BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1454
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 9, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 1454 (Calderon) - As Amended: March 17, 2014
Policy Committee: Human
ServicesVote:7 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill increases the frequency of inspections at facilities
licensed by the Department of Social Services (DSS), Community
Care Licensing Division (CCLD). Specifically, this bill:
1)Changes the requirement that DSS conduct an unannounced
licensing inspection visit of child day care facilities,
family day care homes, community care facilities and RCFEs
from once every five years to annually.
2)Requires DSS to conduct "more frequent unannounced visits,"
rather than an annual unannounced visit when the terms of the
facility's compliance plan requires it or it is a condition of
the facility receiving federal financial participation.
3)Makes other conforming changes.
FISCAL EFFECT
Costs in the range of $20 million dollars (GF) to increase CCLD
licensed facility inspections to once every year. CCLD budget
reductions over the years have caused the state to adopt
policies that reduce standard inspections to about once every
three to five years. The proposed budget for CCLD in 2014-15 is
$118 million ($36 million GF). This represents an 11% increase
above estimated 2013-14 total expenditures (37% above 2013-14 GF
expenditures).
In response to recent health and safety issues discovered at
facilities licensed by CCL, the Governor's budget proposes a
comprehensive plan to reform the CCL program. This proposal
AB 1454
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includes an increase of $7.5 million ($5.8 million GF) for CCL
to increase the number of administrative and inspection analyst
positions in support of the plan.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . The intent of this legislation is to significantly
increase the number of inspection visits to licensed
facilities such as child care centers, residential care
facilities for the elderly, family child care homes, and
foster family homes. The author of this bill notes that
increasing the frequency of licensing visits "will demonstrate
that California is serious about addressing the deficiency in
our inspection process for Community Care Facilities and will
put California on par with the inspection procedures of other
states."
2)Background . Prior to 2003, the required frequency of CCLD
facility visits was annually for most facility types (and
tri-annually for family child care). Since then, in response
to the state's fiscal situation, it was deemed necessary to
find ways to reduce costs. As a result CCLD is now required
to do unannounced visits annually only in circumstances when
the facility has a history of compliance
problems-approximately 10% of facilities. For those
residential facilities not subject to annual inspections, CCLD
is currently required to conduct comprehensive compliance
inspections on a 30% random sample of facilities each year,
with no facility being visited less than once every five
years. There are additional inspection requirements for new
facilities or when changes occur to the license. These
pre-licensing inspection and post-licensing inspections help
to ensure that a new licensee starts off correctly.
Related Legislation .
a) Due to a long-term reform effort by the California
Nursing Home Reform group (CANHR), as well as in response
to a growing number of highly publicized incidents at
licensed community care facilities throughout the state,
many bills regarding licensing and inspections at community
care facilities, and RCFEs specifically, have been
introduced this session.
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b) AB 419 (Mitchell, 2011) would have required the
department to conduct an unannounced inspection of a care
facility at least once each year and as often as necessary
to ensure the quality of care provided. The bill was held
on this committee's Suspense File.
Analysis Prepared by : Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
319-2081