Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services, Wednesday, March 11, 2026
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Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services California State Assembly
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 3
Together, we've also invested in furthering the realization of the family care centered and kin first foster care system. These efforts have included the continuum of care reform and other reforms that resulted in the decrease of ninety one percent over ten years in the number of youth with a first placement into a congregate care setting and a seventy two percent reduction in point in time congregate care placements. The creation of a center for excellence on family finding and engagement and the launch of kinship accelerator pilots in eight counties, among a number of other efforts. The adoption and preparation for implementation of the tiered rate structure, which we'll be discussing further on the next panel, also has huge implications for our work to center family based care and to support kin. With that,
Speaker 3
it over to deputy director Schwartz to talk more about some of those trends and challenges we're facing.
Speaker 5
Good afternoon. It's the sun. Good afternoon, chairs and members of the committee. Angie Schwartz, deputy director of the Children and Family Services Division. I'm going to focus on what additional things our data shows about the progress that we're making, where the gaps and challenges remain, and the expected impacts of the federal h r one cuts to CalFresh and Medi Cal.
In addition to the positive outcomes that director Troya just noted, we are also seeing other meaningful improvements. Extended foster care to age 21 is one of the most impactful reforms that we've made. According to the Cal Youth study, youth who leave foster care before age 19 are three times more likely to experience homelessness than those who remain in extended foster care. And every additional year in extended foster care improves outcomes with higher rates of high school completion, college enrollment, more employment and savings, stronger social support, and significantly lower rates of food insecurity, homelessness, and arrest. We do have challenges that remain.
Persistent disparities for Native American and black children remain a critical challenge. We're working to disrupt these disparities through the investments in the tribally approved homes, stronger implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act, and a new disrupting disparities advisory committee, which we're so pleased to have chair Jackson as a member of. Also, although relative care continues to produce better outcomes, as director Troia noted, compared to placements that are not with kin, the percentages of youth whose first and predominant placements are with relatives has not increased as we had hoped. These findings reinforce the importance of the Center for Excellence, the KinFirst Accelerator pilot, and the new tiered foster care rate structure, all of which are designed to expand and strengthen connections with relatives and ensure that they have the support that they need. In terms of the potential impacts of the federal h r one cuts, those cuts to CalFresh and Medi Cal will increase hardship for families already facing significant challenges.
CalFresh serves 5,500,000 Californians, and the expanded work requirements will put many at risk of losing essential food assistance. Nonminor dependents and former foster youth who aged out of foster care who were previously exempted from the work requirements will need to qualify for an exemption on a case by case basis or will become subject to work requirements, increasing their vulnerability to benefit loss. This is especially concerning given that roughly thirty percent of transition age foster youth involved with foster care involvement already experience food insecurity. My colleagues at CDSS are working to minimize the harm of HR one policies by maximizing exemptions to work requirements for those who are eligible and ensuring that we can connect recipients to workforce opportunities. Our focus remains clear.
Keep families safely together, support youth who enter foster care, build a kin first community rooted system, continue to make investments in disrupting disparities, expanding prevention, and modernizing our rate structure. These are essential to ensuring that every child can thrive in the care of their families, their communities, their tribes, and remain connected to their culture. Thank you for the time. Happy to answer questions.
Speaker 6
Thank you, mister chairman, members of the committee. I'm Daniel Webster, Webster, University of California Child Welfare Indicators Project. Thanks for the opportunity to share my perspective. I'll just echo the trends that Director Troia and Deputy Schwartz have shared. Fully think they're all correct.
And they're available on the public website, which I think is one of the great directions of the department is the accountability and transparency to have those kinds of data points available to the wider stakeholder community for us to have a collective conversation about the direction of the system. I would add in terms of key trends, reentry is something that we've decreased over the past decade or so, but it has leveled off, I'd see that as an area where we may want to focus some of our efforts. Also, in terms of the direction of the department, I I fully agree with the KinFirst culture. It is supported by data and evidence and research, and I really think that we need to continue those efforts. And as we move more towards prevention efforts and moving upstream towards a child well-being system, I think it'll be all the more incumbent on us to to build that, resource for children, with our kin with our with our relatives.
I also think that the department's, good faith efforts with the mandated reporting community supporting a task force advisory committee are laudable. This is, again, moving towards a child well-being system. This is an important direction that we need to go, but it needs to be done planfully. The implementation needs to be done planfully with guided by good evidence and data. I think the department is working with the the members of that, advisory committee to do that, but I wanna just make sure that we I underscore that point that there are a lot of great implementation, suggestions that are made, but we wanna make sure that we support them at each juncture with good solid data to make sure that we're doing the right thing and doing it doing it successfully.
Evaluation efforts that are going on in the department, I think, are also critical to give us, important information on on needed, target populations such as those that we're providing guaranteed income to or those of the crisis children's crisis continuum of services. There's a pilot project looking at that. So to the degree that we can get targeted research to understand about the needs and services that are affected for those children, I think we'll we'll we're down to our benefit across the board. And I think we need to apply that same approach to the prevention efforts that we're talking about, Family First Prevention Services Act and the and the MRAC. And then in terms of challenges, we mentioned racial disparities remain remains a challenge.
We have decreased the rates of system contact in our state across the board, and it and it's actually at a greater degree and and better than our national counterparts. So that is a positive. But we still, as you pointed out, doctor Jackson, have much work to do. I'd say the last thing I'd say is around the the talk about federal storm clouds on the federal horizon. I do see that as a big challenge, both with the HR one, but also with the administration's recent moves to take offline public data sets that were formally available and to to remove from data data reports that were formally available.
And what this does is it cuts down the discourse. It it it starts to remove the number of diversity of voices that can speak to change that need to be made. And so I I would suggest that we we tend to be different in California, but I would really want us not to go in that direction because we've spent a couple of decades building a public accountability and transparency system, and I I would really be, you know, detrimental to all to the to the wealth of health and welfare of our kids if we if we didn't maintain that.
Speaker 7
Thank you, doctor Jackson and members of the committee. Andrew Shane, hehim with the County Welfare Directors Association. I'm gonna focus on the need to sustain targeted flexible resources that sustain the front end of the child welfare system and are even more vital tools given the unprecedented threats we've heard about from HR one that threaten to remove fundamental concrete supports that are proven to stabilize families and lower the risk of child welfare system involvement. First, the emergency response enhancement funding. Emergency response programs are truly the frontline of our system.
Social workers respond day and night to reports of abuse and neglect and conduct safety assessments and investigations, incredibly taxing work responding to the trauma of families experiencing crisis. The 2021 and '22 budget acts provided a total of a $100,000,000, to stabilize county emergency response staffing and operations. These funds are nearly completely expended. Counties have used these funds to hire and retain staff and strengthen supervision and safety decision making. In Riverside County, this included reducing their reliance on overtime and emergency assignments, which, of course, helps them reduce staff turnover and stability and improve morale.
During this period, foster care entries declined by approximately 26%. As we've heard, there are several reasons driving this, but it does underscore the importance of front end capacity to support prevention goals. That includes, for example, in Sacramento County. These funds, improve prevention by increasing the number of families who receive child and family team meetings to prevent foster care entry. At the same time, counties report increasing case complexity, including more investigations involving sexual and physical abuse as well as severe neglect.
So without continuing support, counties anticipate facing greater staff turnover and burnout, higher caseloads, delayed investigations, and reduced capacity. We are seeking a $20,000,000 one time to continue current funding levels, and thank Assemblyman McCraw for her leadership. And as the agenda lays out well, the fiscal cliff could not come at a worse time given the looming consequences from HR one. Sustained emergency response resources are critical to maintaining the funding capacity as HR one makes historic cuts to concrete food and health care supports that research shows, and I provided two recent bulletins, actually, just yesterday from the experts at Chapin Hall, which demonstrate the buffering effect of CalFresh and Medi Cal, and the removal of those and the effects that has the straight line to the risk of maltreatment, of investigations, and child welfare system. And I know that, we we know these numbers, but it's just worth talking about 665,000 people on Calfresh, 1,800,000 people on on Medi Cal, and just think about the progress we've made in reducing entries, the the boat stomping effect that that can help that that that can have.
Moving quickly to family flexible supports. Again, 100,000,000 was provided over over two years, providing county resources to stabilize family based placements that we all agree are are so important. This provides incredibly tangible and and concrete supports such as, in Tulare County, 10 caregivers were supported, for home safety by paying for improvements such as pool fence installation, the real things that we need to support the stability of of placements. In Sacramento County, respite services are provided to caregivers of 29 youth to support that stability. This funding sunsets on 06/30/2026.
A two year extension is what we're seeking just to extend the ability to to, utilize these funds that will support not only the placement stability, but ensure that we can utilize these funds to sustain the transition to the tiered rate structure. In particular, the types of costs, that the flexible family supports allows cannot be, sourced to any other funding stream and are similar to the types of costs that can be covered by the strengths building component of the TRS. And as families are being served, we do not want to have disruption, but instead have continuity of supports for children and caregivers. Thank you.
Speaker 8
Though. The other room, we are. On on the just a big picture note on the budget. There are no new proposals in child welfare, new new augmentations or new new reductions in the governor's proposed budget for the program. There is a year over year decline in the general fund of about 60,000,000, but that's really related to the expiration of one time funding that was provided last year, which will be items that you talk about later in your agendas such as bringing families home.
On the issue of disproportionality, our office has issued a report on that. It's about a year old now, but it's it a lot of the the themes are are addressed in your agenda here. We do find that it's a very complex issue that has existed for for many, many, many years, and it's there's not one, unfortunately, one policy solution that could solve it. And as you've heard today, the the administration has been working to address it from multiple levels. It's also beyond the Department of Social Services.
It takes sort of a multipronged approach, and it's even beyond the state level. There's, you know, local levels and nonprofits all involved in kind of addressing this issue, which is why the, the data that we spoke about that's available publicly is so helpful to all of us to be able to provide this oversight and be able to watch how policy, changes might affect the outcomes that we're seeing, especially in light of HR one where we know there are these changes. We know that concrete supports really the absence of concrete supports really do increase risk factors for families. So again, thinking about the publicly available data and the creation of our our new system and what we can learn and know from that to be able to ensure that we're able to exercise appropriate oversight. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Silham Manzoor, the Department of Finance. Nothing further to add.
Speaker 2
Questions or comments from committee members? So I wanna spend a little bit more time on just really understanding the outcomes as well of these young people. We spend a lot of time on whether we're decreasing the amount of population within the system, which is a good sign. But when they age out, what are what are their outcomes? I don't think we spend enough on that.
So I wanna spend a little bit more time on this, right, in terms of poverty rates, in terms of employment, in terms of housing stability, when they start families, are these families that are beginning cycles of poverty? Can you all share with me a little bit more on that in terms of, are we setting them up for success?
Speaker 3
I'll I'll start. So I wanna first emphasize that the vast majority of children and youth who enter into our foster care system do not spend dramatically long periods of time there. They reunify with their families or achieve permanency in some other fashion. Mhmm. There are, of course, a cohort of young people who do age out of the system, and we we appropriately spend a significant amount of time talking about their outcomes.
But I I just wanna sort of offer that larger context for the overall system first. With respect to the young people who do age out of care, I think deputy director Schwartz was referencing that more than a decade ago, we extended the age of foster care from 18 to 21 and allow people to come in and out of the system and to have greater flexibility as nonminor dependents in extended foster care, which has made a significant difference. But the bottom line that we were starting from when we entered into that policy is that they disproportionately experience all of the challenging outcomes that you referenced. Food insecurity, lower rates of graduation from high school, higher rates of homelessness, higher rates of incarceration, extraordinary challenges. And that is something that we have been working for decades to try to address both in the preparation for adulthood, in the support for them to achieve permanency and not age out of the system.
So sort of goal number one is that they shouldn't age out. But if they are aging out, it's the supports as much as possible. We just had a presentation this morning, from doctor Mark Courtney, who is now at UC Berkeley, at a transition age youth project, talking about, both how much extended foster care has improved some of these outcomes. So I'll give you two concrete examples that I have in front of me. One is that sixty seven percent of foster youth graduated in 2425, which is up fifth from fifty five percent in twenty twenty, twenty one.
Seventy three percent in a recent cohort earned a diploma or GED by age 19. And in terms of homelessness, twelve percent of youth reported homelessness in that recent cohort, is former foster youth for a few years, down from twenty percent in the prior cohort, but still
Speaker 3
So we are seeing improvements, and extended foster care is making a difference. Part of what doctor Courtney was emphasizing this morning is that what is especially successful is when we are providing, that extended foster care inclusive of, additional supports, like transitional housing programs or other kinds of more wrapped around supports in addition to the foster care payments and continued court jurisdiction.
Speaker 6
No. That's excellent, director. That's alright. That's nice. I would just add to that that I I I really think the point about that the kids that come into the system, they they do tend to not stay very long.
And it's a misperception to think that children stay and languish in foster care. Mhmm. As a as a rule, it does happen, but, that is not the norm. Mhmm. And so I think and as we as we again, as we move towards a child well-being system where we're trying to keep kids, you know, in their communities with their families that that I think we need to to that's a much wider swath of the population that we're going to be, you know, needing to to help and and to provide services for.
So I would also say that we do the work that professor Courtney has done that that that director Troy is talking about required a lot of of multiple data systems in order for us to answer the kinds of questions that curious about, like what are their long term outcomes with respect to employment or education and that sort of or use of public assistance and that sort of thing. And to do that, you've got to have data systems that you can link up and talk to each other. And we've done that with the transition age youth, kids, and I think we need to try to broaden that and and and and follow it prospectively for for all of our kids that that, frankly, that are involved with the child welfare system. But that takes that take it's a it's a heavy data system lift. But I do think that our new data system that we mentioned, hopefully, will will help facilitate that by being more, up to, you know, more state of the art and have data exchanges that are better than that sort of thing.
Speaker 2
What are still some opportunities to that we should be thinking about to continue to increase positive outcomes for these children?
Speaker 5
I mean, I think the reforms that we have underway right now are those positive opportunities. First among them, the tiered rate structure that is set to implement Mhmm. Next summer, and we'll talk about that more on the next panel. But that shift away from funding placements to really seeing and funding the needs of children so that they can be supported within their own families and truly remain connected to their relatives. I mentioned in my testimony that we haven't had the increases in first placements and predominant placements with relatives.
But structurally, our system is not set up right now to truly support those families, particularly as the intensity and acuity of needs increases because the funding is trap tied right now to the placement setting. And the only place where you can get the highest level of services and funding is in institutional care
Speaker 5
Not within those families. And TRS fundamentally shifts all of that and makes those investments directly in families. I would say the prevention work that we're also doing is also really fundamental to these reform outcomes and to shifting those long term outcomes. So focusing on how do we support families before removal ever becomes necessary and really understand what the needs of those families are. The implementation of our block grant, the Family First Prevention Services dollars, has been really instrumental in that work.
And then soon with the with CARES coming online, we'll also be able to start drawing down those $40 for those prevention services. Anything you would add?
Speaker 6
I would just add to what what deputy Schwartz is saying around the prevention piece. And as we're again, we're trying to keep kids safely in their communities, So we need to identify what are their needs. What are the what are the presenting complicating factors that these families that right now they come to child welfare for substance use disorder and and mental health and and domestic violence related things and poverty related things in in inadequate housing, that kind of thing. We need to identify those factors as best we can and then identify what are the what are the services in the communities that we need to connect this population to. And so what I'm getting at is that as we as we build this community supporting network, we need to work with our community based organization, network of people so that we can coordinate, do same kind of data understanding of what slots do they have to help what populations in what areas so that we can direct the populations to those places so that we can get the families and children the services they need so that the the situation does not you know, risk levels don't go up, then they eventually come to the attention of the child welfare system.
And that is it's possible. It's it's a it's a big lift, but I think I think with data systems being what they are now, there are some I think that it's a possibility to to build such a system, but it but it would take it's it's gonna take some resources and some some good, solid thinking.
Speaker 2
A part of my thinking is always, as we already have things in the works, totally know we're doing we have some great things in the works. Still still baking it, baby. Right? But are there some seeds we could be planting for that next thing? Right?
Because I I don't think we can ever have a gap in continuing to try to get to get better for these young people. And so are what are some seeds we could be planting now, while we're still baking the rest of the stuff? Right?
Speaker 3
So I guess I I wanna harken back to our reference to the, for example, the Disrupting Disparities Advisory Committee. So this is a dedicated body of community members and lived experts and professionals in the field who we have pulled together from the department with the ask to have that conversation and to think about, in particular, with respect to disparities for African American children and youth Mhmm. What are we missing? What what's working well? So what we often are trying to do in the vein of what you're describing as well is to lift up the best practices from any individual county or jurisdiction elsewhere in the country and to really try to bring those to scale across the state and to raise information about that.
So some of it is about new investments. Some of it is about embedding what we know works and works the best, and really disseminating that information and making it more consistent.
Speaker 2
What are we currently doing right now to assist counties in building that community support system?
Speaker 5
I would say the ConFirst accelerator pilot is one example of how we're trying to sort of think about how do you really prioritize and support children within their own family systems and within their own communities and in their tribes, and how do we increase the number of children that have those first and predominant placements with relatives. So we have eight counties that were selected to be part of the KinFirst accelerator pilot. It's a partnership with, UC Davis and Casey Family Programs and Think of Us and our, we've got lots of folks in our division as well that are working to support those eight counties. And each of those counties, it's an accelerator program. It's called that because we're using data in those counties in order to identify sort of where are there the greatest areas for opportunity, so those seeds, as you referred to them, chair Jackson, and which one do we really want to invest in and figure out how to innovate around in order to accelerate the outcome that we're trying to accelerate.
So for most of the accelerator counties, it's first placements with relatives and really trying to accelerate the rate at which we've got children who are experiencing that very first placement with relatives. But the strategies that each of the counties will use will really be dependent on their unique workforce and their culture and their community and the supports. And so it's very much embedded in, like, what is needed here in this county, in this jurisdiction in order to make the meaningful change that we're trying to make. So we're really excited about the work of the accelerator. We're only about a year in.
So we've launched in each of the eight counties, but they're all in sort of that design phase, designing those implementation strategies.
Speaker 7
Just to quickly add on county support and appreciation for the accelerator and their and their positive experience with it. The initial data are are strong on default patients with family. But, obviously, it's still underway, so we'd be glad to follow-up. Just a couple other thoughts, you know, given the this these other questions. You know, improving educational outcomes, moving upstream, you know, obviously, children can be moving and experiencing some instability in schools, so thinking about ways to to strengthen that, as well as, improving, community based supports.
Obviously, CalAIM is is helping with housing, for youth, but there may be other things that we can think through in partnership with with the state and new, for more seats. So thanks for these questions.
Speaker 2
Does does the emergency response funding or the flexible family supports help in any of this?
Speaker 7
So it we certainly have seen that it's strengthening placements with with family, both to support the caregivers and and the children. And while it's the that's in the flexible family supports. On the emergency response side, while it's certainly not the same thing as mandated supporting the community, mandated reporting to community supporting, It is making sure that the the staff have the bandwidth, the training in order to address families in crisis, connect them, if it's safe, with family resource centers or other services from a prevention mindset. And so while it's obviously a Venn diagram from some of the questions you've had about, you know, older youth, right, and not all circumstances will apply, it's certainly helping support, the goals that the state just outlined.
Speaker 2
But it seems to me one of the weaknesses we still have in a whole I mean, obviously, seems to me one of the things we still need to focus on more on is building community capacity. Am I right in that?
Speaker 6
Yes. I agree with that, doctor Jackson, for sure. And I think we we we I think we have the the the I think the the work of the mandated reporting advisory committee is is a great coalition of folks that we have community based organizations. We have the California Department of Social Services, the Office of Child Abuse Prevention is is deeply involved with that. They have they've invited Berkeley to be part of the data, you know, help them think through the data issues, when I, you know, talked a little bit about some of the challenges with that.
But I think also to to to deputy Schwartz's comments about, you know, the implementation of things is we're we're a natural laboratory in California in terms of we have 58 different child welfare systems. And I do think there's some promising work, for example, in Los Angeles that they, I think, are a little bit ahead of the curve in terms of building a more this more upstream model. And I think there's some things we can learn from from the great work that they do there. Yeah. And so so I'd say I'd look to to that as as a as a possibility.
Mhmm.
Speaker 5
Did you also have a couple of organizations that I think are close to getting included in the clearinghouse for kinship navigation. So speaking to what you were saying about community resources, those kinship navigator programs, I think, are really essential to helping connect families to all of the different resources Mhmm. In their community. And then the work that we're doing collectively with the Department of Health Care Services on, implementation of the high fidelity wrap and then integrating that with the immediate needs program is also, I think, a great way of streamlining and making sure there's accessible supports for families. And the whole model of high fidelity wrap is to try to sort of not be a siloed system to bring in all of the different systems and community partners to support kids and families when they're in crisis with, of course, the goal being that that child gets to remain within that family and doesn't have to experience a removal or doesn't have to, you know, experience, you know, residential care or institutionalization.
So it's a real investment in how do we make sure that we have high fidelity wraparound that's accessible to all of the kids and families across California that need it?
Speaker 2
Data resiliency. We are seeing it in many other spaces, and you're correct, in terms of we've been relying so much on federal systems and federal reports that when they're gone, what do we do? Are are we also saying that, particularly in this space and this population, that there may be a need to continue to build our own capacity to really understand long term outcomes and things like that when it comes to the foster population?
Speaker 3
I think we are extremely fortunate in California to have a very robust infrastructure of data that we do collect and that we make public in a very transparent way, and we get analysis of that data in our partnership with UC Berkeley. That is not necessarily federally driven in a way. Like, they are not necessarily pulling back anything that we've seen yet on our capacity to do that. I think the things that were raised are more about the federal government pulling back on the data that they choose to publish Mhmm. Or that they emphasize in their infrastructure.
I like your term of data resiliency. I haven't heard that one before.
Speaker 3
So we are very committed to continuing to have that kind of robust data here in California. And unlike things like the CalFresh program where we've talked before with the CFAP program, we've talked before about our reliance on the federal government for, like, running pieces of it through their systems for the payment system, and that makes us very reliant on some of the federal rules. This is more about our state data systems and structures and UC Berkeley partnership. We are and we'll be talking in the future panels about, the rollout of our new automation system, the CWS Cares system later this year going live, and that will also be a significant improvement in our capabilities. So, of course, we will have to respond depending on what happens, and what the federal government does, and we don't know in advance what that is, but we are well set up, at this point, I would say.
Speaker 2
And then two more things. You're asking, CWDA, you're asking for a two year extension in terms of flexible family supports. So are you saying that the funding that is has still not been spent is sufficient and all you need is just additional time to continue to draw down from it?
Speaker 7
That that's correct. It's just a no cost extension. And I think, as has been said, it's it's an important bridge, to get to the the TRS, which we discussed later. But it's it's funding a similar type of of need that the strengths building component will also address once that's in place.
Speaker 2
Director, as you know, I've been spending some of the last two or three years now starting to work on the mandated reporting recommendations, and every year, I get a few scars going through the process. It it seems to me, because I do agree that we we need a more organized way to get to where we need to go in terms of these reforms. And it seems to me that just like I'm I see trailer bill language and other things on other issues regarding all the work that you do. I'm wondering if we'll ever start seeing any trailer bills coming that helps to implement some of the recommendations as well. Have you thought about how do we begin to operationalize the recommendation?
I I know there's some that requires a legislative solution, and I'm more than willing to continue to get some of those scars. But it seems to me that we could be more methodical about this. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 3
So we are very involved in the continuing work of the mandated reporting advisory committee, the outgrowth of the mandated reporting to community supporting Mhmm. Committee. There are frequent meetings and conversations among those folks. There's a a set of tri chairs who are now leading that work in committee, and it is an outgrowth of the child welfare council, which you codified in statute as a result of legislation, in support of the furtherance of that work. Mhmm.
We are doing the work on the revisions of, for example, the mandated reporter training that is well underway. So there are a number of recommendations that are in flight in terms of our work together with the advisory committee to implement. There are additional recommendations. There were 14, I think, total. So there are certainly many additional recommendations that we continue to discuss, some of which are administrative in nature, things that we can do on their own, others of which, as you point out, would take investment or, potentially statutory change.
Speaker 3
We don't have any proposals before you, but are always listening and willing to engage and have conversations about, ideas that people have.
Speaker 2
Okay. Anything else anyone would like to add before we conclude this panel? Members, you good? Thank you so much. I I really just wanna make sure that advocates and the children themselves know we're thinking about them.
Speaker 2
you. We we wanna do right by them. Yep. And I I have something that I tell myself, and I always say not on my watch. And so if there's more that can be done, I wanna make sure that we're doing it.
Mhmm. I wanna make sure that we're this is not just a business as usual thing because I don't think they should need a lobbyist to be able to make sure that they're prioritized. And so let's continue to go about that business appropriately. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
Sure. I really should have brought that. Issue number two is in is for the preparation of the tiered rate structure implementation. CVSS, you may begin when you're ready.
Speaker 5
Hello again. Angie Schwartz, deputy director for the Children and Family Services Division. And thank you for having this discussion today. I do want to connect our discussion on the tiered rate structure to the broader goals that we were just talking about in the last panel on how to transform our child welfare system into a true child and family well-being system. The tiered rate reform is a first in its it first in the nation reform.
It finally aligns our funding with what we know. Children do best when they remain with their own families, with their relatives, with their tribes, and in their communities. We talked about this in the last panel for far too long. We have tied our funding to the type of placement that the child is in, and TRS changes that by allowing children with the highest level of needs to receive full funding and services in family based settings, importantly, in the settings of their own relatives and extended family members. It also shifts us to a strengths based model.
Children are more than the sum of their trauma, and TRS finally invests in building and maintaining a child's strengths through a self determination model. And it also gives us a way to immediately see and respond to a child's actionable needs through the new wraparound immediate needs program, bringing together child welfare and behavioral health in a way that we've never done before. These are seismic shifts. TRS is a person centered, holistic approach and essential to achieving the long term goals that we just spent the last panel talking about. In terms of the status of implementation, we are on track to release all the foundational TRS policy guidance by the end of this year, which will allow us to focus the 2027 before the rates go live on the training, capacity building, and preparation of the workforce.
In terms of what might impede our progress, certainly, the broader fiscal climate remains uncertain and is a risk. Within this context, it's important to note that by addressing needs earlier and supporting children within their own families, TRS will reduce the time youth spend in care, improve outcomes for children and their families, and avoid those more costly interventions later. In terms of the question about cans and CFT timeliness, we do expect cans and CFTs to be timely by the end of this calendar year. We've added staff, issued updated guidance and fidelity tools, expanded training and technical assistance through the Cal Academies, and are focused on improving data entry, which we've identified along with our county partners as one of the primary needs for technical assistance. Regarding the readiness of automation, the tiered rate structure functionality within CWS CARES will have been tested and will be ready for launch.
This will include training of county staff, and it will happen before 07/01/2027. I'm happy to answer additional questions about the implementation of the tiered rate structure, and we'll now turn it over to assistant deputy director Wagner to provide an update on the CWS CARES milestones.
Speaker 12
Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. My name is Diana Wagner, and I am the assistant deputy director for Children and Family Division. By way of background, CWS CARES is an updated child welfare information system that has been developed in partnership with counties that is intended to not only meet the case management needs of the social worker, it will also be able to integrate data from multiple sources. Having data readily available will improve social workers' ability to make accurate decisions quickly and provide better services to families. CARES will also give back time to social workers, allowing them to focus on children and families, spend more hands on time with them, and ensure their needs are being met.
Additionally, CWS Cares will integrate assessments such as the child adolescent needs and strengths and the structured decision making tools, which will support increased participation from families and tribes to to drive the child family team, the case planning, and joint decision making throughout the life of a case. The system is now months away from going live, which is important as it will allow child welfare system to better support our social workers and improve services to children, families, and tribes across California. As we move towards implementation, we appreciate our continued close partnership with counties, including CWDA leadership and county directors. Thank you. I will now turn it over to chief deputy Hansard.
Speaker 13
Good afternoon, doctor Jackson committee members. My name is Brandon Hansard with the office of technology and solutions integration. I wanna address a couple of the questions that were in the agenda, as it relates to to, TRS. You asked what was the status CWS CARES and issues with statewide implementation. The CWS CARES project has completed b one initial development and is working to complete the quality assurance testing.
The project is currently conducting the end user scenario testing with county and state staff and continues to move forward with readiness activities for the plan go live October 2026. Specifically regarding the implementation and training efforts, in alignment with feedback received from ACF, the state moved to a reprocurement of implementation services rather than to increase the current contract. We we anticipate that contract execution by March. You asked a question about the pilot and whether there would be one, and if not, what risks are associated. I will say that there will be a production simulation phase now to allow counties, the state, and tribes with a California Title IV E agreement to practice their work, to test, and to conduct organizational change readiness activities within the system.
This approach supports all users for approximately a five month readiness window rather than the original pilot strategy, which was only five counties for a six week duration. The production simulation allows users to test with legacy system converted data, test system interfaces with external systems, and allows for the project to conduct the performance testing with actual users to see how the system reacts. This allows the project to train and prepare end users for the new system while simultaneously identifying data conversion or performance issues that would need to be fixed prior to go live. The state believes we reduce our risks for go live by offering this more expansive approach to preparing all users for go live through production simulation. We also avoid the technical risks of a pilot that required real time data synchronization between the legacy system, CWS CMS, and CWS CARES, thus reducing the risk to child safety that would have been present during that six week pilot.
We are confident that our users will be more prepared for go live with the production simulation approach. I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 14
Good afternoon. Carlos Marquez on behalf of the County Welfare Directors Association. The successful launch of TRS is predicated on two precipitating events, that that CARES goes live smoothly and, without delay, and that the legislature and the administration fund the appropriation necessary to implement TRS not piecemeal but comprehensively. Implementing just one of these generational changes to the child welfare operations in California would be transformational on its own, but the fact that TRS is being implemented concurrent with CARES go live and at the same time as HR one implementation is understandably being met with some anxiety by counties. But there is also an equal sense of opportunity that when we emerge on the other side, we can finally retire a legacy case management system that no longer serves our kids, our families, and the needs of our workers.
Speaker 2
I thought you were gonna say you'll be retiring once it's all done. We'll see how it goes out. I was like, dang. That's an announcement.
Speaker 14
With the implementation of TRS, we're gonna be positioned to better meet the individual needs of each child in foster care in their community together with or as close to their family as possible and with a renewed focus on minimizing the negative developmental impacts associated with child welfare involvement. TRS County readiness activities currently include making progress toward improving CANS fidelity overall and ensuring staff are up to date on the retraining the training, requirements related to CANS and CFT fidelity. Yeah. We're also working with the state, philanthropic, and other partners on capacity assessment. However, it's important to note that until we receive additional state guidance related to key TRS provisions, county planning can be challenging in the near term.
In terms of concerns that we continue to discuss with the state, counties remain concerned about the possible gaps between existing service delivery capacity and the eventual demand for intensive services, including high fidelity wrap, but also other services outside of wrap, like, family finding, for example, or respite care or specialty mental health services that are non wrap. Additionally, because CANS doesn't effectively measure the needs of medically fragile children, counties remain concerned that their resource families may receive less than, under the current rates. Furthermore, for counties that are currently administering effective programs at reducing the involvement in congregate settings for youth and children, it's unclear how these programs, like intensive services for foster care, will continue. CWDA continues to request that counties have access to the latent class analysis data so that we can identify cost and service gaps in preparation for TRS implementation. As I mentioned earlier, TRS is predicated on the successful launch of CARES.
Delays in access to needed information in CARES can be dire to child safety. CARES is significantly different, it should be noted, than CWS CMS. This is the system that workers have been used to using for thirty years. Because the stakes are so high with this conversion, we are actively in communication with our partners at CDSS and OTSI along with our child welfare leadership, and we're messaging an all hands on deck approach to counties so that we can maximize full participation of all counties in the production simulation that our colleagues mentioned. So thank you for the opportunity to detail how the state and counties are partnering to ensure TRS is implemented and that CARES can go live on time.
Speaker 8
Thank you. Just a a technical note, really, as mister Marquez noted, the, the appropriation for the tiered rate structure, it is subject to an appropriation by the legislature. And as such, it's our understanding that those numbers that we all heard from the administration in January about the size of the structural deficit in the out years, they do not yet include the cost of the tiered rate structure in those. So that's just something to keep in mind is that the sort of default is that it is subject to an appropriation by the legislature. And so as such, I think we, and they're laid out in your agenda, post some questions for the legislature to ask about what that means if if the appropriation is not made by the legislature.
Clearly, the administration and counties are are going forward despite this uncertainty. An enormous amount of work is being done to prepare for the tiered rate structure. So, what happens to those resources? Currently, the implementation is phased in over three years. Is there a different phase in schedule that the legislature could consider that would not cost as much initially, or are there different components of it that could be rolled out first?
So these are the some of the questions that we pose as you think about these out year implementation effects and the costs and how they work with the structural deficit numbers that you're hearing now.
Speaker 9
So, Hemans, we're the Department of Finance. So currently, the administration does not have a proposal to change the implementation approach. The governor's budget maintains the funding to continue implementation activities leading up to the implementation date of 07/01/2027, should the funding be appropriated, but we will defer to the department now if they have any additional information to share on that.
Speaker 2
I understand that it's not a part of the governor's budget proposal, but, obviously, we have some sense of what this is gonna cost us. And it'll be nice to know that now as someone who's going to
Speaker 5
That full implementation, the latest multiyear, and the full implementation doesn't happen until fiscal year twenty nine thirty, but it's projected to be about 890,000,000 a full implementation.
Speaker 2
Okay. Thank you for that. Be before I I continue on with this, I was supposed to do some stuff from the last panel. So, director, this is just me having to say this, and then we'll follow-up. L and LAO.
Obviously, we want to make sure that we have feedback from the county's request and they made two requests. One is the 20,000,000 for the emergency response and then the second one was the two year extension for the flexible family spending. And I believe those are the only two that were within the request. And so let's just make sure we get the we would like to have that feedback, please, before the my goal is to see if we can get this written by the in writing by April 6, definitely before the May revise. Oh, you you didn't have to.
I was just, you know I'm
Speaker 3
not sure how much more we'll have to say in writing besides what I would say here verbally. So if it's okay, I'll just go ahead and and say some of that now, which is to say that, as you are aware and, have noted, we don't have any proposals to to, accomplish the things that are presented by the county welfare directors association as options for you. Mhmm. That said, you know, it is our understanding that the funds have been used as intended and have served the intended purposes and are serving the purposes that they were initially set out for. So I don't know that we have any particular technical assistance for you Mhmm.
Outside of really indicating that it's a question of ultimately, and I'll defer to finance for this, but ultimately of the sort of general fund cost of providing those.
Speaker 2
Did we see positive outcomes from the emergency response program? We utilize I those don't that
Speaker 3
we yeah. I don't know that we have specific data that we can track, and maybe the counties have more that they could add. But we are aware of the needs that they indicated and the degree to which they indicated that this would assist with caseloads and capacity, of workers and, understand anecdotally from them that it has served that purpose.
Speaker 14
Yep. I would agree with that, and I it's important to note that while our caseloads have reduced overall the acuity and complexity complexity of our cases during and after the pandemic have actually worsened significantly. The types of cases that we're seeing are, you know, in no uncertain terms, fairly egregious and are taking a great deal of of staff time. So some of the strategies that our counties are putting in place are not just hiring new, new child welfare units, but also making sure that the existing investigative units are being properly compensated so that we can retain them in the first place. The turnover for these staff is the highest of all staff within child welfare departments.
So we are seeing positive signs. I think we're seeing improved redirection to CBOs when necessary. We're seeing, improvement in terms of Kin based placements when we can make them. And because of sort of those incidental the one of the incidental benefits, I think, is also reducing some of the disproportionality that you discussed in your last panel.
Speaker 14
some specific county data. I think we actually have a Riverside case study that we can share with you as well and statewide data.
Speaker 2
It'll be good to make sure that you're sharing that data with all of us so that we can make an educated decision. I'm imploring to be supportive, but I do agree, you know, having data will be very important to be able to make any final decisions on that. Where there's also the no cost extension in terms of flexible spending. I mean, is that do you find any red flags with that in terms of being able to continue on with funding that's already been allocated?
Speaker 16
Yeah. Department of Finance. Hopefully, you guys can hear me. Yeah. I I so we're aware of the request.
And I I think, like, we we we're open to continuing conversations with the legislature on these requests, but I think we would just as with any, like, new proposal that would roll result in general fund costs, we would just flag that there's gonna be some general fund trade offs within the budget Mhmm. As we work to we continue working to approve a balanced budget.
Speaker 2
Well, if you can share with us what those trade offs could be and any other additional information on the two year extension, we would we would like to do that as we begin our discussions on this.
Speaker 14
I think it just to to, I think, reemphasize why we believe that an extension of spending for flexible dollars is essential to a bridge to TRS is because the strengths building component with the team within TRS, we're gonna have to educate families about the fact that these enrichment dollars to support the, you know, the well-being system that we're trying to build, that they exist. And Mhmm. Families aren't gonna know off the bat how to access those dollars. So the dollars that we're asking for an extension on are essentially a a proxy for how well the strings building component will be utilized. If we don't start demystifying the availability of these enrichment dollars now, then we're gonna have to start from the beginning when we launch TRS, hopefully, on the strings building component.
Speaker 2
Awesome. Okay. That's enough of that. That was more than I even thought it was gonna be, but we'll continue that. Just know that we are this committee is taking those two requests seriously, and so we wanna make sure that we have some thoughtful and thorough discussions on it moving forward.
Thank you about on that. Let's come back to this panel in terms of the TRS. First, committee members, do you have any questions or comments at this time in regards to TRS? Obviously, it seems like TRS in terms of all the technical things and all the foundational system things seem to be on track. We are now in the stages of making sure that it's working as intended and all those good things.
Tell me about I believe you also said that the CANS assessments and the CFT meetings, making sure that they're occurring on a timely basis by July 1, we're on track with that as well.
Speaker 5
It's really our goal to have them occurring timely by the end of the calendar year, so December this year, because it's really important that we have that lead time between January 27 and July 27 when the tiered rates are set to go live, that we've got the CFT and the cans happening, that we're actually able to sort of train and ready the workforce and all the other components of the tiered rate structure. And CFT and CANS are really foundational. That's the way in which we identify which tier the child will be assigned to and what their strengths and their needs are. So there's a lot of work happening right now. We are fully staffed up.
We hired a new unit within the department in order to do that Mhmm. Fidelity work with the counties.
Speaker 2
And CWS cares. Obviously, as we are moving forward with that, is there gonna be any piloting involved before we do full wide?
Speaker 13
No. So as I mentioned, with the phase of production simulation, we are looking to actually have a production like environment made available to all users that would be available to train in, to see how the data migrates from CMS, to see and prove out any of the scenario testing that that the end users would be using so that there's a high level of readiness and the ability to know that the system will perform by the time we go live. That's the approach that we are taking.
Speaker 2
And when we think about the tiered system, obviously, there I remember last year when we had talked about this discussion that there seemed to be some concerns from our ear from our providers in terms of how the tier rates will go, whether it will be enough when we're making the assumptions in terms of base funding versus the additional funding based upon the population and the needs. Have we gotten closer with advocates and providers in terms of understanding whether it'll be enough and so that as we transition that we are actually not putting ourselves in the position where we might lose additional providers when it comes to these items?
Speaker 5
I would say that we are we are continuing to work on that. The tiered rates are an investment. It's an increase in funding almost across all categories. Right? So it's an increase in the care and supervision for children.
Most of our kids in our current system are receiving the level of care funding, and most of them are in LOC one or two. So tiered rates provides more support for a 100% of those kids that are in LOC one, two, three, or four. So in terms of the entire level of care system, serves the vast, vast majority, more than 90% of kids in our care, the tiered rates are an increase for the caregiver themselves in terms of the care and supervision component. And then keep in mind, the tiered rates also then provides two new sources of support for that child and that family, which is the strength building dollars, is all new. We've never done that before.
We've never had a source of dollars directed exclusively towards the enrichment activities of the young person and then the immediate needs program, which is serving the kids with a higher acuity of needs starting at tiers two and then continuing in tier three and three plus. And those dollars will be combined with the Medi Cal high fidelity wrap dollars. And so the dollars that are associated with that investment in our budget are actually not the whole of what those how we're funding the needs of those children because you have to add the high fidelity wrap component to it as well. And we've had really productive conversations with the associations and advocates as well as a lot of real partnership with our partners at Department of Health Care Services and how we're building that wraparound immediate needs program to make sure that it will be fiscally viable and be able to actually really meet the needs of the kids that have those that that higher acuity of needs in tiers two and three and three plus. So I would say the number of conversations that we're having is exceptional, and we are in constant conversation with our partners through listening sessions, through work groups, through meetings.
We have a steering committee that I think was mentioned that includes public and private and philanthropy partners. So we are trying to sort of think about this through all of the different angles as we approach implementation.
Speaker 3
The one thing I would just add to those remarks is that you had asked us to look in greater depth at the costs of providing services to young people who have a higher level of needs and what services and supports they do need. And we did take that look both ourselves and with a contractor and in quite a bit of engagement with providers themselves and with a variety of stakeholders, and we submitted that report to you in January. So it's another resource to look to for that additional detail on sort of spelling out what the needs are and how that overlays onto the tiered rate structure.
Speaker 3
The conclusion of that report ultimately was that when these things are all layered together, contingent on that high fidelity wrap rollout from DHCS, that it does meet the the needs that are outlined in that report. So
Speaker 14
And we we've been as as as deputy acknowledged, right, we've been in in what the exceptional, level of of conversation with in terms of frequency and and levels of of conversations, broad stakeholder. I'm proud to be a part of the steering committee on TRS. But we do know, not just us, some of our partners, the Alliance, you'll probably hear from during the next panel. We have ongoing questions about the cost analysis that, was legislatively mandated and that that was delivered to you in in January, particularly around the funding adequacy of TRS when it comes to, STRTPs. The analysis, it's our understanding that it was based on a sort of a minimum licensing standard.
And so if we really wanna make sure that our kids who are in STRTPs are are in, you know, that care for as short and an intensive amount of time possible. I think there's questions about the standard, the licensing standards that were used as a basis for rendering that cost analysis, and we look forward to continuing to work with our partners at the state to understand more.
Speaker 2
Which is a perfect segue into our next panel, which is issue number three. Thank you very much for this panel.
Speaker 5
Hello again. Angie Schwartz, deputy director of the Children and Family Services Division. I want to start in our discussion of the critical issues facing the STRTPs and FFAs by noting that our foster family agencies and short term residential treatment programs play a critical role in California's continuum of care. Based on the most recent point in time data from October 2025, about seventeen percent of youth are placed through an FFA and about three percent are NSTRTPs. The expertise of these providers in supporting youth with complex needs will remain essential as we move to implement the tiered rate structure.
We anticipate these providers will be able to better serve a broader range of youth by expanding their services to better support children living with relatives and with extended family members as well as serving the youth that are within their facilities. In terms of the report that we were just discussing and that's also referenced in the agenda, after the enactment of the tiered rate structure, the legislature required CDSS to complete an analysis of the needs of youth in tiers two, three, and three plus. We worked with the Center for Innovation and Population Health, the public consulting group, and the Public Works Alliance to complete that report, which was submitted in January 2026, so just a couple months ago. The immediate needs analysis focuses squarely on understanding what the needs of those young people are, what services most address most effectively address those needs, the factors that drive additional supervision, the reasonable administrative activities that providers must perform in meeting those needs, and the cost of meeting those needs. A core principle throughout TRS that we've been discussing in each of the last three panels is ensuring that the child's needs can be met in any setting.
This is essential to allowing to the goal of allowing children to live within their own families and not tying the services or funding to any particular placement type. To deepen our understanding of the youth in those higher tiers, as I mentioned, we partnered with the Center for Innovation and Population Health, and they conducted a fractured analysis of the IPCANS data. That fractured analysis identified subgroups of youth whose needs cluster together and helped clarify what supports were required. We also convened an expert panel to help us interpret that data, identify what the unmet needs are, and recommend the services that would need to be in place in order to meet those needs. The panel found that high fidelity wraparound is the most effective foundation for meeting the needs of youth in tiers two, three, and three plus because it's a holistic cross system teams based approach.
Financial modeling also showed that coordinating wraparound with the immediate needs program is effective and sustainable when Medi Cal is maximized and the flexible funding is preserved for the non Medi Cal services. In terms of the insurance crisis, CDSS continues to engage sorry, to engage with foster family agencies, counties, consumer attorneys, and the California Alliance and the Department of Insurance to address the long term insurance availability and affordability. We have about 7,500,000.0 left of the 31,500,000.0 that was allocated last year to support the FFAs, and the agencies are able to continue to apply for these funds through 06/30/2027 or until they're fully utilized. As of March 3, 28 FFAs have closed. Importantly, all of the active homes that were part of those FFAs were successfully ported to either another FFA or to a county, preventing placement disruptions and allowing those families to continue to support those children.
Once TRS is implemented, foster family agencies will also receive administrative funding tied to the use tier that are aligning the resources and the needs. That shift funding the following the child as opposed to the placement type, will significantly strengthen the financial stability of FFAs and enable them to serve the full spectrum of youth's needs because those administrative costs are much higher for well, for all kids, actually. So starting at tier one because it's higher than the level of care administrative rate for FFAs. And then also within the tier three and the three plus, it's a level of administrative funding that has never been available to support youth and FFAs before because that level of funding has always been reserved for us TRTPs.
Speaker 18
Thank you, chair, and good afternoon. Thanks for the invitation. I really appreciate it. My name is Pete Weldy, and I'm the chief executive officer of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. We represent more than 200 accredited nonprofit community based organizations around the state.
There's at least one of our members in every California county. Our members are indeed foster family agencies. They're also short term residential therapeutic programs, STRTPs, transitional housing programs, nine eighty eight call centers, family resource centers, behavioral health programs, and much more. And they, of course, all serve the most vulnerable in our communities, including foster youth, youth in probation, and foster and adoptive families caring for those youth. These organizations are critical partners to counties.
They help place families or place children in family settings and provide residential care when the youth need additional care and stabilization. The alliance is in complete alignment with the state's vision that's supported by research that outcomes are better for children when they're with their families. We strongly support the state's efforts to place children in a family setting, strengthen wraparound supports, improve outcomes for youth with complex care needs, and align funding to ensure children and youth get whatever they need when they need it. At the same time, sometimes children and youth with the most complex behavioral health needs need and may require a short term stay in a residential therapeutic program. So our system must though preserve enough provider capacity to ensure every child has access to a safe license placement when they need it.
However, achieving these goals depends on whether implementation timelines and payment structures are workable for providers to accept and deliver these services. And I'll be honest, the chaos and cruelty at the federal level with HR one, combining the uncertainty of the state's efforts to reform its rate structure, combined again with the myriad efforts to transform the behavioral health system, all while provider organizations are dealing with an insurance crisis, is becoming too much for trusted nonprofit organizations who have been operating communities for decades. As deputy director Schwartz mentioned, 28 foster family agencies have closed their doors over the last two years. And just this morning, I should mention CalMatters published an article with the headline California's foster system foster care system is buckling under the weight of this unexpected cost. And, of course, the cost they're referring to is insurance.
And without action, community based providers will simultaneously lose temporary insurance relief, the 31 and a half million dollars, which we're so grateful for. It's made a huge difference, while transitioning to new rates. And for many programs, those rates are projected to actually be lower than current funding levels. All of this threatens the stability of the provider network that thousands of foster families and families across California rely on. And we do deeply appreciate our partnership with the state and with CDSS to find solutions both to the insurance crisis and continue to work closely together in all the forms that deputy director Schwartzman said earlier to make sure that TRS works for children and youth and the providers that serve them.
Thank you.
Speaker 17
Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and members of the subcommittee. I am Victoria Kelly,
Speaker 17
the CEO for Redwood Community Services, a multi service organization based in rural Northern California serving Mendocino, Lake, and Humboldt Counties. Through our FFA and STRTPs, we address local needs by building strong relationships with children, families, and county partners across child welfare and behavioral health. Our commitment to individualized services and caregiver support has led to remarkable results. In the past year, every child placed in an RCS home maintains stability without any placement disruptions. STRTPs like ours play a pivotal role in the child welfare continuum, providing safe and therapeutic environments for youth in need of stabilization before moving to family based homes.
If our FFA or STRTPs were to close, many youth, especially those with complex needs, would have no other place to go. Even with family finding efforts, we are unable to find family with the resources to support every child's needs at every step of their journey. Probation departments and county social social workers rely on our services to ensure that youth receive the necessary support to address challenging behaviors with the goal of preventing future placement disruptions and promoting long term stability. And without these resources, many youth would face multiple placements and ultimately, potentially homelessness. Nevertheless, FFAs and STRTPs continue to face significant obstacles.
Thank you for last year's FFA Bridge funding. Your support helped keep our doors open, though ongoing challenges with insurance costs remain. Without a long term fix to the insurance crisis, me and many colleagues may need to make the very difficult decision to close our doors. The complexity of our work is further compounded by TRS implementation. This payment shift threatens our ability to offer critical services, retain staff, and fulfill regulatory obligations due to the insufficient reimbursement structure.
If left unaddressed, the current TRS structure could also force FFAs and STRTPs to close, further limiting access to community based care. Another additional challenge with TRS is in regards to wraparound immediate needs expectations. RCS is working toward high fidelity wraparound certification and maintains two contracts with two count or two counties. However, one county's ongoing decision to not contract wraparound services threatens our ability to meet requirements and raises concerns about whether a sole wraparound provider will deliver the best care for children and youth. In closing, I urge the subcommittee to recognize that FFAs and STRTPs are not optional.
They are essential. We are the sole FFA provider in one of our counties and the sole STRTP providing services to the three rural Northern California counties we serve. Addressing the impacts of TRS and insurance challenges is not about preserving our programs. It's about ensuring that children and youth in California have access to safe healing and community based care that make true permanency possible. And I think we all share that goal.
Thank you for your leadership in allowing me to speak today and share our perspective of rural providers.
Speaker 19
chair Jackson. Have a question for the department. So I understand that when you're you were doing the re tiering process for foster youth, you categorized seventy four percent of youth to be in tier one, the lowest tier of need. Right?
Speaker 19
Yeah. So I wanted to ask, what would your plan b be if this was an underestimation of the needs of so many foster youth? I am just quite surprised that 74% of them are in the lowest low cost tier.
Speaker 5
So it's it's an estimate based on the current CANS data, which was based on hundreds of thousands of CANS scores over a period of time. So some of those CANS scores were for the same child over multiple periods of time, And then we looked at the data. It's based on a latent class analysis.
Speaker 5
And it's it's very reliable in predicting the child's tier. However, we've talked about the fact that we are continuing to try to have timeliness of CANs and CFTs and make sure that all of the CANs data is entered into the dataset so that we can continue to analyze it. And as we do that, the distribution among the tiers may change. So there's not a set number that has to be in tier one or two or three or three plus. All of it is determined by the child's CAN score.
So it could be that as we get closer to implementation and we continue to run the numbers, we'll see the distributions changing because, you know, we'll have more data that we're basing it on.
Speaker 19
Okay. Well, since we are in the budgetary context, it's just important to, I think, a sense, to budget the maximum need rather than budgeting the minimum need for children. A second topic to be, this was brought up a little bit with the FFAs and the insurance aspect. You know, last last session last year, we also passed immunity for the FFAs. Do you believe does the department believe that extending the immunity from 2027 to twenty twenty thirty will stabilize the FFAs?
Speaker 2
I believe in regards to the insurance part of it, we still have dollars available for
Speaker 5
7,500,000.0 has not been spent yet or not been allocated yet to the FFAs, and they can apply for that through June '27.
Speaker 2
And you believe that will be sufficient to carry us through the next fiscal year?
Speaker 5
Well, that represents a pretty small percentage of 31,500,000.0 that was allocated for this year, and so those dollars are only available either until June '27 or until they're expended. And so we are continuing on a rolling basis to accept applications from the foster family agencies to apply for those dollars as their needs continue to arise.
Speaker 2
So one thing that I've I've learned that just because money is still available doesn't mean it'll carry us through the next fiscal year, and then we start getting reports that money is now gone, but a need still happens. Mhmm. So I'm trying to I wanna avoid that this time. And so I I would like to get some possible technical assistance, LEO, and also have discussions with the department and Department of Finance. How do we make sure that there's enough money available that we won't have an issue with and I know there's estimates and all this stuff.
We're not gonna get it perfect. But something tells me, because we're California, that 7,000,000 may not be enough. And so I wanna I wanna I want an estimate on what would be enough of a cushion realistically, to ensure that in going into next fiscal year that this budget is being is preparing for, that we'll have enough money for any additional needs that may arise. So I'm no longer accepting we have money still in the account now. I learned that last year.
I'm learning, baby. I'm finding out where them dead bodies are. I'll tell you. And I wanna prevent that from happening because we can't we we we gotta get it right on this one unless I'm wrong. This is pretty important.
Right? So let's make sure that we talk about that. I would love to get some technical assistance on that, both from the, from Department of Finance, LAO, and, of course, the administration, on that one. Obviously, there are I'm skeptical about the the wraparound because relying on the federal government. And so I'm wondering how how are we going to what is our level of confidence that are relying on the federal government in terms of drawing down dollars for wraparound will be there?
Speaker 5
I think that's partly a question for my colleagues at the Department of Health Care Services. I mean, we are in conversation with them about the integration of the two programs, and then they are really the experts on the Medicaid funding. So I would have to defer to them.
Speaker 2
I mean, I love the act in terms of innovation, and there's no doubt in sorry. I was about to get a little there's no doubt that there's no doubt that, we're leading the way in terms of innovation when it comes to these things and how we're trying to make sure that we're breaking down silos and utilize all the dollars possible. I'm worried, though. What is our plan b for this? And do you think we need a plan b?
Because that is meant to making sure that we're covering the full cost. Right? Do we you think we need a plan b when it comes to ensuring that when we're implementing tier structure and that we're covering the full cost of making sure these young people are getting the services that they need? What are your thoughts on on that?
Speaker 5
Well, so we have our investment. The immediate needs dollars are entirely state general fund investment. Right? So that's all new dollars in order to meet those immediate needs of those children. What we found in our analysis and we believe to be true is the most effective model in actually seeing and responding to the needs is through integration with high fidelity wrap.
And that the integration of those two things is going to, one, allow us to expand those dollars and leverage additional federal dollars, so make them go farther. But that also high fidelity wraparound as the model with or without federal Medicaid dollars, that high fidelity wraparound is the right model to actually see and meet the needs of, our children because it is that integrated model that combines, you know, different systems in order to meet the child's needs. And so we have our dollars, and we also have existing high fidelity wrap program, some of whom are not using Medicaid right now. And so combining it with that high fidelity wrap model, I think, is really what's essential, is building it as that wrap program. That said, it's also really important that some of the dollars remain flexible.
And so our proposal is not that everything get integrated into a wrap model, but that you also have some of the dollars set aside that do not have to be integrated and that can meet the other sort of flexible needs that come up in any individual child or family's case in order to really have that holistic model. So I'm not sure that there would be a plan b in terms of the model itself. I think you're asking about, like, the funding streams to support the model. And so I think, again, we'd have to continue those conversations with our Medicaid partners.
Speaker 2
Thank you for that. Obviously, when we are thinking about the rate structure, stakeholders continue to say that their assumptions are significantly higher in terms of actual cost of service delivery. Have we made any room in terms of trying to get closer and closer to the same projections or numbers when it comes to the financial models?
Speaker 5
So I think our cost analysis has shown, as we mentioned, that the care and supervision component of the rate is sufficient to meet the licensing standards for the STRTPs. And we're continuing to have conversations about how we arrived at that and sort of the numbers that were utilized, and so we'll continue to have those conversations and be able to share those as well. And then you've got the strength building dollars that are all new, and then the high fidelity immediate needs dollars, I think, is part of the conversation. That's really at the heart of what you're talking about, which is when and how are those dollars available to support the child within the STRTP. Because keep in mind, the the tiered rate structure is not built on current assumptions about how dollars flow and how we meet the needs of kids.
Mhmm. And so there is a shift in terms of how we're going to meet those needs and what our provider community will be able to do to meet those needs. So right now, the STRTP rate is a bundled rate that's only paid when the child's within that STRTP. But the tiered rate structure breaks it apart and says the immediate needs funding is one attached to the child and integrated into a high fidelity wrap program, which also means that our providers can serve kids with those dollars who are not placed through their programs, but can also serve them in relative homes and their homes of extended family members and tribes. And that's really key to the model is that we don't want a provider community that only serves kids that are within their facilities, that we want something that's building a team for the child, and then that team stays with that child even if their placement changes.
So even if they have to go into another setting, they don't have to lose everything and start over. And you don't have to say the only way we can get those services is if the child is placed in that setting, that we can actually bring those services to the child where they are. That's the whole point of the tiered rate structure Mhmm. Which also means the business models of our foster family agencies and our STRTPs can evolve and expand to also provide those services through those community settings and to actually be able to meet the needs of kids that are with their relatives and expand our ability to support kids in the settings where we know they do best.
Speaker 2
When we think about placement stability and the security for children and youth, what evidence supports the assumption that more families will step forward to care for higher acuity youth under the proposed structure.
Speaker 5
So I think we talk about that a lot as well. And a lot of folks I mean, I heard in in your testimony saying, like, we have a hard time recruiting families to care for the needs of for youth with more complex needs. We also don't have a system that provides funding or supports to the families when we are able to recruit them. So there's a complete mismatch right now in terms of, like, you can recruit a family, but the most funding that you're really gonna be able to provide for that family is usually within LLC one or two. Most of our relatives are not within the ISFC program.
They're not getting that level of service and support, because that's a place based rate. And so and there is no immediate needs program to support kids in relative homes right now, and there are no strength building dollars to support kids in relative homes right now. So you really are talking about a completely different world in which we're recruiting family members to step up and care for kids. So I don't know that it's that we're not seeing families that want to be able to care for their own family members who have a high acuity of need. I think they they don't feel like it's possible within the way that we've currently set the system up.
But if you have the care and supervision rate at the levels that the tiered rate structure allows so that you can actually take the time off work and really dedicate the time that this child's gonna need in terms of care and supervision, and you have a high fidelity rap team, and you've got strength building dollars, your ability to care for that child has fundamentally changed.
Speaker 2
Mhmm. It just seems to me that even when we are able to provide that new structure, I mean, that still is a lot of trauma to deal with. There's still a lot of instability to deal with. And so it just seems to me that we should also make sure that we have some additional contingencies for even those that say, hey, I know you're gonna provide me with this type of support, but emotionally and all that other stuff, we might need to still I may not still be able to.
Speaker 5
I think it's why high fidelity rap is such an important model that's part of this because you you can't do it alone. Right? Like we can't just turn on the care and supervision rate and say more dollars alone is what's going to enable you to care for this child. You need a team. You need that team.
You need that support. You need to be able to get the respite and the other things that you need. And so the integrated approach, all of the different components of TRS and how they come together to meet the needs of that family is really important. So I couldn't agree with you more. I think what you said is right on, and it's why we didn't just say we need to change the care and supervision rates.
When we looked at this and, actually, when we met with more than 40 work groups back in 2023, when we were looking at our current rate system and saying, what what doesn't work about this rate system? We heard that so loudly from people. Like, we need more like, one, the needs need to be linked to the child and not the placement. And two, we need services. We need a team.
These families need more than just dollars. And so those things were integrated into the tiered rate structure.
Speaker 17
Yes. Thank you. I just I I I agree with most of what the department's saying. I think the challenges for providers is the predication on the certification for high fidelity wrap as being part of that whole whole funding structure that we would be able to draw down. And I I think the challenge that many STRTPs and FFAs face is the continuous operational costs rising back to insurance, and even the discussion around, like, what The TRS rate structure is based on assumptions of our current LLC rate structure that already has shortfalls for providers.
And so we're we're we're setting it up from the get go on a on a system that is a shortfall for providers with additional expectation for providers to have an additional certification, which is going to have costs associated for maintaining that certification, maintaining staff training to be a high fidelity RAP provider. And I I think that that's a significant challenge for many providers. We are we have high fidelity RAP programs, but it takes a significant investment for us to maintain that. I don't think it's being considered when we're adding that expectation on to providers in the rate structure.
Speaker 5
that additional So two things I would say about it. One, we are convening a group to look at the licensing standards and the certification standards and the mental health cert like, and making sure, like, that there's not duplication, that we're streamlining. So I think that that work is really important to do, and it's underway. Mhmm. And then in terms of the capacity, I think we are also was mentioned in one of the panels, about to embark on a landscape analysis of high fidelity wrap and look at sort of what capacity we have across the state right now with an existing high fidelity wrap providers, and then what capacity do we need to build and to bring online.
So I think on both of those points, would agree that it's really critical that we make sure that that providers that want to provide those services can step into that space and that we have the capacity to serve kids. And so that capacity analysis is underway and and will be completed this year.
Speaker 2
And this seems that it might just be our new reality in terms of the volatility of the insurance market. How are we building in that instability now into our current rate structure and the rate structure we're gonna be going into? Right? Because it seems to me that emergence the emergency part that we're providing right now is just the Band Aid. But how do we build it into just our normal call course of doing business and our rate structures.
Mhmm.
Speaker 5
There is a work group that is meeting in order to discuss some of those long term in solutions, and it involves our partners at Department of Insurance and us, and it's I think it's being led by the California Alliance. And so those conversations are continuing. I think with regard to the foster family agencies, there is more admin dollars available through the tiered rate structure overall because the admin funding for the tier one youth is more than LOC one, two, or three. Right? So, like, it raises that for all of those youth.
And you also can get the admin dollars at tier three plus equivalent to the work that they're actually doing right now often and serving the youth with the most complex needs through ISFC programs. But we are we're seeing that many of those youth are probably going to fall into a higher tier and actually should be supported with a higher amount of funding. And so there is a rightsizing that happens with the tiered rate structure as well in terms of those admin dollars.
Speaker 2
What about the current system, though? Because the current system seems to not mean, it wasn't the current system wasn't prepared for this insurance craziness. What are we doing? When will we first of all, great that you're doing a working group with Department of Insurance. Absolutely necessary.
What's your timeline, though, in developing a long term structure, not just with the tiered rate system, but the current system that we're under under right now. Do you have a timeline when you're trying to wrap up this work to try to have a more long term solution to this?
Speaker 5
I'm not sure that I have a timeline per se. I mean, we are actively meeting and working to come up with those solutions.
Speaker 2
It seems to me that this might be one of those times where we need to start really kind of solidifying, like, a time when we can the legislation can get a report on what are the solutions for this. So I'm gonna ask LAO to kinda assist in some language on this in terms of having a report to the legislature on the long term solution to the insurance market fluctuations because I'm sure, and and, of course, more technical assistance in terms of but we also wanna know the feasibility of what is a reasonable timeline.
Speaker 2
I mean, we don't wanna do something that's unreasonable, but it seems to me we gotta conclude with this so that we don't come every year with, Do we got enough money for emergencies? -Mhmm. -For insurance. Right? -Mhmm.
I I wanna offer a little bit more stability when it comes to this so that we don't have to to do that. And so let's have further discussions about this. LAO, we're gonna probably need some assistance in kinda codifying some of these reporting back to the legislature on on this as well. Anything else? Am I forgetting anything?
Am I forgetting anything?
Speaker 2
I'm sure I forgot something, but we'll we'll continue to talk. Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2
And and thank you for all the work that you all are doing. This is a humongous thing. And thank you for the way you're handling it. Thank you for the vision of this. Let's let's let's let's bring this baby home.
Alright? I'm actually gonna skip to for issue number seven because I know you sure? Yeah. Okay. Alright.
I tried. God bless you. That's why I'm going through this. Issue number four, come on up. Okay.
CVSS, you may begin when you're ready.
Speaker 10
Right. Good afternoon. My name is Hannah Azamati, and I'm the deputy director, of the California Department of Social Services, Housing and Homelessness Division, or HHD. The Bringing Families Home program, or BFH, aims to reduce homelessness and housing instability amongst families in the child welfare system, including tribal child welfare systems. By improving housing stability, the program also intends to prevent foster care placement and support family reunification.
Nationally, BFH is one of the first large scale programs focused specifically on the housing needs of child welfare involved families. It provides family centered support such as housing navigation, case management, and rental subsidies. To to answer your first question in the agenda, BFH has no ongoing funding but has received two tranches of 92,500,000.0 in time limited funding in budget acts 2021 and 2022, which led to an increase in grantees from 23 in 2019 to 78 now. Counties and tribes spent several years building up staffing and infrastructure before reaching peak scale in fiscal year twenty three, twenty four. That year, counties supported a caseload of 4,754 families that included 2,641 newly enrolled families.
Counties expended 56,800,000.0 in that year. Maintaining that level of service would require similar annual funding as was expended that year. To the second question on the agenda, where is the program faltering due to infinite, due to finite resources? In terms of the impacts of receiving recurring time limited resources, county and tribal grantees have shared with CDSS that it is challenging to sustain staffing, local partnerships, and program infrastructure over time. Funding uncertainty has required some grantees to scale back services or narrow the range of supports that they offer.
For example, reducing the availability of emergency housing, reducing the length and duration and depth of rental subsidies, and cutting supportive services. These funding fluctuations can lead to service interruptions, disruptions for families, and reduce efficiency for programs as grantees must repeatedly scale programs up and down instead of focusing resources on serving families. To the third question as to what families will do if BFH funds expire with no new investment, I want to just provide background. As you know, that BFH serves a uniquely vulnerable population. A 2020 external evaluation of the program found that BFH families had substantially deeper child welfare involvement compared to other child welfare involved families and were less likely to be connected to homeless response programs.
Despite these complex needs, the program delivers very strong outcomes. In fiscal year twenty four, twenty five, BFH, participants exited to permanent housing at a rate of sixty eight percent. That's up from fifty seven percent the year prior, and that's compared to 35% on average across local homeless response systems in California. The BFH evaluation also found a 68% increase in family reunification for children in foster care at entry into the into BFH, underscoring the foundational role that housing plays in the lives of families that are in general, but also in particular as who are engaged with the child welfare system. Since the program has no ongoing funding, BFH programs would shut down as counties and tribal grantees exhaust remaining funds if there were no further investment, and more families could be at risk of prolonged homelessness as well as reduced chances of reunification.
Thank you for your time, and happy to take questions.
Speaker 20
Thank you. Thank you, chair and members. My name is Megan Van Sant. I'm a senior program manager with the Mendocino County Department of Social Services. On behalf of county child welfare agencies, we're deeply appreciative to you, chair Jackson, the members of this committee, and the legislature for breathing new life into the bringing families home program through last year's state budget act.
This funding provides critical housing interventions that prevent costly and disruptive foster care placements as well as enable children to return to their parents more quickly. I'd like to share a real life case history that illustrates just how critical and effective this program is. In October, social workers responded to a situation involving a mother with three children living in an overcrowded and uninhabitable home. The house was dilapidated and contaminated by pests and mold, and the children were sleeping on mattresses on the living room floor. This household included a 16 year old girl struggling with a complex medical condition that has required multiple hospitalizations in the past three years, her 15 year old sister, who was pregnant at the time, and an eight year old brother.
We fear that neither of the teenagers have regularly attended school since the pandemic. We immediately gave the family temporary shelter in a motel and then secured permanent housing in a three bedroom apartment. Our BFH program provided a full house of furniture and ongoing rental assistance while we work through securing a family unification program voucher for this household. The two teenagers, and now the new infant, who was born last week, are now receiving support from the Cal Aim Enhanced Care Management Program at First five and the local health clinic. They're reconnected to their high school, and the household is enrolled in both CalWorks and Cal Learn.
This family has a long road ahead of them to get from surviving to thriving. But without BFH support, I have no doubt that these children would have entered the foster care foster care system, and a foster placement for these teens, the baby and their brother, would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find in our rural county. To the specific question on the agenda, our number one need is for funding stability, knowing that we will have continued funding year after year so that promises do not need to be broken to our families and relationships severed with our partners and contractors. In Mendocino County, the loss of BFH would halt the progress we've made with establishing a cooperative agreement with our tribal nation partners for families of mutual concern. Continuous resources also allow us to serve families longer when needed.
As you know, family reunification services can take twelve to eighteen months or possibly longer if we're also maintaining continuing to support the family through court ordered family maintenance services after reunification. BFH was specifically designed to address families' unique needs in child welfare. Without housing resources targeted to these families, they will be lost within the larger homelessness system that, frankly, prioritizes chronic street level homeless individuals without children. The household I described earlier would not be highly prioritized within the broader pool of homelessness services. What will families do if bringing families home funds expire with no new investment?
More children will unnecessarily enter the foster care system, and more children will have to wait longer to reunify with their families. Bringing families home is a wise investment, both financially and morally, on the part of California. Thank you.
Speaker 8
Nothing to add, but happy to help with any technical assistance you might need on this one.
Speaker 2
So I wanna cut to the chase on this one. This committee believes that this is an essential part of a twenty first century social safety net. We will not allow anyone to be a part of our social safety net or be or have to enter our social safety net simply because they didn't have the support that they needed. And so LAO and administration, we do wanna make sure, and and the critical number is this. How much, will it how much will it take to ensure, that funding levels will last the entire fiscal year.
I know some counties, they they ran out of funding before the fiscal year ended. We wanna prevent that from happening for the next fiscal year. What number will it take to ensure that all counties have the funding necessary, including any unmet needs that that would that there were possibly? How much would that cost us? And so I know that we might need to do some digging and speak more with our county partners on this, but we wanna make sure that we we right size this to ensure that that that this gets done.
Any follow-up questions, Elio? Thank you very much. Hold on. Did anyone have a question? Did you have a question?
Administration? You good?
Speaker 5
Hello. Angie Schwartz, deputy director of the Children and Family Services Division. Let me start by noting the intent of the proposed, trailer bill on the adoption assistance program out of home placement and wraparound services. The intention is to align with the continuum of care reform initiative which eliminated the use of group homes and requires youth in foster care to be supported within short term residential therapeutic programs or SCRTPs to provide standardized guidance for the requirements that must be met anytime the adoption assistance payment is funding either the out of home placement in the STRTP or the wraparound services to decrease the fraudulent use of AAP payments to clearly define the criteria for wraparound services paid by adoption assistance, and ensure that the providers who provide those services are meeting the high fidelity wrap certification standards, and to clarify that if a child and family reside in another state, a wraparound service provider in the child's state of residence may be utilized if the eligibility requirements are met. In terms of the overall reaction to the trailer bill, I would say that we engaged sessions in four listening sessions with stakeholders in August, September, and December 2025 to hear about what they wanted to see in the trailer bill and the trailer bill as introduced is largely reflective of the input received from stakeholders And so we are hearing a generally positive reaction.
There have been some requests to discuss or extend the sixty day transition period out of an STRTP to be a hundred and twenty or a hundred and eighty days as was noted in the agenda. I would say the other area where there's been significant discussion is on how to ensure that adoptive families can easily access the wraparound services without delay and unnecessary administrative barriers. This may be more of an implementation question than a question for the trailer bill language itself, but I would note that we share that goal and also would note the extensive work that we were talking about just a couple panels ago about how we're developing standardized and accessible high fidelity wraparound services across California through the development of the certification standards and also through the work that's being led by the Department of Health Care Services. In terms of specific areas where stakeholders are seeking changes, we're continuing these discussions with stakeholders about where we may need to refine the trailer bill. And in terms of outcomes expected, we expect children who are adopted to spend less time in congregate care, allowing them to heal within their families with strong wraparound support.
And with services like wraparound, enhanced care management, and other post permanency supports, we anticipate greater adoption stability and fewer disruptions before an out of home placement is ever needed. Happy to answer questions.
Speaker 23
Good afternoon, chair Jackson and members. Diana Voyer, County Welfare Directors Association. CWD generally supports the intent of the proposal to encourage short stays in residential settings when needed and to promote access to high quality in home wraparound services. We also support the staff recommendation in the agenda as we feel the language needs more work to ensure all adoptive families can quickly access appropriate services and prevent foster care reentry and retraumatization. This proposal builds on last year's trailer bills.
Unfortunately, some of the impacted families are struggling with the new restrictions because they cannot find intensive services for their adopted children returning to California. Once a child is adopted, county child welfare agencies are only mandated to authorize AAP payments. They cannot, they are not resourced nor do they have jurisdiction to case manage. Counties may see instances of children adopted at a young age but who struggle years later. For example, Orange County is currently trying to assist an adoptive family with a child who we'll refer to as Adam.
Adam was adopted at age seven. At age 13, he started to have concerning behaviors and received outpatient mental health services and medication support. But his behaviors quickly escalated. He began punching, kicking, screaming, and using sharp, inflammable objects to destroy property. Orange County's mental health crisis team, the mobile crisis team, tried several times to assist the family in their home without success, leading to the need for in state residential treatment for Adam.
However, post discharge, Adam became paranoid and violent, which led to an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. Then a knife episode at school sent him to a more intensive residential treatment setting out of state, where he continues to be physically violent. Adam's now 15, and his parents are desperate for assistance as the AEP out of state payment will end this July. So what does this particular case illustrate, and how might it inform the current proposal? First, neither our in state services nor these out of state settings served Adam and his family very well.
He is clearly struggling with his unresolved trauma. Second, California does not have the continuum of services that Adam and his family need. Psychiatric residential treatment facilities were designed to treat young people with highly acute mental health needs, but these facilities do not yet exist. They exist in other states, but there have been rightful concerns over the quality of care and oversight, areas that California's model will address. STRTPs can meet the needs of some youth who are less acute than Adam, but additional support is needed for them to ensure adoption focused and trauma informed care.
Third, we know that an adoptive family is likely to reprocess I'm sorry, an adoptive child is likely to reprocess their trauma in adolescence. Yet adoptive families feel unprepared, and our systems of care are not adequately resourced to support them. Lastly, last year's legislation required updating policies to support transition planning to home based services. The TBL doesn't accomplish this goal as some children will need more intensive home based services than wraparound can offer. Thank you.
Speaker 24
Thank you, chair Jackson and members, for the opportunity to respond to the AAP trailer bill language. My name is Chantel Johnson, and I am the directing advocate at the Youth Law Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization that works to transform foster care and juvenile justice systems so that you young people and families receive the support they need to thrive. For many years, Youth Law Center has worked with youth, families, and ad advocates and policymakers to address the harms associated with out of state residential placements. We helped lead prior efforts to prohibit the use of these facilities for youth in foster care because of the well documented abuse, neglect, and trauma children experience in many of these programs. And we were closely involved in last year's trailer bill language addressing the use of out of state residential placements for families receiving adoption assistance program benefits.
Through our work with youth who have experienced these placements, we've heard directly about the lasting harm many of the children have suffered in these settings. We appreciate the administration's attention to the needs of adoptive families and youth impacted by recent changes to AAP. As you know, legislation last year in the budget restricted the use of these funds for out of state placements. As a result, counties and adoptive families are now working to identify alternative supports for these youth whose needs previously led families to seek these care out of state. For many years, one of our core concerns has been that families who adopt children from foster care often left largely on their own to find services for children who have experienced significant grief, loss, and trauma.
In many cases, the services families needed simply were not available early enough or in the right form to support children and families before challenges escalated into crisis. For some families, turning to residential programs out of state was not a first choice. It was a last option they could find when the services their children needed were not available closer to home. It is also important to acknowledge that many of these facilities used by California's families have extensive histories of abuse and harm to children. We know that many youth returning from these programs were left with greater trauma than when they left.
No child should have to enter these settings and not receive the help they need. Children heal best in the families and communities and not institutions. Ensuring successful transitions home will require thoughtful planning and strong supports for both youth and their families. We appreciate that the proposed trailer bill seeks to clarify how AAP payments can be used for in state placements and wraparound services. Strengthening access to high quality wraparound across the state for youth receiving AAP is a positive step, but this proposal represents only the beginning of what these youth and families need are likely to need.
During our recent conversations with CDSS, the department shared that this proposal was not intended to address the full range of of needs of youth and families who relied on out of state placements. We appreciate their openness and their commitment to continue working with stakeholders on these broader issues. For Youth Law Center, the most urgent priority is ensuring that the youth re currently returning to California and their families have the services and supports necessary for successful transitions. It is critical that the legislature and CDSS prioritize learning directly from these youth and families who experience these placements. Their experience can help us identify the gaps in services that contributed to these crises and their early supports that it could could have prevented youth from ever reaching the point where residential care or even a wraparound appeared to be the option.
Thank you for your time.
Speaker 8
Thank you, mister chair. We're still reviewing the the trailer bill, in front of you here. We understand the the intent and and concept, but also understand the concerns raised today, and we see the staff recommendation to convene meetings to work through some of that, and we're happy to participate in those too.
Speaker 2
A couple of things here. Obviously, despite passage of the state law to establish the psychiatric residential treatment facilities, we have yet to be able to do so. Am I correct in that?
Speaker 5
I believe it's in the works Mhmm. With our partners at Department of Health Care Services to develop the standards.
Speaker 2
When do we do we have a timeline on how we're trying to because it seems like these are important facilities to have. I know it might take a while to kinda get some, get the skeleton together, but do you have a sense of when we should be expecting these facilities to be available?
Speaker 5
Again, this is the work that's happening within with our partners at the Department of Health Care Services. So let me check and I can I can get back?
Speaker 2
That would be helpful so that we can make sure that we're have a full grasp of expectations and those type of things. For this trailer bill, there are some concerns in terms of the fact that the AAP payments being narrowed to only being used for short term residential treatment facilities as well as the capping of the payments to no more than a twelve month cumulative period, the wraparound caps, those type of things. I I the social worker in me just says that whenever you have cookie cutter caps, someone's gonna get hurt unnecessarily because humans are on their own timeline. And so I'm I'm fundamentally opposed to just caps just for caps' sake. And so I would like to see some more work on that.
Also, there seems to be additional possible burdens when it comes to being able to access access wraparound services. For instance, the trailer bill requires adoptive families to search for providers, provide proof that providers meet certification and state standards, and enter into contracts with service providers. This seems that it could serve as a barrier for timely access, and so I want us to take another look at at that as well. Just with those concerns, this committee is going to be rejecting this proposal under its current form, but we are gonna be looking forward for the administration to convene some meetings on the trailer bill proposal just to assure that questions are answered before we make final decisions on this. I know that I mean, we've proven we can work through these before before it's showtime and after the May revise, and I hope we can get there.
Okay? That's all I have. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2
We will jump ahead to issue number seven. So issue number seven panel, come on up. And then we'll we'll we'll return to issue number six. That's a bit easier since it's my proposal. Issue number seven.
And this is a proposal to for tribally developed foster prevention services. And I think are the first ones to the first one will be the vice chair, miss Shakone. You may begin when you're ready.
Speaker 21
Doctor Jackson and members of the committee, thank you for hearing on AB fifteen seventy four today. I speak on behalf of the Pachanga Band of Indians, a cosponsor of the support of a b fifteen seventy four, and I ask that you support this bill as well. My name is Catalina Chacon. I'm a member of the Pachanga Band of Indians where I serve as a councilwoman. I'm here today as not only a councilwoman, but also my capacity as the vice chairwoman of the California Tribal Families Coalition, both cosponsors of this bill.
The Indian Child Welfare Act was passed over forty five years ago, and it is the most important civil rights law of the twentieth century for native peoples. I have been involved in ICWA work for over twelve years and was a champion of the legislation and work done to codify ICWA into state law. ICWA is incredibly important to me as a native woman. For generations, native women were taken from their families and communities, which caused deep harm to our cultures and identities. ICWA helps make sure that our children stay connected to their families, tribes, and traditions whenever possible.
To me, it represents protection for our kids and respect for our sovereignty, and it helps ensure that future generations can grow up knowing who they are and where they come from. I see the negative impacts in my community every day. Native children are still overrepresented in the California child welfare system at a rate of close to five times higher than that of white children. AB fifteen seventy four attempts to support the promise of ICWA, which is to prevent the breakup of tribal families by building on current law to prevent our children from entering foster care. Tribes are best positioned to do this work directly with our own families because we know how to provide programs that our families need.
Tribes are best positioned to efficiently deliver services that also support connections to our culture and our community. California has developed its approach to providing these new early intervention and prevention programs, but tribes have largely been left out. This is a serious mistake that AB fifteen seventy four will fix, failing to provide funding to tribes to do this work. And by only looking to community based organization and counties, we again fail those children most disproportionately impacted and involved in the child welfare system. Expanding the ability of tribes to provide behavioral health and parenting support services for those families at risk of entering the child welfare system will improve outcomes for our families, reduce the number of children going into the foster care system, and reduce the pressure on our already overburdened county systems.
The grant program created by this bill will ensure that can happen. Please join me in supporting a b fifteen seventy four. I thank you for your time.
Speaker 15
Hello, chair Jackson, assembly member Rogers. Thank you for having us today. My name is Michelle Castine. I'm a citizen of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians, and I'm coming to you today in my role as the co executive director of the California Tribal Families Coalition.
So I'm wearing both the hat of the staff lead representing 50 member tribes from across the state who have unified around issues that impact tribal families and as an attorney who's in courtrooms across the state pretty much every day and very much seeing the immense need that we need to invest in services prior to families coming into contact with the child welfare system to really prevent the impact that that's having. An investment in the prevention services and for tribes to provide prevention services directly is very much needed. We've heard from colleagues and other panels today that the child welfare system generally is moving in the direction of investing in prevention services and that there have been good outcomes to that extent. Unfortunately, tribes have largely been left out of that infrastructure building. And currently, only two of the 109 tribes, federally recognized tribes here in California, can access prevention services funding.
Fifteen seventy four, authored by Assembly Member Rogers, would fix that, and it would make funding available to all tribes to be able to administer their own prevention services funding programs. We know that investing in prevention services works. We've heard today that investments through the Family Services Prevention Act has driven down the rates of foster care generally in California by about 30%. And we know even more that tribally driven programs can have great success too. There's a program called the My Two Anties program.
It's a tribal program that the San Diego County Welfare Services invested in heavily, and they saw a reduction in foster care rates of their families of 98%. So almost no families entering into child welfare because that tribally driven and tribal consortium led program was working with families before they ever became system involved. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
Speaker 12
Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. My name is Diana Wagner, I'm the assistant deputy director for Children and Family Services Division. I am happy to be here today to talk about prevention services that support tribes. As the prior panels have emphasized, keeping families together safely whenever possible is a significant priority. This includes preventing child welfare involvement in native American for native American children and families
Speaker 12
experience some of the greatest disparities in child welfare involvement in all groups in the state. In terms of prevention services that support tribes, California's Family First Prevention Services block grant allocated funds to counties and tribes with California IV E agreements who chose to opt into the program. Both the Kruger and Yurok tribes have opted in and received an allocation to support prevention services. Once CWS goes live in October 2026, these tribes and any others that become tribes with California four e agreements may claim title four e prevention funds for prevention services that are included in the state's five year prevention plan. The department is also exploring additional options to support tribal prevention programs.
We recently engaged in formal government to government consultation with tribes to gain their input on the potential to develop a pilot tribal linkages approach, relying on existing funding that would support collaboration between tribes, tribal temporary assistance for needy families, and county or tribal child welfare. The goal is to increase family self sufficiency and prevent tribal children from entering foster care system through case coordination, connecting families to resources, and comprehensive services. The outcomes that we are currently seeing for tribal children include the following. The number of native American youth in foster care has been steadily decreasing over time. On 10/01/2015, there were seven ninety eight youth in care.
And on 10/01/2025, there were five thirty seven. This is a reduction of 32.7%. Placement stability among Native American youth in foster care has been fairly consistent between quarter four twenty seventeen and 2025 at between three to four placement changes per one thousand days in care. Placement with relatives among Native American youth in foster care has been consistent at approximately sixty three percent being placed with relatives between quarter four twenty seventeen and quarter four twenty twenty five. Exits among Native American youth in foster care has remained stable with an average of 9.4 exiting year over year for quarter four twenty seventeen through quarter four twenty twenty five.
Reunification with relatives and adoption among Native American youth in foster care has been stable between October 15 and September 2025, averaging 64% of exits over that period. The department is happy to provide any further technical assistance to the legislature or to explore additional prevention options with tribes through tribal consultation and any other forms of engagement.
Speaker 9
We would just like to flag that this is not an administration proposal. So notwithstanding the merits of this or any other proposals, any new proposals requiring new general fund will require offsets in other areas of the budget as we work together to approve a balanced budget.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. Looking forward to working with you all on that. Assemblymember Rogers, any questions or comments?
Speaker 25
Yeah. I'll just make a a couple of quick comments. And and first, I wanna start with, thanking the chair for his interest in this this topic, and for all of the work that he's done on this. As he and I have discussed numerous times, this is a huge issue in my district. And as we try to right some of the wrongs of California's history towards our our tribal governments that we partner with, we need to make sure that we're also continuing to stop the bleeding at the same time.
And we see that a concerted effort and a culturally relevant and responsive effort can, in fact, do that and address the overrepresentation that we see of tribal youth in our communities. And so I've been very proud to to partner with him on this as well. We did work on this last year. There was a bill that was vetoed. So the the proposal that's before us for for funding is responsive to the concerns from the administration.
And and we know just even from an economic and a budget perspective, is treating treating with, you know, preventative medicine before somebody gets to the emergency room in the social sense, that this will, over time, save us money in the state of California, and that it is responsible budgeting, and it's the moral and right thing for us to do as well. So I wanna thank you for for holding the panel. I wanna thank you all for your advocacy, and I'm very supportive of it.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much, Asalim. And actually, you know, it wasn't until at the end of last session that I even realized that there wasn't even a such program to ensure that we're providing enough support for our tribal brothers and sisters. And so after learning that, it just reminded me of the adage of, you know, asking some asking a bootless person to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Right? And the idea is is that we know, and my own academic studies show me, that culturally specific interventions is the platinum level that you can achieve, ensuring that, people are able to receive the interventions in a way that is culturally specific and in a way that allows them to get those services provided by their own community is the best practice.
And so it is our intention to ensure that not only do we continue to make sure that we atone for the the history that the state has done to native people. I think this is a moral responsibility that we have, and it is my intention that we deliver on those needs as well. And so we wanna thank you for bringing this to our attention, and there is nothing better that I think we can be using our dollars to be able to do. So thank you all very much, and we look forward to continue working with you throughout this process.
Speaker 2
And thank you very much Assembly Member Rogers for hanging in there with us. Now now you you know what we go through. Good to see you. Alright. Going back to issue number six.
Now let me just preface this by saying, that I really take seriously the notion, that, these children are our children in terms of the state.
Speaker 2
And so I'm always thinking now I never made the mistake of having children, but I assume that as a parent so inappropriate, I know. I remember when I turned 18 and my mom said, if you're gonna still live here, you're either gonna go to school or you're gonna work. And she did everything I could she could to ensure that she would support me into achieving those. I ended up doing both. But so to me, it seems like it's also our responsibility as a state to ensure that they are able to get gainful employment as well, especially if they're aging out of the system because they have no one else to help them with that.
And so this is my attempt to have a conversation and try to find a way that how can we make sure that if they if the young person ages out of the system, that they actually have employment to go through go to, whether it's an entry level state job or an entry level county job, how do we make sure we're setting them up for success in a meaningful way? Of course, they have an opportunity to say no, but it should never be where they can't find the employment that they need to, number one, have an opportunity to have health care. Number two, have an opportunity to start building re building on retirement. Right? Which is something we're all trying to do.
So let me just start with that and and, see if you have any comments.
Speaker 5
Angie Schwartz, deputy director of children and family services. I would just say that we greatly appreciate your interest in this topic and absolutely share the goal of facilitating employment opportunities and creating more professional pathways for foster youth. We do have a number of initiatives that are currently in place, and so I think that might be one place to start is looking at those and seeing where we can strengthen them. Those span activities of child welfare transition services and then also workforce and apprenticeship programs, education and training supports, and public sector employment pathways. So just to name a few, we've got our independent living program, which is all about employment readiness and career explore career exploration, referrals to work and training opportunities.
Our transitional housing providers also work with youth to sort of develop those career pathways. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Youth in America's Job Center for California are also locally operated workforce programs that provide that kind of job readiness. Importantly are the Chaffee education and training vouchers, which provide not just for support in community college and college, but also can be used for vocational training as well. We've got state hiring preferences for foster youth, and then we also have resource page. There's been an interagency apprenticeship coordination, which is a cross agency collaborate collaborative that is trying to align child welfare outreach with California's registered apprenticeship programs and services.
So that's underway. So there are things and then, of course, there's things that happen at the county and the community level. So there are things that are in place right now, and I think part of the conversation is how to strengthen those things and make sure that young people are actually able to utilize them. We could think about different ways to do that through expanding and formalizing paid government internships and apprenticeship programs, creating those structured career pathways within government, which I think is part of what you were just talking about, aligning government workforce programs with apprenticeship programs. I think some of those conversations are the conversations that are happening within some of these collaboratives.
I would also just note, and this goes back to the conversation that we were having in the first panel, that another one of the most impactful things that we've done for non minor dependent, for young people aging out of foster care, is not make them age out at So age that extension of foster care until age 21 had a significant impact
Speaker 5
On young people's ability to both go to college and enter the workforce Mhmm. And also increase the amount of earnings that they had. So we do see that just the ability to have stability and support in a place to live was incredibly impactful in terms of career and college readiness and actually entering the work force and taking advantage of educational opportunities. So I'll leave it there.
Speaker 2
Thank you for that. It looks like a lot of things that we can discuss and kind of mull around. I'm very excited by some of your ideas as well And what other collaborators have come up with and all those things, how do we bubble those up now to see if we can make some take things to another level. Elio?
Speaker 9
We just wanna echo our comments from the previous issue because those comments apply to this issue as well.
Speaker 2
Appreciate that. Thank you so much. We'll leave this. We'll continue to ask the department to work with my office to provide any TA on additional ways to accomplish this, and looking forward to the continued discussion. And we'll leave this issue open.
Thank you so much. Going on to issue number eight. We're already at eight? We might see the sun today.
Speaker 22
Yeah. Let's hope so. Chairman Jackson, thank you very much. Kevin Gaines, CDSS, deputy director for community care licensing. Thanks for the opportunity to, provide an update on licensing programs and our performance, including our status on backlogs, inspection timeliness, complaint response, and areas of ongoing continuous improvement.
Just to recap, for this committee, the, the, community care licensing mission is promotion of health, safety, community and quality of life for each person in community care through an effective and collaborative regulatory enforcement system. So overall, workload has stabilized under the, after the pandemic, And our programs and and just as an aside, being a a responder of last resort, especially in adult and senior care programs, we were deeply affected by by the pandemic and and infection control response, requirements. But our programs continue to meet key inspection mandates. Adult and senior care, children's residential, child care, and home care services programs have each made significant progress in maintaining inspection, schedules, improving complaint response, and supporting program capacity. So we'll start with, with backlogs and and an update on that.
So the adult and senior care program continues to work through a complaint backlog that began during COVID nineteen, using cross regional support, and there are about 14 offices across California, where those, those employees lend each other a hand. Workload balancing and over time, and and with those, we increase, complaint dispositions and reduce doubt those backlogs. Still struggling. The child care program doesn't have a significant, complaint backlog at all. In children's residential, we reduced the complaint backlog to, by 32% over the last fiscal year, 2425, and we expect continued improvement this year.
In home care services, which is a relatively new program, they've reduced complaints, pending more than ninety days, by, by 83%. Thanks to added staff. Thank you to this committee in particular for that. And process improvements. As far as inspection timeliness and complaint response are concerned, adult and senior care program met its annual inspection mandate for calendar year 2025.
Child care program exceeded its milestones, inspecting 63% of all its licensed facilities, although it's only required to inspect 30% of those facilities annually. Children's residential program met its biennial inspection mandate, and the home care services branch completed 700 inspections in fiscal year twenty four twenty five or about a third of its biennial requirement. And with recent staffing increases and more efficient inspection protocols, the branch expects to meet the full two year mandate starting in 2028. It's gonna take us a while to kinda get better. Across programs, complaint response times continue to improve, in children's residential and home care services.
We're also seeing shifts in facility growth trends. Adult and senior care facilities increased by just over 4% last fiscal year. Child care licensing continues to grow as well with a nearly 4% increase in facilities. As far as our, staffing, our vacancy rate is now 5.1% as of February 1, and the workforce stability there is really helping us, achieve our statutory mandates. Where do we need to improve?
So continuous improvement priorities for us include further reducing, adult and senior care complaint backlog, strengthening our ability to manage emergency related disruptions, and refining long term inspection strategies as programs grow in number and in complexity. For home care services, that's a specific target of mine. Stabilizing program funding and maintaining fiscal solvency remain our key goal. That's supported by increased enforcement and an 11% rise in licensed home care organizations in fiscal year twenty four, twenty five. So increased increase in in licenses means increased fees, which means, you know, additional revenues which support our operations.
And with that, thanks for your time. Happy to answer any questions you
Speaker 8
Thank you, mister chair. Just a note, there is a a question in the agenda related to the the home care fund. And we would just, note that we got that report last night. So we are currently reviewing it, and we will let you know if there's any issues to raise from that.
Speaker 2
Please let me know. Let's make sure we do a debrief on it. Department of finance.
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. You all I I'm reading here that 06/30/2025, you all stopped accepting new county contracted complaints. Is that still the case?
Speaker 22
So so as a part of continuing care reform legislation and policy development, 2015 to present, one of the things we ended up doing just in in in terms of context is my staff ended up, striking agreements with about 17 counties, including LA County and a couple of other larger, Southern California counties to provide the services that they're required to undertake under resource family approval, which one of which is dealing with complaints Mhmm. Of, I don't know, violations of of policy within within care facilities that are that were managed by counties. So we did that on contract on their behalf.
Speaker 2
responsibility. That no one's getting a complaint. It's that it's just okay.
Speaker 22
So so we we stopped taking new referrals back last last fiscal year. And this fiscal year, we've cleaned up all by July June 30, we will have cleaned up all the pending all the pending complaint traffic in our queue, and then those counties are ready to fly on their own.
Speaker 2
Okay. Are you gonna do any of quality control on that and making sure they're doing what
Speaker 22
We do have staff that that are specifically that are specifically involved in oversight and technical assistance to counties in running all phases of resource family approval, including complaint response and inspections, the whole nine.
Speaker 2
Alright. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Let's move on to issue number nine. DCSS, you may begin when you are ready.
Speaker 26
Thank you so much, chair Jackson, director Kristen Erickson Donaty, and chief financial officer Nan Chen, who will start our remarks.
Speaker 27
Good afternoon. So I'm just gonna kinda go through the questions. So the child support services child support services plays a critical role in supporting children in California and California families. Approximately 80% of our caseload is comprised of families that were previously or are currently receiving financial benefits through CalWorks. In 02/2324, the department collected $2,488,000,000 in support payments, which is projected to increase to $2,530,000,000 in 2627, an increase of $44,000,000 in additional financial support for California families, the vast majority of which, over 90% of child support collected, goes directly to these families.
The department and its local child support agencies worked tires tirelessly to provide the best possible results. Between 2022 and 2025, the average collection per case rose by 5.3% statewide, but most importantly, by 18% for families currently currently receiving CalWORKs benefits. We're working collaboratively with our parents to reach stipulated orders and seeing a 2% increase. We've reduced the time it takes to go from case opening to order establishment, improving by nearly 4%. Our collections through income withholding orders have increased by 6.2%, generating more consistent, reliable payments that families can depend on.
For our parents burdened by government owed arrears, we're working collaboratively with them to develop reduction plans. In 2025, we, reduce government owned arrears by $46,000,000 while increasing collections by 5,000,000. The child support program works to bring positive outcomes to our communities. In the twenty twenty six, twenty seven proposed budget, the departments are requesting $1,200,000,000, an increase of $22,000,000 total funds from compared to the 2025 enacted budget. The increase is primarily due to two significant adjustments.
The first is an increase of 4,600,000.0 federal funds due to an estimated increase in federal performance incentives. The total federal performance incentive pool is increasing annually due to a CPI adjustment. And because of past CPI levels, the total pool has increased significantly, and therefore, California's share is increasing alongside it. The department does not anticipate similar large adjustments in the future as CPIS obviously come down. The second increase in the requested budget is $17,600,000, 6,000,000 general fund, for the restoration of a two year limited term reduction to local child support agency funding that was enacted as part of the 2024 budget.
As discussed in the agenda, DCSS anticipates that past underspending has dissipated and LCSAs are fully utilizing available resources. This augmentation is needed to maintain service levels due to upcoming staffing cost increases as well as impacts from recent statutory changes that increase the need for individualized review from case managers that cannot be addressed through automation. In regards to why the $22,000,000 is so critical for the program, the child support program was established in a unique way in California unlike other social programs. Although the program is overseen by the state, it is operated locally by local county staff. For the counties, they see the program as a state and federal responsibility, and thus, in almost all situations, counties don't contribute any financial support.
When the state implements a cost of living adjustment or salary increases, there's a mechanism in the state budget process to fund state staff and state departments, but local counties staff are not included in this. And when counties negotiate similar cost increases, they don't see the county staff as part of their responsibility because the child support program is seen as a state financial responsibility. As a result, local child support agencies have this constant staffing erosion mechanism inherently built into its budget structure. This was one of the issues that was implemented when the LCSC funding methodology was enacted in 2019, and it was designed to capture these local staffing cost increases to blunt this erosion. Over the last six years, LCSAs have seen staffing costs significantly increase by over 30% on average.
As a result, the increase in staff the increase in cost of doing business for staff has greatly outpaced the decline in our caseload. Between 2021 and 2526, child support caseload has decreased by approximately 8%, and LCSA staffing has also decreased in tandem by approximately 8%. However, I would highlight that during the last two years, caseload decreased by about 45,000 as a as a result of onetime foster care case closures pursuant to AB sixteen eighty six that's also discussed in the agenda. If not for the one time loss for foster care cases, our caseload would have only declined by 4.6%. In other words, during the past five years, LCSA staffing has decreased faster than caseload, even while receiving additional budget augmentations.
If additional funding was not appropriated, the staffing decline would have been significantly more severe to the detriment of our services provided, program performance, and compliance. Additionally, a b sixteen eighty six and the closure of those foster care cases required individualized review of each case by a case manager to ensure that it met the criteria for closure as well as the technical work for the closure process. These kind of onetime workloads still require the ability to have staff on hand to be able to absorb such workload. Prior to the two year limit limited term reduction enacted in 2024, when LCSAs were receiving additional funding, there was a two year period in which staffing remained flat. This stability allowed LCSAs to conduct outreach to better educate and raise awareness within our communities.
These efforts resulted in an increase in our caseload during that time, meaning more families were reserved by our program that wouldn't have otherwise. Without restored funds, the struggle to maintain existing services, these community out efforts would be impacted. Another consideration is the child support program has statutory compliance requirements, such as the number of days it takes to open a case, performance metrics or on order establishment, and collections on support. Failure to meet performance standards and federal compliance audits would put the California total TANF funding received at risk, which impact impacts programs like CalWORKs. I would also uplift that the department's services directly impact predominantly low income and minority families, families that likely overlap with those impacted by HR one.
Child support can be a significant source of income, and LCSA staff are necessary to continue our efforts to support those in need. DCSS recognizes that its caseload decline and staffing levels have declined as well. The $22,000,000 proposed in the governor's budget is necessary to provide a manageable rate of decline in our staffing. Without additional funding, LCSAs would have to reduce staffing much faster, in some cases through layoffs, and at the detriment of our case participants that depend on our services that we provide. And I'm gonna hand it over to Kristinen.
Speaker 26
Thank you so much. To address the question about what we can do to make our program more family friendly, I want to share that our commitment is to provide a holistic suite of services for all families regardless of their income level. The most any family can be charged for these services is $35 per year, which is a federal requirement. Any family who is currently or has ever received CalWORKs benefits does not pay anything for the services. We have greatly reduced the need for families to take time off by shifting to remote services.
For example, every time we open a new case, there's a requirement to interview parents. And for many local child support agencies, these can be deduct these can be, done remotely via video calls now. We've also worked with our courts and have many of the options to appear via video as well. Gone are the days when parents had to take an entire day off of work to come to court, so they're able to call in and reduce those administrative burdens to get the formal orders. We've also worked to be more family friendly by changing the terminology we use.
We no longer say things like non custodial parent and custodial parent. We speak to parents using their names. They are parents or they are the person who receives support. We've simplified our enrollment process and shifted away from language like an application. Nobody has to apply for our services.
They merely need to enroll, and we're working on ways to make that enrollment process much easier for these families. We've also expanded our options for making payment of child support and exploring what the future of payment of child support looks like using, money such as digital wallets, seeing what the future holds and what might be possible. In terms of family friendliness, we also want to focus on getting a good job and training if necessary. California was awarded two out of only 10 grants that were awarded by the Office of Child Support Enforcement at the federal level. These are next gen employment grants, being operated in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Stanislaus Counties, providing holistic wraparound services to assist families in, providing training and employment services.
We're also collaborating with several counties led by Contra Costa in San Francisco seeking a waiver from the Office of Child Support Enforcement that would allow us to, provide in kind support to satisfy child support orders. So for example, if the person receiving support offered to have goods and services satisfies that order. So it's kind of one of its kind coming in the future. In terms of the HR1 impacts, I want to note, that child support is a critical source of income for many low income families raising children out of poverty. When we look at the administrative burdens that are posed by the new work requirements, we understand that many families will be shifted off of those benefits.
They will no longer be able to meet them, some of them if only because of the administrative burden of doing so, of meeting those compliance requirements. We did participate, a member of our staff, on the inaugural Governor's Innovation Fellowship, lending our expertise from the child support perspective and how to find income administratively without having to bother the family. So that was really great to have a member participate there. We do think that there is a lot of overlap with these families and that as families are not able to access benefits such as CalFresh, the need for child support will be greater. And so we need the staffing levels to maintain so that we're able to meet their needs.
For the last two questions, I will answer briefly, but then defer more to miss Peck, the director for the Solano County department. As Nan noted, the actual staffing levels decreased greatly over the past few years, and LCA staffing is primarily spent on staffing. So the the funding, it's 85% to 90% sent on staffing. Without an sorry. Without, with the reduction, there could be meaningful impacts to the services delivered to families without the consistency of support to support that staffing level.
Thank you. Good afternoon,
Speaker 28
chair Jackson. Leanne Peck, director of Solano County Child Support Services and also Cal CSA board president. So as Kristin mentioned, the impacts of the cut, we've had reduction in staffing statewide of nearly 300 staff, and it's had a trickle down approach to the local level and to service delivery. We've reduced our work with outreach and partnerships and our workforce programs. We've reduced our lobby hours in Solano as an example.
We're focusing solely on compliance time frames, and the niceties that we've been able to provide when we've been adequately funded are disappearing. We are becoming less proactive and more reactive with our customers. Staff are doing more with less, covering multiple assignments. They're stretched really thin. The unfunded mandates that have come down in the past, and most recently, with FEM, requires far more manual intervention by caseworkers, and it's taking upwards of one and a half to two times longer to manage the cases as they were in the past.
There's longer wait times for families, slower establishment, and modification of orders, fewer opportunities to prevent arrears from growing. And, respectfully, our ability to secure consistent support depends on a balanced set of compliance and enforcement tools that encourage engagement, cooperation, resolve noncompliance, and maintain accountability when needed. Over time, those tools have become more limited or more difficult to use in practice. And so at the local level, we leave with service, engagement, and problem solving. However, when the set of backstop tools becomes more limited, it's harder to secure that payment, and it can take longer.
All of this requires human contact because child support work is highly individualized and requires time to manage cases effectively and address the specific barriers parents face in meeting their obligations. Caseworkers are spending significant time contacting parents, directly meeting with them in person or virtually, as Kristen mentioned, or on the phone. When local funding is constrained, as it has been with the existing cut, it doesn't just impact and reduce the administration. It reduces the outcomes for children and families and may push already fragile families closer to poverty.
Speaker 8
LAO. Thank you, mister chair. There are no new proposals in the Department of Child Support Services. There is this restoration of the prior reduction, to administrative funding for local child support agencies of the 6,000,000 general funds, 17,000,000 total funds. This really is the part of what was a multiyear effort to increase administrative funding for local child support agencies that had been frozen in funding for decades at the time.
So in 1920, the legislature op authorized this multistep increase that was supposed to take three years, and it was gonna give local child support agencies enough funding to get their caseworker to case ratio to about a 180 cases per caseworker. But because of budget constraints and other reasons, we haven't fully funded what was originally envisioned. We've we're about 90% there. But in the meantime, the target's sort of moving because the cost of getting there is increasing, and the caseload is decreasing. So that's what you're hearing today is that even with this restoration of 6,000,000 general fund, you're you'd be at at about 90% of what was originally envisioned for that augmentation, but you you still wouldn't be at that 180, cases to case worker ratio because of those changes.
You're around a little over 200 cases to case worker. So there would still be cost to fully, realize that that case worker ratio that was originally envisioned.
Speaker 2
Thank you for that, and thank you all for being very clear on your answers and resolving answering the questions that that we had. You know, there's not a year that doesn't go by that I get a call from a constituent, and I meet with them personally, where I mean, as you know, these things can be messy. And I know because as a child, my family was a client of your department. There's always issues that come up with, you know, the parent who's not the supportive parent, who's receiving support. There's always an issue that comes up for regards to visitation.
And I know these things can be messy sometimes, but there's always the constant refrain. I'm providing this support to the child, but I don't even get to see my child the way I'm supposed to. How are we dealing with issues like that? I mean, is there a mechanism? Is there a way that we can improve those situations?
Obviously, sometimes when the parents are not getting along, you know, unfortunately, the child is caught in the middle and sometimes is being used as a punishment towards the other parents and all that kinda stuff. What do we what are we doing in those cases? Is there a way to resolve that?
Speaker 26
Thanks so much for the question, doctor Jackson. As part of the Office of Child Support Enforcement's, grant mechanism, there is a separate grant they administer called access and visitation. And in California, those funds, are going to the judicial council, and so they are administered as a way to, provide grants to partners through courts. California receives approximately $900,000 out of the total 10,000,000 that's available nationwide. These funds are not indexed unlike the incentive funds, as, Nan mentioned earlier.
So that 10,000,000 has not increased, appreciably or at all. There are also opportunities, though. I was smiling because this is a passion project of mine starting when I was an attorney at a local child support agency, and it was very difficult to field those questions. We do work very closely with family law facilitators that are part of the AB ten fifty eight program, which is, reaching its thirtieth year in 2026 and refer out to self help programs. There are some opportunities, for waivers to utilize federal incentive funds, the child support incentive funds, to assist parents with co parenting, mediation, things like that.
However, when we cannot do our base work, we can't contemplate adding something else on. So that's one of those things. It would be wonderful to be able to engage in some pilot projects, using those waiver incentives or philanthropic dollars to do a match with us where we could really provide more wraparound services to assist parents. But at this point, we're focused on our our base federal compliance.
Speaker 2
Totally understand that. I'm just one my I think my question really was just if I am a parent who believes that I am not getting the visitation that I deserve with my child, is there a mechanism that helps to resolve that issue? And I'm just hearing not right now.
Speaker 26
With it's not through the child support program, I think is the answer that that our commissioners, the child support commissioners, are not able to hear custody issues. It's preferred to a different department within the courts. So there's a separate set of individuals.
Speaker 26
Yes. Got it. So those waiver projects or other projects that we see states use, the access and visitation funds to address, are ways to more informally assist parents. So in a more informal mediation or co parenting discussions, there are there are options there, but it's not directly or squarely within the child support program.
Speaker 2
Thank you for that. My second one is there are times when there is an over withdrawal of funds from a parent who's supposed to be paying. And meaning it's more as withdrawn than what they're supposed to than they need to in a month. And there's sometimes issues, at least this is what I'm told. I know there's the devil's in the details, but I'm just tell I'm just telling you how I hear it.
That when they call to say, hey, you withdraw more than you should supposed to, that and now that puts them in danger of paying bills and things like that, that there is not a real timely solution when that happens. And now they're scrambling around trying to pay bills and things like that, which I'm sure is not helpful for the family as a whole. Again, know devil's in the details, but I'm just saying, is there how can we resolve these things quicker so that we are not further harming the family when this is meant to help be helpful?
Speaker 26
I appreciate that question. As you said, the devil's in the details. And it's interesting with child support, it's different from something like a mortgage or a car note that is an installment where you've agreed to pay a certain amount every month. With child support, if you owe arrears, the entire amount is essentially due today. And so we see this kind of, come up in things like a bank levy, where there might be an asset that the child support program can specifically enforce against, even though it is above the amount for the monthly support.
If there are arrears, then technically it is all due today. And if there's an asset that can meet that, then it can be taken. I don't think that's maybe the situations that you're talking about here. I know in certain scenarios, such as via income withholding order, if an individual has multiple jobs and this is part of, the child support system more broadly where we see this question come up nationwide, that the income withholding order can be sent to each of those employers even if the main job is satisfying the child support amount. And so we do really wanna work with you.
That requires the caseworker to be able to take that intervention on the case if a person calls. I will say, at my office at the state level, our Office of Legislative Affairs responds to these sort of inquiries as soon as possible. So I would always encourage you to reach out to us if you get one of those inquiries. And then we do work with the counties to make sure that we're addressing the matters as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2
Do you think there's room for improvement in these things? It it seems like sometimes it's one of those issues because I remember, and I don't think you guys are doing this anymore, that if someone is behind on their payments, they could actually have their driver's license suspended. Right? And then it was like, why would you do that now? How are they gonna get to work?
And it's like you're starting to set them up for failure. Right? And so I'm wondering if issues like this in terms of withdrawal issues and, I mean, even if they may be behind and you're taking you're trying to catch get them force them to catch up, that it could still be destabilizing that might be overall more harmful than trying to seek some other type of remedy. Do you think there's room for improvement here?
Speaker 26
I do. I would say that I think, the goal of a driver's license first, it's a federal requirement to have a system in place, but the goal was never to be punitive or to take somebody's license away so that they couldn't get a job, but to drive engagement. How I look at it is I really want that person to come talk to me at the local child support agency or Leanne and her staff, and have that conversation about what's going on with your life holistically. How can I help you today? And by having a blanket rule that we can never do x or y, that drives people away from engaging and makes it very easy if there's a parent who's not able to meet their obligation.
If there's not that remedy where you get something like a notice from the DMV, they may choose to ignore that issue for longer than if they got the notice, such as from the DMV. And so I truly think the child support program of 2026 is very different than twenty, thirty years ago, and we truly wanna help support the family holistically. And having that engagement with the parent who's ordered to pay support, that direct engagement, how can we resolve this? Do we need to modify your order? How can we get you back on your feet?
What do we need to do? That's truly why we're here and what we wanna do. So I think it's a very careful balance when we talk about making changes.
Speaker 2
As it should be. So I'm just thinking, you know I mean, you have all have made a number of reforms that you all should be proud of. There's no doubt about that. I'm always thinking about ways we can continue to be improved and making sure we're setting up families for success, right, and making sure everyone's needs are needs are being met. Do you have an advisory group or anything like that that kinda continues to give you recommendations on how to improve the system?
Speaker 26
We are working to create an advisory group, actually. It's a strategic partnership group. We've had our initial meeting. We also have been meeting quarterly with a group of individuals for groups that support low income families. Western Center is in the room today.
They've been a key partner of ours for several years, meeting quarterly to provide us with input on our programs and see how we can improve. And it's really vital that we ask for that feedback and really take it in. I think we've really worked hard to build that relationship and avoid being, sensitive to that feedback. I think we really need it, so we're working very hard to do that.
Speaker 2
Well, certainly, this committee wants to be supportive in any additional ways to improve. And so I I just ask that, you know, just be ready for next year to kind of give us a little things on what what else you would like to improve on there, you see the next step of improving. So thank you so much. Thank you, Natasha. Thank you all very much.
Appreciate it. Thank
Speaker 2
Oh, you're the same people. Is that what you're saying? Oh, you are the same people. Don't go nowhere.
Speaker 26
Doctor Jackson. We're asked to provide a brief presentation of our supplemental report. This was required as part of the twenty twenty four twenty five budget act. It was submitted in February 2026, and we hosted a briefing, I believe, last week, for legislative staff to summarize this report. It looks at the challenges and successes of implementing the full pass through of past due support to families, provides data about families who are currently receiving CalWORKS, and describes the cost estimate and changes necessary to implement full pass through for currently assisted families.
The system change for this, which was larger than anticipated, and all of the policies surrounding it, was fully implemented in May 2024. Since that time, cumulatively, we've passed through. We've distributed over $200,000,000 to these cases, and that's at least 110,000 unique cases received at least one payment under this statutory change. The report provides detail about the families who received the pass through payments. The persons receiving support were overwhelmingly female, 92%, which tracks with our caseload demographics.
The majority of the support was also passed through to families who identify as either being black, Hispanic, or Latinx. So that's 57% of the population that received those payments, and that outpaces the the percentage that we see those folks in our caseload generally. So we see those impacts there. One of the questions that's come up is about the number of emancipated children or conversely, in which of these cases are there still minor children. And I wanted to explain that briefly, that I think this is not a glitch in the system, but rather how system was designed, and it was support from the legislature, in fact, which allowed us to, implement a federal option, which is the family first distribution.
So this says that when there are arrears or past due support that's owed to the government, that will be the very last thing we collect. So we wait until the family has been made whole, they have all of the support that was owed to them before we collect what is owed to us in the government. And for the arrears pass through, we maintained the assignment of those arrears so that we could resolve the debt to the extent possible through the debt reduction and and other options. So I think that's a kind of a that's how the system was designed under Family First Distribution. Because it's the last thing, those cases will skew to cases with all emancipated children.
In terms of challenges, one that's noted is the inability of the person receiving support to decline that support. Now if the case were entirely unassisted, they could voluntarily close their case. They could say, no longer want these funds for whatever reason. When we'd initially contemplated and requested this statutory change, we believe that we could implement that via regulation. We were mostly concerned at that time with benefit cliffs and with people's ability to make choices about their life.
And we have seen reports, through our local child support agencies of individuals who called, well, it's not a very large percentage. There are really real reasons why people would not want these funds. And we've heard, for example, of, family violence concerns, not with a concern about the relationship with the parent paying support, but in their current relationship. We've also heard about instances where a stepparent has adopted the child and they no longer want the funds from the biological parent. We've also heard about situations where the child has unfortunately passed away, and it's a really painful reminder of a very terrible loss to receive those funds.
So that was one of the recommendations that, we'd be allowed to or allow folks to opt out of receiving those funds if they wanted to. We've also been asked about the amount of recoupment in the law. If we're not able to find somebody or if the person who receives support predeceases, then those funds are automatically recouped. So the government retains that collection. That is about 10% of those collections.
So it's not a huge amount, but it does go to the government if we're not able to find you or that person is predeceased. The report talks about some of the unintended impacts and potential impacts. I think it was notable with CalFresh. The Department of Social Services participated, with us in this report and a prior report. They found that only 0.1 to 0.2% of families receiving CalFresh would become ineligible because of this additional child support income.
For most people, they would receive more in cash child support than they would, be losing in the CalFresh benefit. Moving on in terms of what a pass through for currently assisted families could look like, I do want to say it's notable, and I want to congratulate the legislature in California for expanding the pass through to currently assisted families. As of 2022, we passed through the maximum allowed under federal law, which is 100 for families with one child and 200 for families with 200 or more. Over 20 states still pass through nothing to those currently assisted families. However, of course, as you know, doctor Jackson, there's a trend for of states for going to, full pass through for currently assisted families.
So this report talks about the cost options. So what would the fiscal impact be of backfilling that federal and county share, the loss of the state share, potential impacts to eligibility, etcetera. Our average collections for currently assisted cases were $11,500,000 last year. The average is skewed slightly by the months when we receive tax intercepts, so that's generally March, April, and May. But the amounts passed through averaged $2,700,000 So if we were able to fully pass through, it would be an increase of $8,800,000 each month to these currently assisted families.
And these numbers, just to be very clear, contemplate passing through up to the amount of current monthly support as well as anything that's collected that applies to past due support for those currently assisted families. The estimated fiscal impact of that full pass through would be a $150,000,000 if we fully pass through, and that would be the, forgone state recruitment as well as the federal back fill, and the impact if we pass through just the state's share of those collections would be $80,000,000 to the general fund. In terms of potential complications, the Department of Social Services had submitted a report in September 2025 as well as a, a data addendum. First, I wanna state there's no anticipated impacts to Medi Cal because of the way, that the eligibility is calculated on modified adjusted gross income, which excludes child support income. They presented three options that were discussed at a stakeholder group.
One is to pass through fully without any change to the disregard amounts. The Department of Social Services estimated that 130,000 families would lose their CalWORKs eligibility if we did that, and approximately 1,400 I'm sorry. A 130,000 have their grants reduced, and 1,400 families would be discontinued entirely. The second option was to increase the disregard to 100% of what was passed through. This would mitigate many of the effects, but, we do in California have a unique ability to untick months of support, as we recoup funds towards that sixty month time limit, the federal time limit.
And the third option was to increase the disregard to 100% everything we're passing through, but also provide a time on aid exemption, the estimate is that that would cost an additional $20,000,000. Increasing the full to full pass through would require automation change on our side as well as the CalWORKs side for Kelsaus, so that would require close coordination in terms of the timing. We did estimate in the report that that could take up to three to five years to do the automation for both of those systems as well as all the policy changes. We did have a request, though, to provide a more detailed timeline of that as well as the automation cost estimate. I will note, though, that the estimate would depend on the policy decisions that were made as we talk through those options.
Speaker 2
You're not looking forward to that extra three to five years? You don't have to answer that. This is one of those issues where you're like, what is the right thing to do? When you're trying to help someone might actually hurt someone, possibly. Maybe, probably.
What do you think is the best option moving forward? Because obviously, you know the direction we wanna go in, But stability is also important, and predictability is also important in terms of families. What are your thoughts? And as you evaluated the different options, what are your I
Speaker 26
would say I think it's far more common and far far more common sense to increase the disregard to match the amount that's passed through. That is what's currently happening for the safety net families where they receive a 100% of their child support because it's a state funded aid type, and they also receive 100% disregard of those funds. The goal and what we've seen from other states that have implemented a full pass through with a similar full disregard is that parents are more likely to pay this support because 100% of that support is going directly to their family. And by receiving both the cash aid and the support with that disregard, they're able to become sufficient and not need the cash benefit faster than they would otherwise.
Speaker 26
If we pass through the state's share of recoupment, which is the 47 and a half percent. So, of that after that $102,100 that we passed through today Mhmm. Any amount over that, we have to pay 50% of that to the federal share.
Speaker 26
So it would be foregoing the other half of that, collection if we wanted to pass through that portion to families. That's approximately $80,000,000 per year.
Speaker 2
So doing the full disregard would actually be from general fund $80,000,000.
Speaker 26
I'm so sorry. The terminology is a little funny. The disregard is actually in the social services side when they say, I will disregard this from your income in terms of eligibility and how much we're going to provide you in the grant. And then the pass through is how much from what we collect we can give to the family. Mhmm.
So if we did full pass through, of just the state's share of that collection, the cost to general fund is estimated to be $80,000,000 annually.
Speaker 26
So it would still require the same amount of automation change on our side, Coworks is just a different policy decision.
Speaker 2
And if you did the disregard, does that also mean you have to do a tech thingy?
Speaker 26
We would. So the the the disregard is, reflected in the Kalsa system. So it would be a change to Kalsa to change the disregard amount.
Speaker 2
And then how much is that to do the tech part? Because I'm sure that's an additional cost.
Speaker 26
There was an estimate in, the report from social services of approximately $300,000 for the Kalsales automation, but I would note that that was a very preliminary, estimate. And so I would defer to my colleagues at social services.
Speaker 2
Okay. So I'm gonna ask everyone to kinda help us with some technical assistance on this, LEO, Department of Finance and Administration, in terms of what it would take to implement a a full disregard, a full pass through with disregard. Yeah. You know what I mean. Mhmm.
Just to see what our options are. I don't know. I mean, it's obviously we got it seems like we have to get over this hurdle of making a decision on what it would be the best decision that would cost the the most amount of benefit with the least amount of harm, right, for the legislature to at least consider. Okay?
Speaker 2
Thank you. Okay. Where are we? Okay. This issue number 11 was all of the nonpresentation items.
The moment you all been waiting for, this ends the panel presentation portion of our hearing for today. With that, we will move on to public comment. You all have received four hours to look at your script. You had four hours to look at your script to see if it fits one minute. Let's see who did their homework.
Okay. Name and affiliation, please.
Speaker 29
Thank you. Rebecca Gonzalez with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. In the first part of the the agenda talking about child welfare, we all know the effects from h r one and the largest cuts to federal food benefits in history where more than 700, million Californians will lose access by the end of the year, including families with children. So the state really must step up and provide state funded food benefits to everyone losing access to CalFresh so we can support our local economies and protect people from hunger, definitely see a child welfare impact. California must build a budget based on our values and become the first state in the country to protect our communities from this crisis.
As far as the agenda on the Department of Child Support Services, we really appreciate the partnership with the legislature and with the with the Department of Child Support Services working towards full pass through for families. And we hope to continue that work with you because this is truly a harmful practice for families. And we also hope encourage the department to use their existing authority to cut back on some of this debt that is really uncollectible. And, also, you made a comment about the driver's license issue. I do agree with you that it you know, I'm I'm glad that that policy change was made because, you know, people can't get to work.
And there is a bill by Celeste Rodriguez to stop the suspension of occupational professional licenses because we want people to work, and we want people to be able to pay their child support. Thank you.
Speaker 16
Hi. Jenna Eustis. I am the CEO and president of the Child Abuse Prevention Center, also representing the California Resource Association. This is in support of the social services tiered rate structure. If we want California to truly work and if we want prevention to truly work in California, our funding structures must match the reality of the work.
A tiered rate structure is how we operationalize the commitment ensuring community providers like family resource centers have the resources to meet families where they're at and provide the right level of support before challenges escalate. Thank you so much.
Speaker 30
Hi. I'm Christina Tanner, and I'm coming from the Youth Law Center. Youth and family need the tiered rate structure, to be implemented as designed. This reform was really created to shift child welfare from funding placement types to funding actual needs of the needs of young people and their families. Strength building, care and supervision, and immediate needs were intentionally designed to work together as one coordinated system.
Strength building is especially crucial and critical for youth, and it should not be delayed. Strength building supports, youth development, builds skills, and helps families address challenges before they escalate into crises. This kind of early support helps prevent placement disruption and keeps youth and family with their families and within their communities. It is a core part of the tiered rate structure and one of the most direct investments to youth well-being and development. A significant time has been put into really making sure that implementation is ready to go live in 2027 by the department.
Pausing now really risk losing momentum and expertise and infrastructure that's already really been built. If implementation must be phased in, strength building should be prioritized early. It provides proactive supports and helps families succeed and prevents crisis that lead to placement disruptions or institutionalized care, and it should not be delete delayed or treated as optional. This reform really represents a commitment to not just investment in beds or placements, but to invest in the development, stability, and potential for youth in foster care. Families and youth are counting on the state to follow through on this commitment, so we ask that you continue to ensure that tiered rate structure is implemented, and goes live in 2027.
Speaker 30
I'm I'm I'm 25. I'm 25, and I also have thirteen years of lived experience within the child welfare system and intersecting systems.
Speaker 31
Good afternoon. Jordan Sosa, former foster youth from Los Angeles County and, resource parent in Sacramento County to take care of my two younger sisters. I'm in support of the implementation of the foster care tier rate structure and the extension of the flex family support funds. My sisters, were facing housing insecurity. And when I stepped up to be their caregiver, we did face a lot of barriers and experienced poverty and housing insecurity to ensure that I was able to provide care.
And I truly believe that support should follow a child's needs, on the license or the placement type. And also, the access of Family Flex support funds have allowed my younger siblings to participate in extracurricular enrichment activities and have a little sense of normalcy in their foster care experience. Thank you.
Speaker 32
Hi. Elisabello Seguera with the California Alliance representing over 200 members serving high needs children and families across all counties. Thank you, doctor Jackson, Ledge members, and budget staff for putting this hearing together today. As mentioned, the implementation of tiered rate structure and the ongoing liability insurance crisis will have significant impacts on the child welfare system and the providers that sustain it, risking placement capacity and continuity of care for children and families. To stabilize the provider network and ensure FFAs can keep their doors open while long term solutions are developed for the insurance crisis, we respectfully request your support for a 30,000,000 budget as to offset the escalating liability insurance costs.
Regarding TRS implementation, we welcome continued engagement with the state and appreciate the committee's focus on ensuring rates are sufficient to meet the needs of children and youth. We look forward to working continuing to work with CDSS sharing continuing to work with CDSS and are looking very much forward to seeing CDSS share the cost assumptions and methodologies underlining their rate analyses to stakeholders and legislative members so that we can all better assess sustainability moving forward. We encourage conversations to evaluate TRS rates with the potential of raising these by 2029 if rates prove to be low to meet the needs of children and youth. Thank you.
Speaker 33
Amanda Kirschen with CWDA. We are here actually in support of CACFS' $30,000,000 budget ask to address the FFA insurance crisis. We appreciate the legislature and the $30,000,000 that was already allocated, but we do expect those funds to be fully expended. We think this investment is critical to make sure that we don't displace our foster youth and we create service capacity for those homes and also make sure we keep our replacement stable. Thank you.
Speaker 11
Thank you, mister chair. Erin Evans on behalf of Santa Clara County. I'd love to go all the way back to panel one and add our comments as families, counties, and the state are all grappling with implementing HR one. Food and other supports for families have economic impacts and can help families avoid becoming systems involved. Conversely, loss of these supports undermine long term stability.
The county seeks to partner with the state to ensure that families can maintain eligibility for services going forward. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Hello. Sam Wilkinson with In Child Poverty in California. Thank you, chair Jackson and the committee. But, we would like to urge the Department of Social Services to release the 20,000,000 already allocated in last year's budget for county and workers to respond to this crisis, h r one, as quickly as possible, referring to issue one. With inaction and no immediate county workers report, we run the risk of seeing nearly 1,000,000 Californians losing access to CalFresh.
Children will be impacted substantially as a result of cuts to Medi Cal and CalFresh imposed by federal HR one. And as shown in page 11 of the hearing agenda, families experiencing poverty are more likely to come into the child welfare system. If we do not if we do not do enough, we will see an increased number of family separation and system involved youth in California due to increases in poverty. And also as part of the truth and justice in child support coalition, we'd like to align our comments with the Western Center and also uplift work to improve the debt reduction program with assembly member Sharp Collins happening, this year. And lastly, we urge our elected representatives to raise progressive revenues now so no child has to go hungry in our state and so no child is separated from their family due to poverty in our state.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 34
Laura Muether with the Lutheran Office of Public Policy California. I'm a member of the En Child Poverty California Coalition, and I'm also speaking on behalf of Lutheran Social Services of Northern California and Lutheran Social Services of Southern California. Children may be substantially impacted by custom Medi Cal and CalFresh imposed by HR one. We echo the comments made by the Western Center in End Child Poverty to urge the Department of Social Services to release the 20,000,000 already allocated in last year's budget so county workers can respond to this crisis as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Speaker 35
Ignacio Guerrero, director, Department of Child Support Services in Santa Clara County, and a board member for the California Child Support Association, Cal CSA. I want to thank you, first of all, Doctor. Jackson, for your work on these issues related to child support. I want you to know that we see you as a champion of our program, and we thank you for the work that you've done. I'm gonna get a little bit personal because working on behalf of the children on our caseload is personal.
I've worked thirty one years in this program serving the children in our caseload, both in, San Mateo County, Alameda County, and Santa Clara County. I've seen personally the impacts that funding cuts can make in our ability to serve the needs of children, economically fragile families, and ensuring that they get the needs met, their financial needs met with the support that they're morally, legally, and financially entitled to receive. So I urge your support for the reinstatement of the $18,000,000, $6,000,000 state general fund so that we can continue to do the work that is needed in our communities. Thank you.
Speaker 36
Hi, chair. George Cruz on behalf of the California Behavioral Health Association. First, we wanna, we wanna say we support the continued investment in the prevention and stabilization programs, which have helped thousands of families avoid homelessness and support reunification. We also want to raise concerns about the provider's sustainability within the child welfare system due to the rising insurance costs, workforce shortages, and uncertainty around the future rate structure. We urge legislator to prioritize provider stability and community based prevention to ensure children receive appropriate behavioral health, health care and placement stability.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 37
Thank you, chair Jackson and members of the committee. My name is Natalie Dillon, and I am a board member for the California Child Support Association or Cal CSA. I would like to go on record in support of the restoration of the child support program cut. As this committee well knows, the child support program has a two for one federal match. So with that cut, we were leaving federal dollars on the table.
With the restoration, the intent is that the money will be allocated to local child support agencies that have the caseload to support the investment. This is a critical investment given California's child support or child poverty rate, impacts of HR one, and the fact that the program is under serving families that would benefit from our services. Again, I would like to go on a record appreciating the restoration of this cut. Thank you for this opportunity.
Speaker 1
Sure. Abraham Mendoza, board member for Cal CSA and director of South King County of child support services. So I'm gonna go on record for the restoration of the funding back to the child support program. And just to let you know, as you are well aware of, our cost effectiveness in California is $2.30. So that's money that comes back to the program.
Thank you.
Speaker 2
A question for you. Are are you just saying that you don't wanna see another cut like that, or are you saying that there's money that has already been cut that you have not received back?
Speaker 1
We want I wanna see the money restored back to the local counties, to the program as a whole, but also it should be ongoing.
Speaker 2
So you're saying that you have not received the money that was cut from the state? Correct. It's in the budget of jail. July 1, the restoration will Okay. I'm just trying to get it straight because I I thought I did something.
No, you didn't. And now you're saying I didn't do it. I'm like, hold on now.
Speaker 2
your You're good. You're good. Alright. Well, you let me know if something happened. I'll throw a fit.
Name and affiliation, please.
Speaker 38
Good afternoon. Thank you, chair Jackson. Excuse me. My name is Kim Britt, and I'm the executive director for Central Sierra Child Support Agency. And Central Sierra assists families in Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne Counties.
And today, I'm here to support the restoration of funding for the child support program. Child support is one of the most effective ways we can help help children stay financially stable and is a cost effective program with the federal government's match of $2 for every $1 provided by the state. The child support program ensures that parents and not taxpayers are supporting their children. When funding for children excuse me. When funding for child support programs is reduced, cases can move slower, enforcement may be delayed, and families can wait longer for the support they depend on essential needs.
Investing in child support is not just about program funding. It's about protecting children and promoting family stability. So today, I respectfully ask that you restore funding for the child support services so California's children receive the support they deserve. Thank you very much.
Speaker 39
Good afternoon, chair Jackson. Nice to meet you. My name is Jeanie Cho. I am with also the California Child Support Association and chief deputy director for LA County Child Support Services. And I'm also here to go on the record to support the restoration of the budget in the governor's budget.
That $6,000,000 cut is it is just not worth the bang for the buck. We leave $12,000,000 of federal funds on the table, yet, you know, have a minimal impact on helping the state budget and a deleterious 18,000,000, triple the impact on our, constituents. I would also like to lift up something that direct the director said, director Donati. In the days of yore, you know, when this program was created, we were very much criminal enforcement. You know, the whole horrible tagline of deadbeat dads, we were seen as an anti father program.
We are not here to take sides with either parent. We are here as a pro child program. And one of the greatest tools that we've had in our toolkit, the bread and butter really of helping us to engage parents is really driver's license suspension. Parents have a hundred and eighty days notice before licenses are suspended, and so in many cases, they are not ultimately suspended. And we are here in just like the Western Center of Law of Poverty, we are here to make sure that kids get as much support as they can in a reasonable and with right sized orders from both parents.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 40
Elizabeth Kreher. I'm the director for Lassen County Child Support Services. And, child support's not just an enforcement program but a poverty prevention program. For many families, these payments mean the difference between stability and hardship. The role becomes even more important as programs like SNAP are facing reductions.
At this time, many LCSAs like mine, particularly in rural counties, are operating with limited staffing resources and serving large geographic areas. These, complex caseloads and without adequate funding, the agencies struggle to maintain the level of service these families need every day. We're asking to reinstate the funds, the California state budget, and invest in the prevention, in our program preventing poverty and really for prevention for these families. Thank you.
Speaker 41
Dalen Frederiksen with the Sacramento County Department of Child Support Services. So we want we do wanna thank you for your support and interest in the child support program. And we want you to know, we we take the trust in that you place in us very seriously. We are working very hard to improve the program. We are working very hard to make sure that we are serving families.
For example, nationwide, half, approximately half of the child support orders nationwide enter by default without participation of one parent. We are working so hard to make sure that there's procedural justice and people have an opportunity to be heard and that we're getting sustainable right size orders. We've worked very hard. And in the last few years in Sacramento, we've gotten to where, 25% of our cases now are entered by default. So that's just that that's the type of hard work that we're doing, and that's the type of work that the funding for the child support program oh, yeah.
So one one more quick thing that the other directors have not mentioned. The the funding methodology that was talked about by the LAO, some counties were seriously underfunded compared to other counties. The budget methodology works serves to to work that out. The restoration of the 6,000,000, 17,000,000 helps to to balance that. And I say that as Sacramento County who is not actually receiving any of that money, but I think it's important so we can continue the good work of the program and keep the program going.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 42
Chair Jackson, my name is Michael Smitsky. I'm the executive director of the California Child Support Association, formerly known as the California, Child Support Directors Association, so CSDA to Cal CSA.
Speaker 42
Get in now, sir. Not gonna foot stomp too much, what all of our members have said, this afternoon. But one thing of note is that in my role as the executive director in my first year, I was wearing down the tread on my tires going to almost every single county in the state and seeing these offices firsthand, seeing constituents in different counties, caseworkers, child support specialists, leadership chains. I've seen the impacts that that two year cut has made in terms of their FTE reduction across the state. We, as California, the national average for child support is one in six have a case.
California, we're one in nine. This funding, if restored and allowing us to get that FTE ratio up higher, is critically important for us to getting closer to the national average. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 43
Tiffany Whiting with SEIU California. Speaking to the panel on the, the first panel that you had today, appreciate the discussion and just wanna underscore the importance for protection of our children and our youth and from the harmful impacts of HR one. Just would like to, highlight and emphasize the need for eligibility workers to ensure that we can keep families and youth and our children enrolled so that they can receive Medi Cal and CalFresh. We know that these impacts are gonna be harmful to our communities, and so we just wanna underscore that the, eligibility workers are the first responders to poverty, and really appreciate the comments and discussion here today. Thank you so much.
Speaker 16
Hello. Myra Castillo Garcia here on behalf of Parents Anonymous. It's important to maintain funding for California's parent and youth helplines, specifically those that focus on population based prevention, such as Parents Anonymous. We hope that this committee could look into the funding, of this vital program. The California Parent and Youth Helpline has provided vital emotional support to parents, children, and youth in all 58 counties with 8085% of callers expressing that they feel supported after their call.
Thank you.
Speaker 2
Thank you very much. Seeing no other public comments, I wanna thank, everyone for their participation. As always, wanna thank committee staff, wanna thank my office staff as well, the sergeants, all the members who have participated. Obviously, we have another tough year ahead of us, but I believe that we're gonna do everything that we can to make sure that we keep people stable, making sure that we do right by these young people. And so, as always, my office remains open for any further discussions in case we you feel we have missed anything.
But, you know, when I tell people all the time how many panels we have when we do our when we do our hearings, people are saying, what in the world were you thinking? But I just wanna make sure that they people know that if the issue is important, it deserves to be agendized, and we will make the time for it. We wanna make sure that all people are heard, anyone who needs assistance from the state. We wanna make sure that you and your issues are given the proper respect and the time, that you deserve because your humanity is all you need to be heard here. And so thank you all very much, and thank you LAO, Department of Finance as well, for your time.
And with that, we are adjourned.
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