BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE HUMAN
SERVICES COMMITTEE
Senator Jim Beall, Chair
BILL NO: AB 2382
A
AUTHOR: Bradford
B
VERSION: May 6, 2014
HEARING DATE: June 24, 2014
2
FISCAL: Yes
3
8
CONSULTANT: Mareva Brown
2
SUBJECT
CalWORKs: eligibility: truancy
SUMMARY
This bill deletes the requirement that the aid to a family
be reduced if the county determines that an eligible child
younger than age 16 is not regularly attending school.
Instead, this bill it prohibits CalWORKs aid from being
paid for a child if the school district informs the county
that a child is not attending school, as specified, unless
one of several circumstances is present. This bill requires
that a child whose needs are excluded from computation of
the family's grant remain eligible for services that may
lead to school attendance. Additionally, this bill requires
the county to inform the family of a child aged 16 or older
who is not attending school how to enroll the child in a
continuation school and screen the family to determine its
eligibility for family stabilization services, as
specified.
ABSTRACT
Continued---
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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Existing law:
1)Establishes under federal law the Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) program to provide aid and
welfare-to-work services to eligible families and, in
California, provides that TANF funds for welfare-to-work
services are administered through the CalWORKs program.
(42 U.S.C. 601 et seq., WIC 11200 et seq.)
2)Establishes income, asset and real property limits used
to determine eligibility for the program, including net
income below the Maximum Aid Payment (MAP), based on
family size and county of residence, which is
approximately 40 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.
(WIC 11450, 11150 et seq.)
3)Establishes a 48-month lifetime limit of CalWORKs
benefits for eligible adults, including 24 months during
which a recipient must meet federal work requirements in
order to retain eligibility. (WIC 11454, 11322.85)
4)Requires all children in a CalWORKs assistance unit to
attend school, provided they are subject to the state
compulsory education requirement and are not eligible for
Cal-Learn. (WIC 11253.5 (a))
5)Exempts children under 16 years of age and any children
attending an elementary, secondary, vocational or
technical school on a full-time basis from participation
in CalWORKs welfare-to-work activities. (WIC 11320.3
(b))
6)Requires counties to inform CalWORKs applicants and
recipients of the school attendance requirement for
eligibility purposes, as specified. Requires a CalWORKs
recipient provide a county with documentation of regular
school attendance of all applicable children when
appropriate, as defined. (WIC 11253.5 (b), (c))
7)Prohibits an aid payment for any adult in the assistance
unit if it is determined by the county that any eligible
child in the family under age 16 is not regularly
attending school, as required, or payment for an eligible
child who is 16 years or older who is not meeting the
attendance requirements, as specified, unless the county
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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determines good cause exists. (WIC 11235.5 (d) and (e))
8)Requires each person between the ages of 6 and 18 years
to be subject to compulsory full-time education, as
specified, and attend a public full-time day school or
continuation school, and that each parent, or guardian,
as specified ensure that pupil's enrollment and
attendance. (EDC 48200)
9)Defines a "truant" as any pupil subject to compulsory
full-time education or to compulsory continuation
education who is absent from school without a valid
excuse three full days in one school year or tardy or
absent for more than a 30-minute period during the school
day without a valid excuse, as specified, on three
occasions in one school year, and a "chronic truant" as a
pupil who is absent for 10 percent or more of the school
days in one year, as specified.. (EDC 48260 et seq.)
10)Establishes a process for notifying a pupil's parent of
truancy and provides that, upon the fourth truancy
report, a pupil shall be within the jurisdiction of the
juvenile court, which may adjudge the pupil to be a ward
of the court. (EDC 48260.5, 48264.5)
11)Establishes that a parent or guardian of a pupil of aged
6 or older and in Kindergarten through 8th grade, whose
child is a chronic truant, and who has failed to
reasonably supervise and encourage the pupil's school
attendance, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a
fine not exceeding $2,000, or by imprisonment in the
county jail not exceeding one year, or by both. (PC
270.1)
This bill:
1) Redefines the school attendance requirement for any
child in a CalWORKs assistance unit to mean children
who are 16 years of age or older and subject to
compulsory school attendance requirement, unless he or
she is eligible for Cal-Learn.
2) Eliminates the school attendance requirement,
solely for the purpose of determining CalWORKs
eligibility, for children in the assistance unit under
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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16 years of age.
3) Adds to the requirement that a recipient provide
documentation of school attendance for their children,
the provision that documentation need not be provided
if there is good cause for the inability to secure
that documentation.
4) Requires a county, upon notification that a child
over age 16 is not attending school, to inform the
family of how to enroll the child in a continuation
school within the county and screen the family to
determine eligibility for family stabilization
services, as defined. Requires the county to document
that the family was given this information and was
screened for those services.
5) Prohibits including a child's needs in a family's
grant calculation for any month in which the county is
informed by a school district or a county school
attendance review board that the child did not attend
school, as specified, unless one of the following
conditions is met:
a. The county is provided with evidence that
the child's attendance records are not available.
b. The county is provided with evidence that
the child has been attending school.
c. Good cause for school nonparticipation
exists at any time during the month.
d. Any member of the household is eligible
to participate in family stabilization, as
defined.
e. The county is provided with evidence that
the child, parent, or caregiver is complying with
requirements imposed by a school attendance
review board, the county probation department, or
the district attorney, as defined in Education
code.
f. A member of the household is cooperating
with a plan developed by a county child welfare
agency.
6) Requires that a child whose needs have not been
considered in calculating the family's benefit because
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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of a lack of school attendance shall remain eligible
for CalWORKs benefits that may lead to attendance in
school.
7) Requires that for the purposes of this section, a
child shall be presumed to be attending school unless
he or she has been deemed a chronic truant.
FISCAL IMPACT
An analysis prepared by the Assembly Appropriations
Committee estimated there would be ongoing costs of
approximately $4.5 million (TANF/GF) in increased CalWORKs
grant costs that would have otherwise been lost to families
due to truancy. This assumes approximately 13,000 families
will receive an average of $366 over a three month period
as a result of removing the penalty. The analysis also
noted possible ongoing administrative efficiencies to the
extent there are fewer state hearings that would have
otherwise challenged the reduced grants.
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
Purpose of the bill:
According to the author, current law requires that a
financial penalty be exacted from families who rely on a
basic needs grant through the CalWORKs program when their
children are not regularly attending school. This financial
penalty is duplicative of the financial and penal code
penalties applied to all school children through the newly
implemented School Attendance Review Board (SARB) process
which applies to all students.
The author states that this double penalty may actually
contribute to increased absences because it makes poor
children even poorer and less able to overcome barriers
causing failure to participate in school in the first
place. While retaining the requirement that children attend
school, AB 2382 would end the truancy double penalty for
poor school children and their families and standardize the
definition of attendance to align with Education Code
Definitions, the author writes. The author further states
that while there is no evidence that financially penalizing
poor families is a successful strategy to reducing truancy
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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rates, there is evidence to the contrary, that poverty is
the leading cause of truancy and that deepening poverty
does not resolve these problems.
CalWORKs
The CalWORKs program provides a monthly cash benefit and
employment-related services aimed at moving children out of
poverty and helping families meet basic needs. Funding for
the CalWORKs program is a combination of state general fund
dollars and a federal TANF grant. According to recent data
from CDSS, 554,292 families rely on CalWORKs, including
more than 1 million children. Nearly 80 percent of the
children are under age 12. The average monthly CalWORKs
cash grant for a family of three is $463, or $15.43 per day
to meet basic needs such as rent, clothing, utilities and
other necessities. A family of three receiving the average
grant amount would have an annual household income at
$5,556 per year -- about one quarter of the Federal Poverty
Guidelines level for the same size family of $19,790.
Poverty
A survey by the National Poverty Center by researchers at
the University of Michigan and Harvard University released
in May 2013 documents a significant increase in deep
poverty among children in the United States. In mid-2011,
researchers found 1.65 million households with 3.55 million
children were living in extreme poverty in a given month.
This number represented 4.3 percent of non-elderly
households in the United States with children. The
prevalence of extreme poverty has risen sharply since 1996,
researchers found, and particularly among families impacted
by the 1996 welfare reform.
Researchers noted that changes to public programs in the
past 15 years have impacted poor families. Today, a single
mother earning minimum wage and working an average of 25
hours a week likely would be in deep poverty, although the
effects to her and her children could be lessened by
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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receipt of various public benefits.<1> This finding was
echoed in research that led to the U.S. Census Bureau's
development of the Supplemental Poverty Measure, an
informational tool which calculates poverty rates more
accurately throughout the country.
Other recent research has drawn strong correlations between
living in poverty and poor childhood outcomes such as
educational achievement, social adjustment and physical and
mental health.
Truancy
According to a May 2013 article in the Journal of Poverty
and Public Policy, the many nuances of poverty's impact on
education underscore the reasons that low-income children
should not be financially sanctioned for not attending
school.
Children in low-income families that struggle
with housing, food, and clothing should not be
thrust into a truancy system that does not
account for these circumstances, which are
beyond the student's control. Substandard
housing conditions often contribute to a
student's health problems. Evictions disrupt a
family's razor-thin equilibrium, making school
attendance a lower priority. Although continued
schooling is governed by provisions of the
McKinney-Vento Act, homelessness similarly
disrupts a family's very existence. The same
holds true for food insecurity and the lack of
clean and well-fitting
clothing, especially in school systems that require
school uniforms.<2>
Proponents of this bill argue that levying a double-penalty
on poor families undermines the ability of children to
-------------------------
<1> "Rising Extreme Poverty in the United States and the
Response of Federal Means-Tested Transfer Programs,"
Shaefer, Luke and Kathryn Edin, National Poverty Center,
May 2013, pg.6.
<2> "No Child Left Behind? Representing Youth and Family in
Truancy Matters," Clearinghouse REVIEW Journal of Poverty
Law and Policy n November-December 2013
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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recover educationally from deep poverty.
SB 1317 (Leno) Chapter 647, Statutes of 2010 established
that a parent who fails to reasonably supervise and
encourage a pupil's required school attendance, after being
offered language-accessible services to address the pupil's
truancy, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine
not exceeding $2,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail
not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and
imprisonment. The bill defined a chronic truant as a pupil
who is required to attend school full-time and is absent
from school without a valid excuse for 10 percent or more
days within the school year.
Related legislation:
AB 814 (Bradford) 2013 was substantially similar to this
bill and made potential modifications to a parent's
welfare-to-work plan prior to reducing a family's CalWORKs
grant. It died on the Assembly Appropriations Suspense
File.
AB 2616 (Carter) Chapter 432, Statutes of 2012 sought to
make truancy laws less punitive by redefining "valid
excuse" and amending other provisions related to procedures
following truancy reports.
SB 1317 (Leno) Chapter 647, Statutes of 2010, created a new
misdemeanor for parents who fail to supervise and encourage
a pupil's school attendance.
COMMENTS
Families receiving CalWORKs aid must meet state compulsory
education requirements or face the loss of aid for the
child. If a child in a CalWORKs family younger than age 16
does not meet school attendance requirements the
responsible adult is eliminated from the family's grant
calculation, which is based on the number of people in a
household. If a child aged 16 or older fails to meet school
attendance requirements, the child's grant amount is
eliminated. In both cases, the family's faces a double
penalty for truancy doesn't exist for any other group of
children. This bill would remove the penalty from the
STAFF ANALYSIS OF ASSEMBLY BILL 2382 (Bradford)
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CalWORKs system, leaving the educational system to focus on
school truancy issues.
PRIOR VOTES
Assembly Floor 66 - 2
Assembly Appropriations 13 - 0
Assembly Human Services 5 - 0
POSITIONS
Support: Western Center on Law and Poverty (Sponsor)
Advancement Project
California School-Based Health Alliance
Center for Law and Social Policy
Children's Defense Fund- California
Coalition of California Welfare Rights
Organizations
Greenlining Institute
JERICHO
Legal services for Prisoners with Children
National Association of Social Workers
9 to 5 California, National Association of
Working Women
PolicyLink
Public Counsel
1 individual
Oppose: None received.
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