"Welfare bills: Floor Analysis of SB 285"
Note: The welfare conference committee sent four bills to the floors of the
Legislature. These posts contain the Senate Floor Analysis of each bill.
CONFERENCE REPORT COMMITTEE ANALYSIS
Bill No: SB 285
Author: Watson
RN: 9717369
Report date: July 2, 1997
SUBJECT: Welfare Reform
Were the Conference amendments heard in committee? Yes
If yes, were they defeated? No
SUMMARY:
Federal Law Implementation
Under current law, the Aid to Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC) program provides public assistance to
indigent families. Able-bodied adult recipients who do not
have a child under age 3 must participate in the GAIN
employment training program, if funding is available for
child care and training. The federal welfare reform bill,
PL 104-193, made numerous changes to social and health
services including placing federal AFDC (now TANF) and
federal child care funding into two separate block grants,
increasing the flexibility of states to revise TANF and
child care programs, and increasing the percentage of the
AFDC caseload that must be employed or in a
federally-approved work activity (the percentages are
called work participation rates). In addition, the federal
bill imposed a 60-month, cumulative lifetime limit on the
receipt of federal TANF benefits by adult recipients, but
allowed states to exempt 20% of the caseload from this
limit. The federal bill also requires certain recipients
to be engaged in a work activity after 24 cumulative months
on aid.
The Conference Committee on Welfare Reform proposes four
bills to implement the new federal law: SB 285, SB 293, AB
1006 and AB 1501. California's revised AFDC program would
be named "California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to
Kids" or CalWORKs. The proposed amendments to SB 285
implement numerous changes to address the new federal law
and include major revisions to AFDC, GAIN, child support
and other programs.
WELFARE TO WORK SERVICES
The current GAIN program requires recipients to participate
in one or more of a range of activities intended to lead to
employment. The proposed amendments make significant
changes to the GAIN program and rename the program
"welfare-to-work" services. The most significant change is
that all adult recipients would be required to participate
in welfare-to-work services continuously while on aid.
Also, the amendments would require that recipients meet
more stringent time lines for completing education and
training than under the existing GAIN program and also
would require that recipients spend more hours each week
(up to 32 hours) in employment-related activities.
Temporary exemptions are provided for months in which
recipients meet certain criteria, such as being disabled or
ill with medical verification, caring for an infant, or
lacking child care for a child age 10 or under.
The proposed amendments delineate the activities required
of adult aid recipients to include up to three months of
job search, assessment, and development of a
welfare-to-work contract with the county. After the
initial 3 months, the recipient would be required to enter
an allowable work activity as specified in a contract with
the county. Allowable work activities include paid and
unpaid work experience, on- the-job training, job search
and job readiness, vocational education and training, self-
employment, adult basic education, treatment services
related to mental health, substance abuse, and domestic
violence, etc. Recipients can be required to participate
in more than one activity concurrently. The proposed
amendments would streamline the GAIN process for
sanctioning recipients who refuse to comply with work
requirements without good cause.
HOURS OF WORK ACTIVITIES REQUIRED
The proposed amendments would require that all single
parent recipients participate at least 20 hours per week in
an work activity; the minimum hours per week will increase
as they increase in federal law. In addition, counties may
increase the required hours to 32 per week. Parents in
two-parent families would participate at least 35 hours per
week.
TIME LIMITS
Under current law, recipients who have been on aid for 22
out of 24 months and who have had an opportunity to
complete GAIN, must work 25 hours per week in a community
service job; failure to comply results in a grant cut.
However, as this provision has been in effect for a limited
period of time and as only approximately 20% of recipients
have an opportunity to participate in GAIN, the time limit
has applied to few individuals.
The proposed amendments limit adult recipients to a period
of 24 months from the date of the commencement of the
receipt of aid unless the recipient participates in
community service employment. At county option, an
extension of six months may be allowed if the extension
will lead to unsubsidized employment or economic conditions
are such that employment is not available. (Months in
which the recipient is exempt from specified work
requirements do not count against the 24-month period.)
The proposed amendments also limit adult recipients to a
maximum of a cumulative 60 months of benefits. The
possible exemptions to the 60-month limit would be:
an individual who is ill, incapacitated, or of advanced
age, with medical verification;
a nonparent relative caretaker who is 50 or older, or cares
for a ward or dependent of the court or a child at-risk
of foster care;
an individual who cares for a disabled family member;
any month in which the participant is participating in
Cal-Learn, or collected child support that exceeded the
grant amount.
COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT
The proposed amendments would require counties to provide
community service employment to individuals who cannot find
unsubsidized employment after receiving CalWORKs benefits
for 24 months and who continue to meet CalWORKs eligibility
requirements. The community service would be performed in
the public or private nonprofit sector, pay wages that are
no less than the minimum or comparable wage, provide skills
that transfer to unsubsidized employment, not displace
existing workers and conform to the federal Fair Labor
Standards Act.
SAFETY NET
The proposed amendments provide for a grant for the
children of a recipient who has been on aid for longer than
60 months. The "safety net" grant could not exceed the
grant amount for the children in the household.
EXEMPTIONS FROM WORK REQUIREMENTS
The proposed amendments would exempt temporarily the
following individuals from work activity requirements for
months in which these conditions exist; the exemption would
terminate when the condition changes and would be reviewed
at least every 6 months:
An individual who is ill, incapacitated, or of advanced
age, with medical verification
A nonparent relative caretaker who is 50 or older and cares
for a ward or dependent of the court or a child at-risk
of foster care
An individual who cares for a disabled family member
Parents with an infant
Women in the last trimester of pregnancy
Recipients who are already working (35 hours for 2-parent
families and 20 hours plus up to 10 hours of job search
for single parents)
Victims of domestic violence, if participation places them
at-risk
TEMPORARY DEFERRALS FROM PARTICIPATION
Person who does not have the legal right to work
Person with a severe family crisis
Person employed by a hiring hall or laid off with a
definite call-back date
Person who lacks necessary supportive services such as
child care, transportation, or treatment services.
GOOD CAUSE AND CONCILIATION
Under current GAIN law, recipients who do not comply with
work requirements are sanctioned with grant reductions.
Because disputes arise as to the definition of compliance,
and to reduce the state cost of fair hearings, a county
level dispute resolution ("conciliation") process is
defined in current law. The proposed amendments simplify
the dispute resolution process to shorten the time between
the noncompliance and the grant cut. Among other changes,
the amendments allow notification of recipients of their
failure to participate and of the impending grant cut in a
single notice (of action) and reduce the length of time for
conciliation overall.
ANTI-DISPLACEMENT OF CURRENT WORKERS
Current GAIN law contains anti-displacement language to
prevent recipients in work activities from displacing those
already in the workforce. The proposed amendments
consolidate existing law to include language prohibiting
displacement of existing workers by recipients in work
activities or community service employment.
FAMILY VIOLENCE OPTION
The new federal welfare law permits states to adopt a
waiver provision to exempt victims of domestic violence
from time limits, work requirements, and other provisions
of the federal bill. The proposed amendments adopt this
waiver for California, to allow counties to exclude victims
of domestic violence from program requirements if
participation puts them at risk of further abuse. The
amendments would require SDSS to convene a task force of
district attorneys, county welfare directors, and domestic
violence experts to develop protocols on identifying
victims, handling cases, training staff, and determining
appropriate work requirements for victims. The amendments
also specify that the state will only implement this option
if federal law clarifies that domestic violence victims are
excluded from federal work requirements and are not counted
in the 20 percent of the welfare caseload that is exempt
from federal time limits.
CHILD SUPPORT
Current law requires that applicants for aid assign to the
county their right to collect child support for any period
that the applicant actually receives assistance. Current
law also
requires recipients to cooperate with the county welfare
department and the district attorney in establishing the
paternity of children receiving assistance unless the
recipient has good cause for failing to do so. The
proposed amendments clarify the information an applicant
must provide and specify allowable reasons for claiming
good cause.
The proposed amendments specify a 25% grant reduction as a
penalty for noncompliance with certain child support
cooperation requirements. The amendments also require the
district attorney to have staff available either in person
or by telephone to conduct interviews with applicants to
gather information necessary to establish a child support
order or paternity. Under the amendments, the district
attorney will make the determination whether the applicant
is cooperating in establishing paternity and the welfare
department will determine whether there is good cause for
failing to cooperate.
STATEWIDE CHILD SUPPORT REGISTRY
Current law requires the SDSS to implement a statewide
registry of child support orders. In addition, the new
federal law requires states to implement such a registry.
The proposed amendments continue the requirement in current
law and require SDSS to have the registry in place by July
1, 1998.
EMPLOYMENT TRAINING PANEL
The proposed amendments direct the Employment Training
Panel to allocate $20 million annually (from the Employment
Training Fund) to support training programs for workers who
are current or recent recipients of benefits under the
CalWORKs Program (AFDC). The amendments specify that funds
may also be used, under prescribed circumstances, to
provide support services for former recipients of benefits
under CalWORKs who are currently employed.
WELFARE FRAUD
Current law contains a number of penalties for the
commission of fraud in social services programs. The new
federal law required that states adopt certain new
requirements for specified types of offenses. The proposed
amendments add to existing law a ten-year period of
ineligibility for individuals convicted by a court, or
found by an administrative law judge, to have
misrepresented their place of residence; submitted false
documents for the purpose of showing ineligible children to
be eligible for aid; or received over $10,000 in benefits
as a result of a misrepresentation of eligibility.
CHILD CARE
Under current law, parents on aid can disregard a portion
of their earnings used for child care, up to certain
limits. These amendments eliminate the disregard and
replace it with a system of direct payments for child care
(see AB 1501 for more detail).
OTHER
The proposed amendments specify that the counties shall
remain responsible for eligibility determinations, and may
contract out other services to the extent allowed under
state and federal law as of August 21, 1996.
The amendments also state that this bill shall not be
operative until the Budget Act of 1997 is chaptered.
By: Senate Health & Human Services Committee
Sara McCarthy