BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
BILL NO: AB 488
A
AUTHOR: Torres
B
VERSION: April 21, 2009
HEARING DATE: June 9, 2009
4
FISCAL: To Appropriations
8
8
CONSULTANT:
Hailey
SUBJECT
Children's services programs: performance agreement
contracts
SUMMARY
Authorizes the State Department of Social Services (DSS) to
renew or extend beyond a three-year time period specified
performance agreements with private, non-profit agencies
that serve children.
ABSTRACT
Current law
1)Establishes a system of child welfare services, including
foster care, for children who have been or are at risk of
being abused or neglected.
2)Establishes foster care placement options for dependents
and wards placed in foster care, including foster homes,
relative and non-relative extended family members' homes,
Foster Family Agency-supervised homes, and group homes.
3)Sets rates of financial assistance for varying caregivers
and providers.
Continued---
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 488 (Torres) Page
2
4)Requires documentation that placement is necessary to
meet treatment needs of child as condition of eligibility
for placement in group home.
5)Allows counties to enter into performance agreements with
private, nonprofit agencies to encourage innovation,
develop services for children that are not available in
the community and promote change in the child welfare
system.
6)Limits these agreements to a period of up to three years.
7)Requires counties to provide reports on the agreements to
the State Department of Social Services (DSS) within
three months of the end of an agreement.
8)Requires the director of DSS to make those reports
available to the Legislature upon request.
9)Authorizes the director of DSS to waive regulations,
except those pertaining to health and safety, which
govern foster care payments or the operation of group
homes to enable counties to implement the agreements.
10) Allows waivers under specified circumstances - when the
agreement offers a worthwhile test of innovation, the
regulatory requirement prevents implementation of the
agreement and the county proposes to monitor the waiver
regulation via performance measures.
11) Requires the director of DSS to notify policy and
fiscal committees of the Legislature of when and why a
waiver of regulations was granted.
This bill
1)Allows DSS to extend, for up to three additional years,
performance agreements with private, nonprofit agencies.
FISCAL IMPACT
The Assembly Appropriations Committee identifies negligible
costs associated with the bill.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 488 (Torres) Page
3
Need for the bill
According to the author, DSS approved waiver applications
from eight counties that place youth at the main campus in
Chino of a provider called Boys Republic. Boys Republic
serves 140 youth between the ages of 13 and 17 at this
facility. The author states that "the overall goal of the
waiver project is to demonstrate that under a more flexible
rate framework," youth with complex needs placed at Boys
Republic can satisfy specific performance outcome measures,
including measures related to community transition,
educational achievement and public safety. Also, according
to the author, a secondary goal is to demonstrate that a
cost-effective approach to providing staff is to have fewer
staff with longer tenure and higher levels of training.
Performance agreements and group homes reform
Authorization for the performance agreements addressed by
this bill was created by SB 933 (Thompson), Chapter 311,
Statutes of 1998. Although the department confirms that
Boys Republic is currently the only provider operating
under a waiver based on this type of agreement, there are
no statutory provisions that limit the agreements to Boys
Republic or any narrow group of providers. Note: SB 933
was a comprehensive bill that contained many changes to the
licensing, oversight, safety and practice standards, and
rates of payment to group homes for children, in addition
to creating the option for performance agreements and
related regulatory waivers addressed by this bill.
Pursuant to AB 2876 (Aroner), Chapter 108, Statutes of
2000, DSS contracted for a study on the funding of group
homes with recommendations for alternative rate settings.
That report, completed in February 2002, made several
recommendations including refining the existing levels of
care, funding based on a rate per child, ability for group
homes to negotiate supplemental funding to base rates for
particular services, improved outcomes and accountability,
and bundled funding. There has been no further action on
the study, and its recommendations remain unadopted.
Most recently, AB 1453 (Soto), Chapter 466, Statutes of
2007, required DSS to develop and share with the
Legislature by 2011 a plan to reconfigure the current
statewide system of group homes into a system of
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 488 (Torres) Page
4
"residentially based services," as defined, and to
encourage counties and private agencies to develop
voluntary agreements to test alternative program design and
funding before the plan is finalized.
Arguments in support
Boys Republic states that this bill is a "short-term but
necessary solution to a longer-term problem," to allow more
time for the adjustment of rate structures under current
law. The organization states that this bill will allow
Boys Republic to continue to provide its program and
potentially higher-costing placements will be avoided. Los
Angeles County's Probation Department states that it is
"extremely pleased with the results of the performance
agreement to date" and views Boys Republic as "a valued and
successful placement resource."
Arguments in opposition
In opposition, the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees states that "under the thin veil of
innovation, this bill seeks to allow private companies to
provide children's services to counties under less
regulation than otherwise allowed. Reducing these
regulations will directly affect the quality of care given
to this vulnerable population."
Prior votes
Assembly Floor 72-0
Assembly Appropriations16-0
Assembly Human Services 6-0
POSITIONS
Support: Boys Republic (sponsor)
City of Chino Hills
Commonweal
County of Los Angeles Probation Department
Youth Law Center
Oppose: American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees
-- END --
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 488 (Torres) Page
5