BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1460
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Date of Hearing: August 6, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
SB 1460 (Beall) - As Amended: August 4, 2014
Policy Committee: Human Services
Vote: 6 - 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill is a Senate Human Services Committee bill that brings
California's child welfare laws into compliance with federal
laws and regulations regarding the Multi Ethnic Placement Act
(MEPA), the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS), the Fostering
Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, the
Adam Walsh Act, tribal child welfare, resource family approval,
and others. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires county recruitment of potential foster parents to
include diligent efforts to recruit individuals who reflect
the ethnic, racial and cultural diversity of foster children.
2)Provides a county child welfare agency or county probation
department may request and receive a relative's name, social
security number, most recent address, telephone number, place
of employment or other contact information to identify, locate
and notify relatives of children who are the subject of
juvenile court proceedings, including all grandparents, adult
siblings, and other adult relatives of the child as specified.
3)Requires a probation officer to explain why siblings are not
placed together and what efforts the probation officer is
making to place the siblings together or why making those
efforts would be contrary to the safety and well-being of any
of the siblings.
4)Provides a ward's attorney and the attorney for the siblings
of the ward be notified by the placement agency if there is a
need for a change in placement that will result in the
separation of siblings currently placed together.
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5)Allows additional counties to participate in the early
implementation of the "resource family" pilot project
regarding new standards for foster homes. Provides a federal
criminal offender record check be received for all adults
residing in a resource family home as a condition of approval
and makes other technical and conforming changes regarding
resource families.
6)Allows tribes to receive criminal history and child abuse
information from DOJ and establishes the requirements for
tribes to complete the approval for tribal foster homes.
Authorizes DOJ to charge a fee for providing this information
to the tribe.
7)Provides for the transfer of Indian child case records from a
county to tribal jurisdiction.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Negligible costs to the Department of Social Services.
2)On-going, likely non-reimbursable, costs in the range of
$15,000 to county probation departments for duties regarding
sibling placements. Proposition 30, passed by the voters in
November 2012, eliminated potential mandate funding liability
for any new program or higher level of service provided by
counties related to realigned programs.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . California statute must comply with federal
requirements pertaining to child welfare in order to ensure
the uninterrupted flow of California's Title IV-E allocation
for child welfare services, which is over $1 billion annually.
This bill implements necessary changes to statute identified
by the California Department of Social Services. Recent
amendments substantially amended the bill.
2)Background .
a) The Multi Ethnic Placement Act (MEPA) . MEPA requires
states to have an identifiable process in place to recruit
potential foster parents and adoptive parents that reflect
the ethnic and racial diversity of children in the state
for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed. State
statute authorizes counties to operate recruitment programs
to ensure an adequate number of foster homes are available
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to meet their child welfare placement needs. However,
statute neither addresses the recruitment of foster
families who reflect the diversity of children for whom
foster homes are needed nor requires the diligent
recruitment of adoptive homes.
b) The Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) . FPLS is a
national automated service provided by the Office of Child
Support Enforcement to help states locate custodial and
noncustodial parents for child support and to establish,
modify and enforce child support obligations. The FPLS and
its state-level counterpart, the California Parent Locator
Service (CPLS) provides access to a parent's address,
employment, income, assets, and social security number
information.
AB 1751 (Pan) Chapter 637, Statutes of 2012, allowed county
child welfare departments and county probation departments
to access the FPLS and CPLS for the purpose of locating a
child's non-custodial parent. However, this authority did
not extend to finding other relatives of a child, as
provided for under federal law.
c) The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing
Adoptions Act of 2008 . This Act requires states to make
diligent efforts to place siblings in out-of-home care
together, unless doing so would be detrimental to the
health and safety of one of the siblings. State statute
was revised to conform to this provision, however the
changes failed to clearly state that probation officers are
required to make these efforts as required by federal law.
d) Adam Walsh Act . This Act requires a fingerprint check
of a national criminal records database as well as a check
from the state child abuse and neglect registries before
any prospective foster or adoptive parent may be approved
for placement of a child. Current state statute requires
state criminal history information be received and
processed for clearance prior to approval. However, as a
result of the previously slow process time for the federal
records check, the Resource Family Approval background
check process merely requires the federal check be
submitted, and does not require that the results be
received, prior to approval.
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e) Tribal Child Welfare . Federal law (ICWA) requires that
Indian children be placed first in a foster home of the
child's tribe. With the exception of the criminal
background standards, existing federal and state law allows
tribes to approve foster homes based on tribal rather than
state standards. Existing state law does not allow tribes
to receive criminal background and child abuse information
from DOJ for the purpose approving foster homes unless they
have a Title IV-E agreement (only two of 113 have an
agreement). Therefore, in order to approve a tribal home,
the tribe must request the state or county review the
criminal background information and provide a clearance or
denial. Because this is done only on a child-specific
basis, after a child is removed, when tribal children are
removed they must be placed somewhere else while the
approval process is completed for a tribal family. As a
result, counties cannot comply with federal ICWA placement
preference requirements and children experience additional
trauma and disruption.
f) Resource Families . Current state law establishes new
standards for foster homes, called "resource families" to
be tested in five counties before authorizing the program
statewide. In order to meet federal requirements that
foster care standards apply across all foster homes
statewide, additional counties need to implement the new
standards during the piloting phase in order to achieve
implementation statewide within the required timeframes.
Without statutory authority for additional counties to
participate, these counties would not be able to receive
federal financial participation in foster care payments to
resource families.
1)Chaptering Issues .
a) Both this bill and AB 1658 (Jones-Sawyer), pending in
the Senate Appropriations Committee, amend Section 10618.6
of the Welfare and Institutions Code. If both bills
advance, the author may wish to consider amendments to
avoid chaptering out conflicts.
b) Both this bill and SB 1252 (Torres), pending on the
Senate Floor, amend Section 11403.2 of the Welfare and
Institutions Code. If this bill passes out of this
committee, the author may wish to consider amendments to
avoid chaptering out conflicts.
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Analysis Prepared by : Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
319-2081