BILL ANALYSIS
SB 597
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 19, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
SB 597 (Liu) - As Amended: August 17, 2009
Policy Committee: Human
ServicesVote:7 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill makes changes in state law relative to child welfare
services to conform to the federal Fostering Connections Act of
2008 and to clarify the application of federal law in the state.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Expands the definition of "care and supervision" to include
transportation to school for use in determining payments to
foster care providers.
2)Extends the sunset date for staffing flexibility for community
treatment facilities from January 1, 2010, until January 1,
2013.
3)Requires the Department of Social Services (DSS) to develop a
plan for the ongoing oversight and coordination of health care
services for a child in foster care, and to do so in
consultation with pediatricians, health care experts, experts
in and recipients of child welfare services.
4)Requires DSS and licensed adoptive agencies to provide
information regarding the federal adoption tax credit to any
individual adopting or considering adopting a child in foster
care.
5)Makes various conforming changes to the law governing the
Adoptions Assistance Program (AAP).
FISCAL EFFECT
There are approximately 115,000 school-age children in foster
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care, kinship care and AAP. Adding school transportation to the
definition of care and supervision and providing a school
transportation patch of $15 per month on top of the existing
grants would cost approximately $20 million ($13 million GF) per
year.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . In 2008, Congress passed and the President signed
the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions
Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-351). That federal bill had many
provisions, some of them requiring California to change state
law in order to conform. The author contends that SB 597, in
general, provides improved health-care record keeping for
foster children, a necessary amendment to state law to ensure
maximum federal participation in California's child welfare
budget, and a boost to the adoption prospects of children in
foster care.
2)The Fostering Connections Act. In October 2008, President Bush
signed H.R. 6893 (P. L. 110 - 351), the Fostering Connections
to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. That act
seeks to improve the lives of children in foster care, provide
greater assistance to relative caregivers and improve
incentives for adoption. Key provisions of the legislation
allow for kinship guardianship assistance, similar to
California's Kin-Gap program, and extension of assistance to
foster children up to age 21.
Of particular interest to this bill, the act requires state
child welfare agencies to improve educational stability for
children in foster care by coordinating with local education
agencies to ensure that children remain in the school they are
enrolled in at the time of placement into foster care, unless
that would not be in the child's best interests. If it is not
in the child's best interest, the state must ensure immediate
enrollment in a new school with all of the educational records
of the child provided to that new school. The act also
increases the amount of federal funding that may be used to
cover education related to transportation costs for children
in foster care. In addition, the act requires states to
provide assurances in their Title IV-E state plans that every
school-age child in foster care, and every school-age child
receiving an adoption assistance or subsidized guardianship
payment, is enrolled as a full-
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time elementary or secondary school student or has completed
secondary school.
3)Related Legislation . ABXXXX 4 (Evans; Chapter 4, Statutes of
2009), the Human Services trailer bill, contained both the
health care services coordination and many of the adoptions
provisions included in this legislation.
In this session, AB 1067 (Brownley), identical to this
legislation, would have expanded the definition of "care and
supervision" to include home to school transportation for use
in determining grant payments for foster children. That bill
was held on this committee's suspense file.
Several bills introduced this session include provisions to
implement various sections of the federal Fostering
Connections Act, including AB 12 (Beall and Bass), AB 154
(Evans), AB 938 (Judiciary Committee), AB 500 (Conway), AB 770
(Torres) AB 1402 (Bass) and AB 743 (Portantino).
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081