BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Carol Liu, Chair
BILL NO: AB 665
A
AUTHOR: Torrico
B
VERSION: June 16, 2009
HEARING DATE: June 23, 2009
6
FISCAL: Appropriations
6
5
CONSULTANT:
Lane
SUBJECT
State adoption services: incentive bonuses
SUMMARY
Expands the use of improving adoption incentive bonus
dollars.
ABSTRACT
Current federal law
1) Creates, under the Fostering Connections to Success and
Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, a monetary incentive
system for states that increase, over the previous year,
the number of finalized adoptions for foster youth.
2) Specifies that these incentive dollars be used for
children and family services.
3) Defines "older child adoption" as the final adoption of
a child who has attained age nine and who at the time of
adoptive placement, was in foster care under the
supervision of the state.
Current state law
Continued---
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1) Provides for child welfare services, an array of social
services whose purpose is to protect and promote the
well-being of children, including foster care children.
2) Requires the state to reinvest the federal adoption
incentive funds into the foster care system in order to
provide adoption services for older children.
This bill
1) Expands, from only "adoptions" to "any legal permanency
outcome," the number of ways the state is allowed to expend
federal adoption incentive bonus dollars. Legal permanency
outcomes would include, but not be limited to, adoption,
guardianship and reunification.
2) Specifies that the bonus dollars be appropriated
continuously to the Department of Social Services (DSS) for
allocation to counties or to the department for counties in
which DSS serves as the adoption agency, regardless of the
fiscal year, based on documented legal permanency outcomes
for older children in each county.
3) Requires counties or DSS to expend incentive bonuses to
improve or sustain legal permanency outcomes for older
children.
4) Updates the name, from Adoption Promotion Act of 2003
to the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing
Adoptions Act of 2008 (Fostering Connections Act), of the
federal legislation that authorized the adoption incentive
payments to states.
FISCAL IMPACT
According to Assembly Appropriations Committee this bill
allows approximately $1 million new federal adoption
incentive bonus funds to be spent on a broader range of
permanency options for older foster children and
continuously appropriates federal adoption incentive bonus
funding.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
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The need for the bill
According to the author, at any given time, approximately
45,000 (60 percent) of all foster youth in California are
nine years of age or older. Those children, according to
the author, are less likely than a younger child to find a
permanent home, and those foster youths who do not find a
permanent family are more likely to find themselves
homeless or incarcerated soon after emancipation.
This bill directs the state to use federal adoption
incentive payments to fund additional activities aimed at
increasing the number of foster children nine years of age
and older who find permanent homes.
The incentive dollars may be used for post adoption
services, finding relatives, recruiting guardians and
adoptive families, preparing youth for permanency, and
child and family services.
Adoption incentive grant program
In October of 2008, Congress passed and the President
signed the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing
Adoptions Act. The act renewed the federal adoption
incentive grant program, which was created to provide
financial rewards to states for increasing the number of
children adopted out of foster care. Congress renewed the
program for five years, doubled the incentive bonuses to
states from $4,000 to $8,000 per adoption of older foster
youth, doubled the bonuses from $2,000 to $4,000 for
adoptions of foster youth with special needs, created a
$1,000 payment per foster youth adopted when a state
exceeds its highest annual total of adoptions from foster
care, and reset the adoption baseline year for calculating
incentives from 2002 to 2007.
In federal fiscal year 2008, California finalized 7,580
adoptions, 99 more than in the previous year. This
resulted in $1.1 million in federal bonuses that California
will receive in 2009-10.
Previous votes
Assembly Floor 78-0
Assembly Appropriations 17-0
Assembly Human Services 7-0
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POSITIONS
Support: California Alliance of Child and Family
Services (sponsor)
Alternative Family Services
California Association of Adoption Agencies
California Youth Connection
California Youth Permanency Task Force
Childhelp
County Welfare Directors Association
Crossroads Treatment Centers, Inc.
David and Margaret Youth and Family Services
Family Builders By Adoption
Five Acres - The Boys & Girls' Aid Society
of Los Angeles
Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services
Kinship Center
Lincoln Child Center
Penny Lance Centers
Rebekah Children's Services
Sierra Adoption Services
TLC Child & Family Services
Valley Teen Ranch
Youth for Change
Oppose: None received
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