BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 79
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(Without Reference to File)
SENATE THIRD READING
SB
79 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review)
As Amended June 17, 2015
Majority vote. Budget Bill Appropriation Takes Effect
Immediately
SENATE VOTE: Vote not relevant
SUMMARY: This is the Human Services Omnibus trailer bill,
containing statutory changes necessary to enact human
services-related provisions of the Budget Act of 2015.
Specifically, this bill makes various changes to law to
correspond to actions in the 2015 Budget related to Human
Services appropriations and programs. These include:
1)Immigration-Related Services. Includes a statutory framework
for the Department of Social Services (DSS) to implement a new
program to provide immigration-related services to
undocumented persons, commencing January 1, 2016, funded at
$15 million General Fund in the 2015 Budget Act. Among other
provisions:
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a) Requires DSS, subject to the availability of funding, to
provide grants to qualified organizations, as specified, to
be used to provide persons living in California with
specified services, including services to assist with the
application process for initial or renewal requests of
deferred action under the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of
Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) policies,
and to provide legal training and technical assistance to
other qualified organizations.
b) Requires DSS, subject to the availability of funding, to
provide grants to qualified organizations to provide free
education and outreach information, services, and materials
about DACA, DAPA, naturalization, or other immigration
remedies.
c) Requires DSS to update the Legislature in the course of
budget hearings on specified information, including the
timelines for implementation of these provisions and the
participating organizations awarded contracts or grants.
1)California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids
(CalWORKs) Housing Support Program. Includes technical
clean-up changes to the statutory provisions governing the
CalWORKs Housing Support Program, which was funded in the
2014-15 Budget at $20 million General Fund and is augmented in
the 2015 Budget by an additional $15 million. Authorizes a
county to continue to provide housing supports to a person who
has been discontinued from CalWORKs because he or she no
longer meets specified income eligibility requirements and
adds Housing California as a stakeholder for specific
consultation, in addition to the County Welfare Directors
Association, regarding program criteria and elements.
2)Child Support Performance and Incentive Payments. Extends the
suspension of child support performance and health insurance
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incentive payments through the 2016-17 Fiscal Year. Existing
law provides that the 10 counties with the best performance
standards shall receive an additional 5% of the state's share
of those counties' collections that are used to reduce or
repay aid that is paid under the CalWORKs program. Existing
law also requires the Department of Child Support Services to
provide a health insurance incentive ($50 per case) to the
local child support agency for obtaining third-party health
coverage, or insurance, for beneficiaries, if the budget
provides General Fund support for the incentive. These
payments have been suspended since 2002-03.
3)Community Care Licensing. Increases the frequency of
inspections of care facilities licensed by DSS. Beginning in
January 2017, DSS will increase inspection frequency to every
three years for all facilities, every two years by 2018 for
all facility types except child care, and annually by 2019 for
adult day care and residential care facilities for the
elderly. Also requires DSS, as it implements the first stage
of the multiyear proposal to increase the inspection frequency
of facilities licensed, to update the Legislature frequently,
and no later than April 1, 2016, for the first update,
regarding the implementation of the multiyear proposal.
4)Fingerprint Fee Exemption. Extends through the 2016-17 Fiscal
Year the suspension of the prohibition against charging a fee
for fingerprinting or obtaining a criminal record pursuant to
current law, thereby DSS to charge a fee for those services.
5)California Fund for Senior Citizens. Requires that funds for
the California Senior Legislature be allocated from the
California Senior Legislature Fund, which the bill would
designate as the successor fund of the California Fund for
Senior Citizens. Requires that all assets, liabilities,
revenues, and expenditures of the California Fund for Senior
Citizens be transferred to the California Senior Legislature
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Fund, and that all references in state law to the California
Fund for Senior Citizens be construed to refer to the
California Senior Legislature Fund.
6)EDD Data Sharing. Requires the Director of Employment
Development to permit the use of any information in his or her
possession to enable federal, state, or local government
departments or agencies, or their contracted agencies, subject
to federal law, to evaluate, research, or forecast the
effectiveness of public social services programs, as
specified, when the evaluation, research, or forecast is
directly connected with, and limited to, the administration of
those public social services programs. This allows the
Employment Development Department to share information with
DSS, in response to federal guidance on this issue.
7)CalWORKs Eligibility, Technical Changes. Makes technical,
conforming changes to program eligibility by deleting certain
reporting requirements regarding certain types of convictions
with respect to eligibility for the CalWORKs program. This
aligns with program changes made as part of the 2014 Budget.
8)Child Support for Certain CalWORKs Cases. Exempts applicants
for or recipients of CalWORKs benefits from the requirements
that they assign to the county any rights to support, and that
they cooperate with efforts to establish paternity of a child
of the applicant and to establish, modify, or enforce a
support order, if all eligible adults in the assistance unit
have been subject to sanctions for at least 12 consecutive
months for failing to comply with CalWORKs requirements. This
is consistent with CalWORKs policy changes regarding long-term
sanction cases.
9)Approved Relative Caregiver Funding Option Program. Provides
that a child eligible for the Approved Relative Caregiver
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Funding Option Program shall not be subject to certain
requirements of CalWORKs, except as specified. Requires,
among other things, that any income or benefit received by an
eligible child or an approved relative caregiver on behalf of
the eligible child that would be offset against the basic rate
paid to a foster care provider, as specified, be offset from
any funds, other than CalWORKs funds, paid to the approved
relative caregiver, and would require counties to recoup
overpayment in the program using the standards and processes
for overpayment recoupment that are applicable to overpayments
to an approved home of a relative. Additionally revises the
funding provisions for the Approved Relative Caregiver Funding
Option Program, including appropriating from the General Fund
the sum of $15 million for the period of January 1, 2015, to
June 30, 2015, inclusive, and the amount of $30 million, with
specified adjustments, for the period of July 1, 2015, to June
30, 2016, inclusive. For every 12-month period thereafter,
this bill would require an amount calculated pursuant to a
specified formula to be appropriated to fund the Approved
Relative Caregiver Funding Option Program.
10)Adult Protective Services. Requires DSS to establish one
full-time Adult Protective Services position that reports to
the director to assist counties with specified functions in
the operation of their adult protective services system,
including developing recommended program goals, performance
measures, and outcomes for the system.
11)1991 Realignment Clean-Up. Makes the following technical
changes to 1991 realignment statutes, with no substantive or
fiscal changes to the realignment allocation. These changes
are intended to assist with administrative simplification and
accounting efficiency.
a) On and after August 1, 2015, adds the County Medical
Services Program Subaccount to the Sales Tax Account.
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Creates various new subaccounts in the Vehicle License Fee
Account. Creates the County Medical Services Program
Growth Subaccount and the General Growth Subaccount in the
Vehicle License Fee Growth Account.
b) Provides for the deposit of sales tax proceeds from
revenues deposited to the credit of the Local Revenue Fund
into specified subaccounts of the Sales Tax Account.
Requires the Controller to deposit into the Sales Tax
Growth Account certain remaining unallocated excess sales
tax revenues. Requires the Controller to transfer funds
from the Social Services Subaccount to the Health
Subaccount in an amount not to exceed $1 billion in any
fiscal year, as specified.
c) For the 2015-16 Fiscal Year, and each fiscal year
thereafter, includes the County Medical Services Program
Subaccount among those subaccounts for deposit of sales tax
proceeds, as specified, and would provide for the remaining
unallocated excess sales tax revenues to be deposited after
that allocation. This bill would restrict the
one-billion-dollar limit for fund transfers between the
Social Services Subaccount and the Health Subaccount to the
2014-15 Fiscal Year.
d) Requires the Controller to make monthly deposits of
vehicle license fee proceeds, from revenues deposited to
the credit of the Local Revenue Fund, to various
subaccounts of the Vehicle License Fee Account. Provides
that any excess vehicle license fee revenues would be
deposited in the Vehicle License Fee Growth Account of the
Local Revenue Fund.
e) Deletes provisions that required the Controller to
deposit specified amounts to the County Medical Services
Subaccount in lieu of depositing those amounts into the
County Medical Services Program Account of the County
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Health Services Fund, upon request of the County Medical
Services Program Governing Board. Also deletes provisions
that provided for the allocation of funds to eligible
jurisdictions with a poverty-population shortfall if
deposits into certain subaccounts in the Sales Tax Growth
Account are not sufficient to eliminate poverty-population
shortfalls, as calculated by the Department of Finance.
f) Continues the allocation to the local Mental Health
Accounts, but would instead require the Controller to
allocate that specified percentage of the General Growth
Subaccount to the health account of each county, city, or
city and county based on a schedule provided by the
Department of Finance, and to allocate the remaining funds
to the family support account of each county or city and
county, as specified.
g) Deletes financial action and matching fund requirements
for a county or city, as a condition of the deposit of
funds from the Sales Tax Account of the Local Revenue Fund
into the local health and welfare trust fund account of
that county or city, to deposit general purpose revenues
into that account pursuant to a specified schedule, and to
take additional financial actions, as specified.
1)CalFresh Reporting. Makes certain reporting requirements
inapplicable to CalFresh households in which all adult members
are elderly or disabled members, as defined, and in which the
household has no earned income. Also states the intent of the
Legislature to eliminate change reporting, as defined, and to
assign certification periods for CalFresh households that are
the maximum allowed under federal law.
2)Intensive Treatment Foster Care. Extends the operation of the
interim schedule of modified service and rate levels for the
intensive treatment foster care program in each county until
December 31, 2016. Also requires that the amount paid to a
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certified foster parent under an intensive treatment foster
care program be adjusted on July 1, 2015, and on July 1, 2016,
by an amount equal to the California Necessities Index.
3)All-County Letters (ACLs) and Emergency Regulation Authority.
Authorizes DSS to implement specified provisions of this bill
through ACLs or similar instructions and would require the
department to adopt emergency regulations implementing these
provisions no later than January 1, 2017.
4)Mandates. Provides that with regard to certain mandates no
reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide
that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that this
bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement
for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory
provisions noted above.
5)Urgency and Budget Bill. Declares that it is to take effect
immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to
the Budget Bill.
Analysis Prepared by:
Nicole Vazquez / BUDGET / (916) 319-2099 FN:
0001031
SB 79
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