BILL ANALYSIS
AB 667
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 667 (Jones)
As Amended June 1, 2005
Majority vote
JUDICIARY 9-0 APPROPRIATIONS 13-5
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|Ayes:|Jones, Harman, Berg, |Ayes:|Chu, Bass, Berg, |
| |Haynes, Laird, Leslie, | |Calderon, Mullin, |
| |Levine, Lieber, Montanez | |Karnette, Klehs, Leno, |
| | | |Nation, Oropeza, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Saldana, |
| | | |Yee |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | |Nays:|Sharon Runner, Emmerson, |
| | | |Haynes, Nakanishi, |
| | | |Walters |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Directs the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to
contract with an entity to study child support funding.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Declares that child support is critical to the financial
security of children, that maximizing federal incentive
payments and adequately funding the child support program are
crucial elements in ensuring effective child support
enforcement and that it is in the best interest of children to
determine if the resources available for the program are
sufficient and the allocation equitable and adequate to
maximize collections.
2)Directs the LAO to contract with an appropriate and qualified
entity to conduct an evaluation of the child support program
and make recommendations for revising the budgeting
methodology.
3)Requires the evaluation to consider, at a minimum, the
following factors:
a) The current state and federal statutory and regulatory
environment;
b) State of the art advances and best practices;
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c) Potential impact of the California Child Support
Automated System;
d) Caseload and workload levels, as well as statutory,
policy and regulatory requirements in other states;
e) Impact on workload of timely establishing and collecting
child support; and,
f) Recruitment and retention issues affecting child support
staff in local programs.
4)Requires the LAO to convene an advisory group, consisting of
representatives from the Department of Child Support Services
(DCSS), the Child Support Director's Association, the
California State Association of Counties, child support
consumers, children's advocacy organizations, child support
worker organizations and appropriate legislative committees,
to provide oversight to the process of selecting the entity to
conduct the study and to provide oversight and technical
assistance to the study.
5)Requires the LAO to report the findings and recommendations to
the Legislature on or before January 1, 2007.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the director of the DCSS to, among other things,
establish caseworker to case staffing ratios and attorney to
caseworkers ratios, adjusted as appropriate to meet the
varying needs of local programs.
2)Requires local child support agencies to provide DCSS with
data on child support performance and costs, as specified, and
requires DCSS to compile the data semi-annually and report to
all members of the county boards of supervisors, county chief
executive officers, local child support agencies and the
Legislature.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations staff,
unknown costs, likely less than $50,000, to the LAO to complete
the child support study.
COMMENTS : On March 1, 2005, this Committee held an
informational hearing on child support, entitled The Child
Support Program in California: Current Challenges, Future
Objectives. That hearing, which included participation by state
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and local officials, as well as experts and advocates, focused
on child support performance and automation efforts. At the
hearing, it was revealed that while the state has improved child
support collections substantially in the last five years, it
still lags well behind the nation on several key measures.
Concerns have been raised about whether this low performance is
the result of inadequate funding of the program.
The child support program is funded by federal and state funds.
The federal government provides a two-to-one match of state
funds. In addition, the federal government has established
federal performance measures and an incentive and penalty
structure to fund and motivate states to improve their child
support performance efforts. States receive federal incentives
based on performance on five federal performance measures: 1)
paternities established; 2) support orders established; 3)
current support collected; 4) arrears collected; and, 5)
cost-effectiveness. The penalty, for states that perform below
specified levels, is a loss of one to two percent of the state's
welfare block grant. The incentive pool for the states is
capped. Thus, California's incentive is based not only on its
performance on the five measures, but also on the performance of
the other states. The federal incentive pool for federal fiscal
year 2005 is $446 million, increasing to $458 million in 2006
and $471 million in 2007. In addition, the incentive dollars
are matched $2 for each $1 with federal match dollars.
The results of California's child support performance efforts
since 1999 are for the most part positive. California has
improved performance on three of the five federal measures
(paternities established, orders established and current support
collections) held relatively flat on one measure (arrears
collections) and lost ground on one measure
(cost-effectiveness). Of the five measures, California performs
above the national average on two measures (paternity and
support order establishment), below on one (arrears collections)
and significantly below on two (current support collections and
cost-effectiveness).
This bill would require the LAO, through contract with an
appropriate and qualified entity, to conduct an evaluation of
the adequacy of child support budgeting methodology and to make
recommendations for revising the budgeting methodology,
including appropriate caseload standards, in order to ensure
accurate, equitable and adequate funding of the child support
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program. The LAO would be required to convene an advisory
group, consisting of representatives from DCSS, the Child
Support Director's Association, the California State Association
of Counties, child support consumers, children's advocacy
organizations, child support worker organizations and
appropriate legislative committees, to provide oversight to the
process of selecting the entity to conduct the study and to
provide oversight and technical assistance to the study. Under
the bill, the LAO would be required to report the findings and
recommendations to the Legislature on or before January 1, 2007.
Analysis Prepared by : Leora Gershenzon / JUD. / (916)
319-2334
FN: 0011020