and clarifying changes related
to AB 85.
Other issues. This bill also includes additional provisions:
16)Data sharing agreements. Authorizes the Employment
Development Department to share data with federal, state, or
local government departments or agencies, or their contracted
agencies, to support social services administration.
17)Suspension of the fingerprint licensing fee exemption.
Existing law prohibits the DSS and the Department of Justice
from charging a fee to process a criminal history check of
individuals who are licensed to operate child and adult
facilities, to provide care in a facility, or who reside at
that facility. This language authorizes allows DSS to charge
fees for this criminal history check and extends this
suspension for two additional years.
18)Suspension of the incentives under the Department of Child
Support Services (DCSS). The language suspends health
insurance incentives and improved performance incentives.
a) Existing law requires the DCSS to provide a health
insurance incentive ($50 per case) to the local child
support agency (LCSA) for obtaining third-party health
coverage, or insurance, for beneficiaries, if the budget
provides General Fund support for the incentive. Since
2003, these health insurance incentive payments to LCSAs
have been suspended. This language suspends the health
insurance incentive and the top 10 improved performance
incentive for two years.
b) Existing law requires DCSS to provide to 10 counties,
which demonstrate the best performance on federal and
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state performance standards, an additional five percent of
the state's share of those counties collections used to
reduce or repay aid. Since 2002, these top 10 performance
incentive payments to LCSAs have been suspended. This
language suspends the top 10 improved performance
incentive for two years.
19)Establishes new successor fund for the California Senior
Legislature (CSL). The California Fund for Senior Citizens
first appeared on the 1983 personal income tax return.
Donations to the California Fund for Senior Citizens supports
the ongoing work of the CSL. In 2014, the California Fund of
Senior Citizens received $229,522 in voluntary contributions.
Because it did not meet the minimum contribution amount of
$250,000, it fell off the tax check-off for the 2014 tax
return. Trailer bill language that establishes the CSL Fund
as the successor fund of the California Fund for Senior
Citizens.
20)This bill appropriates $30 million for the Approved Relative
Caregiver Funding Option program to the Department of Social
Services.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Yes Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: Yes
SUPPORT: (Verified6/19/15)
None received
OPPOSITION: (Verified6/19/15)
None received
Prepared by: Samantha Lui / B. & F.R. / (916) 651-4103
6/19/15 9:28:36
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