Senate Standing Committee on Human Services

All right. The Senate Human Services Committee will begin and will come to order. Good evening or afternoon, I don't know what it is. We are holding our committee hearings here in the State Capitol in Room 113. We ask that all Members of the Committee please join us to be here to establish a quorum.

We will begin as a subcommittee until we are able to establish quorum. Today, we have two bills on the agenda. We have AB 518 by Assembly Member Wicks and AB 2496 by Assembly Member Pellerin. Since we don't have quorum, we're going to go ahead and begin, and we have our first author in the room. And we will have you, Assembly Member Pellerin, present to AB 2496. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members, for the opportunity to present AB 2496. I'd like to address up front the unique circumstances surrounding the introduction of this legislation. The situation is urgent and dire. Foster family agencies play a critical role in the care of some of California's most vulnerable children.

I introduced AB 2496 to ensure foster family agencies would not lose their liability insurance this year, leading to displacement of the 9000 children in their care. Unfortunately, the Nonprofit Insurance Alliance of California, NIAC, which ensures 90% of FFAs, announced last week it will not renew insurance coverage for all FFAs in the state.

Earlier this year, NIAC's reinsurer, Philadelphia-based Guy Carpenter and Company LLC, said it would no longer reinsure NIAC if it continued to insure FFAs due to increased liability.

I joined Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara and his call to action to urge all property and casualty insurance companies operating in California to find a way to offer coverage to ffas and help stabilize the state's foster system.

I would also like to stress that AB 2496 is a temporary solution to keep our most vulnerable foster kids in their current homes, and I hope that all stakeholders can work together between now and January 2025 and come back with an urgency bill to ensure the continued operation of FFAs in California.

So AB 2496 is a temporary solution to keep those kids in their current homes. The bill does the following four things with a January 1, 2027 sunset date. Section one provides that an FFA shall not indemnify a public entity for harms caused by the entity own negligent or intentional acts.

Sections 2 and 3 facilitate the transfer of resource families from an FFA that can no longer operate because they don't have insurance to the county or an FFA that is still insured and operational. Section four requires the California Department of Social Services to report data and possible solutions to the Legislature. And Section 5 creates an urgency.

So I am pleased to have with me in support Amanda Kirchner, who's the Director of legislative advocacy for the County Welfare Directors Association of California. And I also have an expert witness here, Chris Stoner-Mertz from the California alliance of Child and Family Services, who could answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Senator Pellerin. I do note that we have established quorum, so if we can call the roll.

[Roll Call] We've established a quorum.

Thank you. We have established quorum. Please proceed with your testimony and support.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members, good evening. Amanda Kirchner on behalf of CWDA, we are in support of AB 2496. Foster family agencies are a key partner for county child welfare departments in our continuum of care. There's currently about 9700 foster children that are placed through FFAs all across the state.

Counties often contract with these FFAs to place higher needs youth, as well as to provide adoption services and other supports for our resource families. 90% of the FFAs are currently covered through one insurance group, which, unfortunately, as we've heard, has now decided to non-renew their coverage moving forward.

If these FFAs are unable to find replacement insurance coverage, they will be forced to close, putting their resource families and their foster youth in uncertainty. If FFAs close, those families and foster children will need to be moved back under a county jurisdiction or ported back to the county child welfare departments.

This process is fairly uncommon right now, and it can take several months. So that is time that we will not have if FFAs lose their insurance in the next few months and cannot obtain replacement insurance. I want to be clear that this bill is not a solution to the underlying problem.

Our hope is that FFAs will be able to find replacement insurance and that there will be no instability for these families or a need to port them from an FFA to another FFA or from an FFA to our counties.

It's critical that we cause as little disruption as possible for these children who have already experienced trauma that, frankly, most of us will never understand.

As we move forward, AB 2496 helps counties by allowing Department of Social Services to waive current written guidelines regarding the porting process, and it ensures counties and FFAs can do this quickly and effectively to transition those families. It also enables counties to continue to pay the higher FFA rate for those families that move back under county jurisdiction.

While the bill does not address the underlying issue of the insurance affordability, it does require DSS to engage with all the stakeholders moving forward, and we appreciate that and pledge to be a part of that process. We think this is just a necessary first step. I want to thank the author for the amendments.

I want to thank the insurance commissioner, Ricardo Lara, and I want to thank Director Kim Johnson for her leadership on this as well as the leadership of the Senate here. And we look forward to continuing to work with all of you moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll have the next witness in support. Two minutes, please.

Thank you, Chair Limon and committee members, we appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Chris Stoner Mertz, CEO of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, representing over 160 nonprofit organizations that work with children, youth and families across the state.

Many of these nonprofits are FFAs or foster family agencies, a lifeline of specialized care for foster youth with the most intensive needs and their families. There are 9700 vulnerable foster youth in FFAs across the state.

They provide 24/7 supports and services to resource families reunification supports, supervised visitation and assistance with everything from transportation, medical care, coordination and respite care for families. These organizations also provide close to 100% of intensive services foster care, a program that addresses the most complex needs of children and youth.

The wraparound 24/7 services provided by FFAs keeps foster children in family-based care rather than in higher-level services. There is really nothing like them in our state. The FFA insurance crisis has hit our members head on and we are.

We've proposed multiple solutions to the Administration and the Legislature to address the crisis both short term and long term.

While AB 2496 does not address the crisis long-term, it is temporary and we continue to have significant concerns that only focusing on expediting the porting process will result in FFA capacity loss that we won't be able to replace.

We need real solutions, and we urge the Administration and the Legislature to work with us this fall and put forward collaborative solutions as quickly as possible. We may have as many as 3200 foster youth at risk by the end of December if we don't.

We do very much appreciate Assemblymember Pellerin's efforts to try to address this issue through legislation, even though we know it won't address the root causes of the insurance crisis. We also appreciate the attention that both Director Johnson and Insurance Commissioner Lara have given to this issue and look forward to more engagement from them.

These are kids who could potentially end up without FFA support in our future homeless camps, encampments in our criminal justice system, or worse.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, any additional witnesses in support in the room, please just state your name and organization.

Kim Lewis, representing Aspiranet, now one of the FFAs whose insurance expires in mid-December. Thank you.

Justin Garrett with the California State Association of Counties. We're sort of in the middle as CSAC, along with the Rural County Representatives of California are dropping our opposition to this bill. Really grateful for the assemblymember leadership on this issue.

Counties are very concerned about this crisis, and despite our ongoing concerns about the indemnification provisions in the Bill, we are extremely grateful for the provisions that will help counties effectively respond to this crisis in the short term and look forward to continuing engagement. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks. Madam Chair. Jean Hurst, on behalf of the Urban Counties of California, we're in a similar position to CSAC in that we've removed our opposition, appreciate all the work, and we'll continue to participate as the discussions continue through the interim.

So we've heard from support and tweeners, any opposition? All right, seeing no opposition, I'll bring it back to members. Any comments, questions? All right, seeing none, would you like to close?

Yes, I would. First of all, I want to thank my Chief of Staff, Ashley Lavar, who's put in countless hours on this, coming up with some resolution. We're doing this for the kids. We've got more than 9000, what do they say?

9700 foster youth that are in a dire situation of having to revert back to the care of the counties if we do not do something to keep them in their homes. So please vote aye on AB 2496. Please do it for the children.

Thank you very much, Assemblymember Pellerin. All right, so, Members, do we have a motion for AB 2496? We have Senator Hurtado, who has made the motion to move. AB 2496. Can we please call a roll with the motion?

File item two, AB 2496. Motion is that the measure be returned to the Senate Floor for consideration. Ordered to third reading. [Roll Call]

Can we just call that role one more time? Since two members get to.

We are on file item two, AB 2496, motion is that the measure be returned to the Senate Floor for consideration. Order to third reading. [Roll Call]

All right, that bill is 5-0, so that bill is out. Thank you very much. Next we have Assembly Member Wicks with AB 518.

Thank you, madam. Thank you, Madam Chair. Is the mic on? Yeah, mic is on. Okay. This seat's a little short. I feel like I'm like a little kid at the big kids table. Okay. Thank you. Okay, good. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present AB 518 this evening.

Ensuring food access and food security requires immediate and collective action. CalFresh is 100% federally funded, and each year the state could be leaving valuable federal dollars on the table. We want to make sure that no person who is eligible goes to bed hungry.

AB 518's recent amendments require the Department of Social Services by July 1, 2025 and in consultation with stakeholders to develop a framework to calculate who is eligible for CalFresh and to use that information to publish data and metrics to develop targeted outreach strategies.

The bill also marks a unique opportunity to ensure that all of our state and local governmental entities are coordinated, as the bill also authorizes the Department of Social Services to data share with other state and local entities to improve and identify who may be eligible for CalFresh. By expanding our ability to better understand hunger in California, we can craft a holistic plan that tackles the root causes of food insecurity and create sustainable solutions. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Do we have any witnesses in support? Please, two minutes. All right. Seeing no witnesses in support, do we have any witnesses as tweeners or in opposition? All right, seeing none. Members, we're going to bring it back. And we have a motion by Senator Hurtado. And we have a question from Senator Blakespear.

Just quickly, is this the bill that we heard in committee that's been modified, that used to deliver food to people on the street?

No, that's a separate bill.

Okay.

This came more recently as a priority from the Administration.

Okay. Thank you.

I have three food bills now.

All right. Seeing no additional questions or comments. Thank you very much for presenting. Would you like to close? Great. Thank you. So we will go ahead and make. Sorry. Call the roll for that one.

File item one, AB 518. Motion is do pass, but re-refer to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

All right. That bill is out, 5-0. Thank you very much. This concludes our hearing for Human Services. Thank you. We will go ahead and adjourn.