BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
2698 (Block)
Hearing Date: 08/02/2010 Amended: 08/02/2010
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Human
Services 5-0
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 2698 makes changes to the requirements on
county welfare departments to request consumer disclosures of
credit reports for specified foster youth, as well as to the
procedures for handling suspected identity theft that may be
discovered during this process. This bill requires the Office of
Privacy Protection to, in consultation with the Department of
Social Services (DSS), develop a list of nonprofit organizations
and government agencies that assist consumers with identity
theft issues.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
New DSS authority $0*
$0* $0*General
New OPP task: develop list Very minor and absorbable
General
Authorizes state and counties Voluntary actions; likely very
minor General
to take specified actions Local
*Potential minor cost pressure to assume duties currently
charged to county welfare departments. To the degree that DSS
assumed new, minor responsibilities, the counties would save
time.
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STAFF COMMENTS:
There are approximately 4,000 foster youth who reach their 16th
birthday each year in the state of California. Existing law
provides for counties to run credit checks on foster youth who
reach the age of 16.
The Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 10618.6 states, "When
a youth in a foster care placement reaches his or her 16th
birthday, the county welfare department shall request a consumer
disclosure, pursuant to the free annual disclosure provision of
the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, on the youth's behalf,
notwithstanding any other provision of law, to ascertain whether
or not identity theft has occurred. If there is a disclosure for
the youth, and if the consumer disclosure reveals any negative
items, or any evidence that some form of identity theft has
occurred, the county welfare department shall refer the youth to
an approved counseling organization that provides services to
victims of identity theft. The State Department of Social
Services, in consultation with the County Welfare Directors
Association, consumer credit reporting agencies, and other
relevant stakeholders, shall develop a list of approved
organizations to which youth may be referred for assistance in
responding to an
instance of suspected identity theft. Nothing in this section
shall be construed to require the county welfare department to
request more than one consumer disclosure on behalf
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AB 2698 (Block)
of a youth in care, or to take steps beyond referring the youth
to an approved organization."
This bill would allow the county welfare department or DSS to
request the consumer disclosure. Because DSS has a centralized
record of foster youth, and could access the names and social
security numbers of all foster youth in this category, by
running a report, it would likely be easier for DSS to request
all the disclosures. This bill does not, however, mandate that
DSS do so, nor absolve the counties from doing so. This bill
makes the timeline more flexible by allowing the consumer
disclosure to be requested "in the year that a youth in a foster
care placement reaches his or her 16th birthday, giving the
agency a full year to submit the request.
AB 2698 specifies that a free credit report be requested from
each of the three major credit reporting agencies. Federal law
requires that the major credit agencies each provide one free
consumer credit report per year, if requested. While there is a
charge to calculate a consumer's FICO score, there is no charge
to simply release a fully detailed report, and this bill neither
requires a FICO score nor requires the agency making the request
to complete any task that could reasonably necessitate a FICO
score. There is no cost to the consumer disclosure, and it is
easily completed online, and requesting a report from each
agency merely requires the requestor to check the boxes next to
each agency name; it does not require additional information to
be inputted.
This bill authorizes DSS or the county welfare department to act
on behalf of the youth, in the event that identity theft is
suspected, to resolve potential identity theft issues.
Consistent with existing law, the youth must be referred to an
organization or governmental agency that helps consumers resolve
identity theft and credit issues. This bill requires OPP to
consult with DSS and specified stakeholders to generate a list
of approved organizations and agencies for referral. OPP has
indicated that this task would be simple, and the workload could
be absorbed within existing resources. Locally, the bill changes
procedures within the general duties of county welfare
departments within the scope of work they already complete under
existing statutory requirements.
Last year, the Governor vetoed the virtually identical AB 1324
(Bass), with the following veto message:
I am returning Assembly Bill 1324 without my signature.
I signed a measure in 2006 to protect foster youth from identity
theft that has not yet been fully implemented because of the
state's fiscal challenges. This funding was appropriated in
2008 and when fully implemented, existing law will help foster
youth that have been the victims of identity theft. Since the
current program is still not fully operational, I believe this
measure is premature and may have the unintended consequence of
shifting county workload to the state.
If, through the implementation, it becomes clear that foster
youth are not being served in the way the law intended, I would
be willing to reconsider this matter.
For this reason, I am unable to sign this bill.