BILL ANALYSIS
------------------------------------------------------------
|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 886|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|1020 N Street, Suite 524 | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
|327-4478 | |
------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 886
Author: Florez (D)
Amended: 3/16/10
Vote: 21
SENATE HUMAN SERVICES COMMITTEE : 4-0, 3/23/10
AYES: Liu, Romero, Runner, Yee
NO VOTE RECORDED: Maldonado
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
SUBJECT : In-home supportive services providers:
electronic
timekeeping
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill authorizes counties to use electronic
timekeeping in record keeping to verify tasks and hours
completed by persons providing in-home supportive services
(IHSS).
ANALYSIS : Existing law:
1. Establishes the IHSS program to provide domestic
services to persons of low income, who are aged or who
have a disability, to enable them to live safely in
their homes.
2. Directs the State Department of Social Services (DSS) to
CONTINUED
SB 886
Page
2
establish and implement hourly task guidelines as well
as a standard tool for consistently and accurately
assessing service needs and authorizing service hours to
meet those needs.
3. Provides for ensuring the quality and integrity of the
IHSS program through requirements for signed timesheets,
verification of receipt of supportive services, a
criminal records clearance for providers of services, a
standardized curriculum for county social workers in
order to prevent fraud, home visits by county social
workers, a provider enrollment form signed under penalty
of perjury, and data sharing between counties and the
state to prevent fraud.
4. Allows eligible persons to receive home medical care
services or other home- and community based Medi-Cal
program services.
This bill:
1. Allows counties to use electronic timekeeping, as
defined, for providers of IHSS services to report their
payroll timesheets.
2. Requires that this electronic timekeeping includes
telephone-based interactive voice response or Web-based
technology that both identifies a provider and
accurately records the time of the provider's visit to
the recipient of services.
3. Defines "recipient" as the recipient of IHSS services,
of home medical care services, or of other home- and
community-based Medi-Cal program services.
4. Allows a person who provides services to a recipient, as
defined, to use electronic timekeeping to verify hours
of work completed.
Background
Twice each month under current law and practice, more than
400,000 paper time cards from IHSS providers are submitted
and manually entered by county workers across California.
SB 886
Page
3
The cards require the signature of both IHSS recipient and
provider, and they reflect the hours worked in a two-week
period. According to testimony provided to the Senate
Human Services Committee in 2009 by representatives of DSS
and of county welfare departments, time cards are sometimes
illegible or inaccurate, are returned to the IHSS provider
and recipient, and are redone.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 4/8/10)
Alameda County Board of Supervisors
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : The Alameda County Board of
Supervisors believes that this bill will allow the use of
technology that will improve accuracy, lower costs, and
reduce the number of errors, all of which will allow county
staff to spend more of their time performing customer
service or program auditing.
CTW:nl 4/8/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
**** END ****