BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1099 (Correa)
Hearing Date: 05/27/2010 Amended: 05/11/2010
Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: HS 3-1, ED 8-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 1099 would allow state child care funds to be
counted as a match for federal funds for subsidized child care
for foster children.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
Federal match Unknown, potentially millions Federal
TANF MOE backfill 20,000 20,000 20,000 General
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STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE.
Current federal law provides funding to states for child welfare
services, including the Child Care Development Block Grant and
support for foster youth, and requires states that receive these
funds to have a state plan for foster care. Generally, these
federal funds come with a maintenance of effort (MOE)
requirement (50 percent in most cases), such that funding for
the services is a shared effort between the federal, state and
local governments.
Current state law establishes subsidized child care and provides
first priority for enrollment to children who are recipients of
child protective services, or who are at risk of being neglected
and abused. Current state law allows counties to use their own
dollars as a match for federal funds for the support of child
care for foster children, but does not allow state funding to be
used for this purpose.
This bill would require the Department of Social Services to
amend the state foster care plan to authorize the use of state
child care and development funds as the nonfederal match for
subsidized care for foster children. The bill would prohibit
these state funds form being used as a match for any other
federal funds. The bill would require counties in which state
dollars are used as a match to do the following:
Contract with a child care agency under contract with
the Department of Education that is willing to participate.
Claim the full child care costs of federally eligible
children at a rate comparable to with regional child care
and development costs.
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SB 1099 (Correa)
Provide the federal dollars received through the match
to the local contactor, who would use the funds to provide
to enroll foster children, children receiving protective
services, or children at risk of abuse or neglect.
While this bill has the potential to allow the state to earn
additional federal funding and free up state funding for more
child care slots, the extent of the additional dollars is not
clear, in part, because counties are already authorized to use
their own funds as the nonfederal match. It is possible that
this bill would simply supplant county funds with state funds.
Also, the Department of Education (CDE) indicates that due to
the complexity of existing provider contracts, it might be
difficult for local providers to participate. CDE also believes
this bill may result in additional administrative workload, but
was not yet prepared to provide an estimate of that cost.
Further, state child care dollars are counted as part of the
state's MOE for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) program. In some years, this would not
represent an obstacle, as state funds often exceed the required
MOE. Given the current fiscal circumstances, however, the state
is very close to the MOE level. As the state counts
approximately $20 million of child care funding for purposes of
the MOE, the state may incur new general fund costs to meet the
MOE or face the loss of some TANF funding.