Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 3 on Health and Human Services

Senate Budget Subcommitee 3 will now come to order. Would like to welcome everyone who is here today. This hearing should take no more than two hours. We have two Department items up for discussion today. Department of Social Services and the California Health and Human Services Agency, Office of Technology and Solutions Integration.

We will solicit public comment after completion of the presentation items within the agenda, at which time the public may comment on any of the previous items. We will start with the first department, the Department of Social Services.

Issue number one, CalFresh, SUN Bucks, and Fruit Program Overview Would like to welcome to the podium Jennifer Troia, Alexis Fernandez Garcia, Sonia Russo and Becky Silva. If there's anyone here from the Department of Finance, you can come forward too. And you may begin.

Thank you very much. Good morning. Jennifer Troia on behalf of the Department of Social Services. It's lovely to be here with you to talk about many of our safety net programs today. CalFresh, which is known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, is the largest food and nutrition program in California.

It provides about $1.1 billion of federally funded food benefits to individuals and families with low incomes every month and economic benefits to communities that correspond with those benefits. Just over 5.5 million Californians benefit from the program and the post pandemic caseload is continuing to grow at historically high levels.

We often also offer several affiliated programs that offer services and supports to CalFresh eligible populations, including disaster assistance, CalFresh outreach, CalFresh employment and training, and CalFresh healthy living. In addition, we administer several other federal and state funded food programs, all with the aim of providing an additional food safety net for Californians.

These programs include the Federal Emergency Food Program, Federal Commodity Supplemental Food Program, the state's CalFood Program and the newest additions, the State Tribal Nutrition Assistance Program and Federal Summer EBT Program known as SUN Bucks.

Effective October 1, 2027, we'll also be expanding the California Food Assistance Program to serve all Californians over the age of 55 regardless of immigration status in 25-26. The Governor's Budget includes $3.9 billion in total funds and 1.3 billion general funds for CalFresh and nutrition programs.

That will conclude this overview that I'll give you for all of the programs if you'd like. I'll just continue through the questions and so the second question was related to the implementation of the first year of SUN Bucks, which I previously mentioned is the new SUN EBT program.

SUN bucks gives us a really significant opportunity to lessen summer hunger and the gap that children in California experience. So that they have access to the food they need in the summertime. Specifically, it provides eligible school age children $120 per child to buy groceries during the summer.

This is in addition to CalFresh benefits or other programs that they may benefit from. The eligibility is tied to free and reduced price meal eligibility and is automatic for children who participate in CalFresh and in MediCal. We began issuing benefits for the first time in the summer of 2024, in May of last year.

The total issuances by CDSS and our partners at the California Department of Education for the summer of 2024 were approximately $672 million to around 5.6 million children.

In summer 2025, we anticipate severing a similar number of children with a similar amount of benefits and we are very pleased to say that our summer 2025 plan was approved by the federal government on April 9th. So we are on track for cards to begin arriving for the 2025 implementation in mailboxes in early June.

The next question was related to disaster CalFresh and other food-related supports provided in response to the fires in Los Angeles and to other disasters. We have a really wide variety of roles in the immediate response and the recovery to disasters at the California Department of Social Services.

With respect to access to food and other safety net benefits in particular, we coordinate with the counties to get necessary waivers and implement flexibilities aimed at ensuring access to benefits for both new and ongoing participants in response to prior disasters and in response to the fires in Los Angeles.

The this included access to replacement CalFresh benefits through automatic mass replacements if you were in certain zip codes as well as additional time to report food losses for other households on an individual basis.

In response to the LA wildfires specifically, we received approval to issue more than $17 million in replacement benefits to over 127,000 households in 13 counties. That was also due to power outages. A federal waiver also allowed the purchase of hot foods with CalFresh benefits, so for folks who lost access to their own kitchens they could purchase hot foods.

The operation of disaster CalFresh also allowed us to provide one month of food benefits for households who are not normally eligible for CalFresh. The department can get federal approval to operate disaster CalFresh whenever there's a presidential declaration that there's a disaster that calls for individual assistance.

The LA disaster CalFresh operation provided over $1 million in additional food benefits to individuals and families in impacted zip codes. The department also administers an emergency food bank reserve and we can through this provide food and administrative funding to food banks to help with disaster response such as wildfires or floods.

We're able to request up to a million dollars to replenish that account as needed to maintain an emergency Reserve of food for immediate distribution. In LA, this allowed us to execute an emergency contract to have 25,000 boxes of food and truckloads of potable bottled water delivered to the local food banks within days of when the fires began.

With respect finally to flexibilities for the recent fires, we received federal approval to to adjust eligibility, certification periods and reporting requirements for CalFresh and state authority to do the same under CalWORKS for an executive order. So this allows families who are in crisis and trying to get stability the additional time in order to maintain their benefits.

Your fourth question was related to a recent set of decisions by the USDA to withdraw funding for food programs that's deeply impacting the state, particularly the loss of the Local Food Purchase Assistance and LFPA plus grants and our emergency food funding for 2025.

For those LFPA and LFPA Plus grants, this is funding that the USDA provides to expand California's efforts to reduce food insecurity through the purchase of locally sourced food. LFPA connects farmers, growers and producers with a focus on socially disadvantaged farmers through non traditional distribution methods.

We were awarded a total of $88 million via two grants, LFPA and LFPA Plus that were anticipated to be available through June of 2026. We in turn awarded 100% of those funds to the California Association of Food Food Banks, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the Central California Collaborative of Food Banks and the Monterey County Food Bank.

Each participating agency and food bank has implemented their own grant projects in the communities that they serve.

This LFPA funding provides a significant opportunity for us to distribute locally-sourced food throughout the state and economically benefits over 500 locally and socially disadvantaged farmers, producers, and small-medium-sized food aggregation businesses to provide food to approximately 250,000 California families.

The USDA had planned a third round of LFPA funding. They were calling it LFPA 25 to augment the first two rounds which were LFPA and LFPA Plus. That funding was instead terminated on March 7, 2025. We received received a formal termination letter from them that day. Our share of the LFPA 25 funding would have been $47.3 million. We have submitted an appeal to USDA.

We submitted that on April 4th requesting for them to reverse their decision to end that funding. To date we have not received any response to that appeal. Any loss of federal funding of this amount is certainly going to have a negative impact in this case.

That negative impact is on the people who rely on the food banks for emergency food resources, either because they're not eligible for other benefits or because even with those benefits, they're not yet making ends meet.

The food banks themselves who were relying on these resources to meet demand, and the local distributors and growers who through those innovative partnerships were establishing new ways to further develop and sustain their businesses. I would additionally focus on The Emergency Food Assistance Program. So TEFAP.

TEFAP is a federal food program that offers both administrative funds and USDA funds to a network of California food banks. As of January 2025, we had 49 participating food banks collectively administering a network of around 2,400 TEFAP food distribution and congregate feeding sites. They serve around 2.2 million people each month.

The USDA had previously stated that there were $500 million available nationally for TEFAP for the Commodity Credit Corporation augmentation and that included both food procurement and administrative support. But on April 2, 2025 they provided informal communication that that funding, the TEFAP Commodity Credit Corporation funding was terminated due to the previous administration's. The quote was inflated.

Statutory programs with CCC dollars without any plans for long term solutions. The $1.1 million phase one TEFAP allocation California had received through the CCC was designated as operational funds for food banks and intended to cover the administrative allocations per truckload which was allowed by the USDA for those orders placed by food banks in the federal ordering system.

We're not able to determine the exact value of that food because it was provided sort of as a bonus from the USDA. So in other words, we didn't receive an allocation or information from the USDA that specified the value of the food earmarked from the $500 million. As only the administrative and operational details were provided to states.

Based on the value of the food ordered in the first phase of the TEFAP CCC and subsequently canceled, we estimate that the value would have been approximately $60 million.

There's clearly a high level of uncertainty related to changes that the new Federal Administration or Congress may pursue, so we will continue to closely monitor the situation for potential impacts on the Californians we serve and we are very committed to ensuring access and mitigating harm to the extent that we can. I think that was the last of the questions on the first issue.

Thank you. Any comments from LAO? Good morning. Sonia Schrager Russo with the Legislative Analyst Office as has been mentioned, there are no major new proposals in the food assistance, CalFresh or CFAP space included in the Governor's Budget. As mentioned by others, the Governor's Budget does include increasing caseload for these programs.

CalFresh and CFAP caseload has been increasing in recent years and our office does independently forecast caseload for these programs. And at this time, the administration's caseload estimates appear reasonable, although we will reassess those in the coming weeks as we head into May revision.

Additionally, the budget maintains a delay in the CFAP expansion, which was planned a number of years ago and as part of the June 2024 budget agreement was delayed by two years. So that is maintained in the Governor's Budget proposal.

Additionally, as we will likely hear from the Association of Food Banks, we have heard from food banks anecdotally that demand for their services and goods remains high after the COVID-19 pandemic, and there are concerns amongst food banks across the state around the proposed cow food allocation in the Governor's Budget.

Finally, our office continues to monitor efforts underway, including disaster CalFresh operations, the second year of the SUN Bucks program, the Minimum Nutrition Benefit Pilot, as well as the planning for the CFAP expansion. Additionally, we continue to monitor federal decisions surrounding food assistance and on all of these issues.

We'll be sure to keep the Legislature apprised of any key takeaways or updates. Thank you.

Becky Silva.

Good morning. Becky Silva, I'm the Government Relations Director at the California Association of Food Banks. We represent 41 food banks and our mission is to end hunger in California.

In addition to some of the information you've heard already about the state of food insecurity, I also just wanted to share one other shocking indicator, which is that currently one in four people are paying for groceries with a credit card and are taking on debt to buy food.

And while grocery prices have increased a staggering 24% since 2020, they're predicted to increase further this year and ask any food bank around the state to share their experience locally.

Just as a couple of examples, the Community Action Partnership of Kern County recently told us that they're seeing a 150% increase in the lines at their food distributions compared to two years ago. And earlier this year, the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services served the most number of people they've ever served in a single month.

What we're looking at in 2025 is a perfect storm of food banks trying to serve elevated demand at the same time that they're facing both significant federal and state funding cost cuts as you've already heard.

On the federal front, food banks have lost about $100 million in value of food through LFPA, TEFAP and EFSP like you just heard about from Director Troia. And on the state level, CalFood is facing a 90% funding cut at the end of next month.

The program is a core pillar of enabling food banks to feed their communities consistently with a really wide variety of nourishing food food that was grown or produced here in California. Staples, just to give you a couple examples, like eggs, tortillas. Those are common things that food banks use to purchase with fruits and vegetables.

Last year, food banks purchased 80 million pounds of food with their CalFood Dollars, or about 940 million meals. And earlier this year, we asked our Food Bank Network how they would cope with this funding cliff. Most food banks would have to limit or reduce the amount and variety of food offered per household.

A third of food banks would have to reduce their paid workforce, and one-fifth of food banks would have to close existing food distribution sites. We urge you to sustain this vital funding at 60 million annually so that food banks can keep feeding their communities and supporting the local food economy.

And lastly, I just wanted to touch on CalFresh. With average daily benefits at just $6 per person per day, we know that over one-third of CalFresh recipients are also visiting food banks because their benefits just don't cover a whole month's worth of groceries.

We're really grateful to Senator Menjivar for her tremendous leadership in increasing the CalFresh minimum in California, which is currently just $23 per month. And thanks to really quick planning and implementing, implementation work by CDSS, we're looking forward to the launch of the pilot later this year.

And at the federal level, the devastating cuts to SNAP that are being proposed in Congress right now would result in a $30 billion cut to CalFresh over 10 years. That is just in California alone, which represents a $54 billion loss in economic activity and a loss of over 400,000 jobs related to the food economy.

I cannot overstate enough how detrimental this would be. And just to say that food banks will not be able to fill this gap if it's created and millions of people will go hungry.

We applaud the Senate for passing SJR3 by Senator Arreguin with a unanimous vote urging Congress to reject cuts to SNAP that would cause unimaginable harm and hardship to make millions of Californians. And we hope that you'll continue to use your voice to protect life saving programs like SNAP from federal threats. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Could you state those numbers again? So you said 30 billion loss?

Yes. So if the cuts that are being proposed right now come to fruition, it represents about $30 billion over 10 years of cuts to the actual value of the benefits that people receive. And we know that the economic return on $1 of SNAP can be as much as $1.80. And so the lost economic activity would be about 54 billion over a 10 year period.

Thank you. Any comments from Department of Finance?

No, I'm calling Department of Finance. Nothing further, but happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Senator Menjivar.

Thank you so much. Madam Chair. Director, on the Federal Government's cut of $100 million so far, do we anticipate any cuts or challenges to the sandbox? Have we heard anything related to that.

At this point? Our SUN Bucks plan was just recently approved, so we're certainly taking that as a very good sign. There were rumblings and conversations at various points, but informally nothing formal that we ever saw in action from the Federal Government regarding concerns that the incoming Administration may have had. But they have approved our plan and we are moving forward.

Great, thank you. And then the cuts that happened to the LFPA program, do we know if this is impacting school meals? Local Food Purchase Assistance Program.

So, uh, good morning. Alexis Fernandez Garcia with CDSS. There was an equivalent program for schools and childcare centers that is administered by the Department of Education. They also had several grants that were already underway and had the third round terminated as well, they would be able to speak to the exact numbers.

Okay, so nothing directly under CDSS. CDSS, okay. And then Director, you mentioned on related to that same program that we talked about that. We're just talking about that. I think it was like the third round that was cut and our part was 47.3 million. What happens to that funding now? Can we distribute our part?

The 47.3 million that I was referencing is what they canceled. So we have not received it from the Federal Government because of the cancellation.

Okay, thank you so much. Oh, yes. Is there any update on the governor's executive order on healthy food? We haven't heard much since he announced that.

I don't, I don't have anything to share at this point. There are recommendations that we have made internally within the administration that are under consideration in the governor's office office. And I think any updates coming further would come from the governor's office.

Okay, thank you so much appreciate it.

Thank you. Senator Menjivar. Thank you all so much for this presentation this morning. I know that CalFoods is really one of the few things that we actually fund at the state level. Much of this is federal funding.

But seeing that the there is a high likelihood that a lot of these funds from the Federal Government will not continue once they finally get around to passing their budget. Do we have any kind of contingency plans?

Because this is going to be a lot and it's going to actually end up hurting a lot of families, a lot of farmers. Have we thought about what we might be able to do in our very limited budget to try to mitigate or lessen some of the impact that our residents will definitely be feeling?

I'll simply start by saying that we think about that a lot and are deeply concerned about the potential impacts coming from the Federal Government. We do. With respect to Cal Foods would have some baseline funding. It is a significant drop from the one time augmentations that were provided.

And we're very aware of the impacts that the food banks have raised that they expect as a result of that drop. But I do want to be sure to emphasize that the program is not entirely going away. The Governor's Budget does propose to continue those parts of the funds.

I would defer to the Department of Finance in terms of any other sort of more global comments about the impacts.

Yeah, I know. I'm on Department of Finance. Like Director Troia, we're closely monitoring, you know, the decisions at the Federal Government and doing what we can. Just reiterating, you know, the federal funding that we receive is not able to be completely backfilled by the General Fund just because of the revenue situation that we're in.

But as Director Troia mentioned, there is that ongoing CalFood funding that we do allocate annually and we continue to assess as news comes out.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, we will move on to issue number two. SUN Bucks automation and cost per case month. You may begin.

Good morning. Brandon Hansard, Office of Technology and Solutions Integration. I'm the Deputy Director of Benefits and Enrollment Technology. This is a very short issue. This is to piggyback off of issue one and the benefits of the SUN Bucks program.

This is to align the OTSI spending authority so that when we get these late approvals, such as April 9th for this year, that we are able to quickly work with our EBT processor to be able to distribute SUN Bucks by these summer months and in this case, attempting to get cards in hand by June. So in past years and in current year we've had to provide budget revision in order to have that spending authority. And this is attempting to baseline, moving forward the spending authority so that we can engage with our EBT processor.

Thank you. Any comments from LAO?

Sonia Schrager Russo. Nothing to add at this time.

Thank you. Anything from Department of Finance?

Nothing further.

Perfect saying no questions. Thank you so much for this presentation. We will now move to issue issue number three, CalFresh budget change proposals.

Good morning. Alexis Fernandez Garcia with the Department of Social Services; the CalFresh outreach section budget change proposal expands the CalFresh outreach team by four additional staff to create a section dedicated to addressing a growing outreach workload. The BCP is 100% federally funded. The intent of the BCP is to advance the Department's goal of improving CalFresh participation.

The team will take on several new statewide efforts, for example expanding digital outreach and one on one engagement with counties to better integrate them into our outreach efforts. In addition, the team will be expanding required program oversight efforts under some federal rules related to administration of the program.

Historically, CalFresh has had the potential to reach more eligible Californians than the program has served. Recent caseload trends indicate that we are narrowing the participation gap. This is in part because of the historic investments in improving participation, including CalFresh Outreach.

In March, USDA released the newest federal participation rate for FFY 2022, and California's rate has increased to 81%, up from 67% in FFY 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, a 20% increase over two years.

The USDA's methodology is lagged, and it is primarily designed to produce a national state level estimate, and it uses data only available to our federal partners.

So, we have historically produced the Program Reach Index to generate more timely estimates, including county estimates, and we are continuing to refine this methodology to better understand how we can continue to close the participation gap.

Regardless of the methodology you use, all estimates show a large upward trend in closing the gap in the last decade that has continued even after the pandemic. We esti1mate that since 2017 the state has closed that gap by nearly 50%. So where is more work needed?

Our participation gaps mirror those we have identified and are working to address in other safety net programs as well. The participation rate for CalFresh is higher for children than adults, although California has closed some of that gap in the last five years. Speakers of Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese have lower participation rates than the statewide average.

Californians who identify as Asian American have lower participation rates than the statewide average. And in general, the lower the household income, the higher the participation rate, which is not surprising. While there is some variation by county, we have not observed any explicit patterns by geography.

I'm going to stop there and happy to answer any questions you all may.

Okay, anything from LAO, Department of Finance? Okay, Senator Menjivar.

Alex, can you share a little bit more? I know it's always been a focus to get more of the - there are a lot of college students are eligible and that's always been a focus area. I'm wondering what new approaches we're going to be taking to help them get connected to CalFresh.

Right. So, over the last few years with very deep partnership amongst the higher education institutions, they've been quite critical in terms of making the gains that we have.

We've been focusing in on state strategies to work around a federal rule that prevents CalFresh students from being eligible for the program unless they engage in work for 20 hours a week. And so, a lot of our strategies have been around identifying exemptions from that rule using data driven approaches.

We have new data agreements that are underway with the higher education institutions from the public systems where we can exchange data to better understand who we're reaching, who might be exempt and how we can outreach to those that are not participating.

And we've had other strategies in place such as targeted outreach campaigns with messaging that are specific to students, the partnerships with the CSUs, the CCCs, and the Cal State system to establish basic needs centers where they are doing application assistance. We have a state contract with CSU Chico where they are identifying programs at the state level.

So, it's really been a multi-pronged approach to try to work around that rule and streamline the process of determining someone eligible.

Thank you so much for that. Are there any metrics that we're utilizing to see? Like is there a number we're trying to reach? Like how do we know when we'd be successful?

So, we recently did some work in partnership with the California Policy Lab to start looking at this. They put out a report showing some gains and some challenges we're having with specific exemption criteria. So, we've started this. The data sharing partnerships I referred to are aimed at getting more data informed.

We recently also put up a new dashboard with data for our partners to use. But that's definitely an area for improvement.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your presentation. We will now move to issue four, Disaster CalFresh.

I'll take that as well. So as previously described, Disaster CalFresh is available when we receive federal approval after a disaster declaration with individual assistance. It provides one month of food benefits to households not normally eligible for regular CalFresh. It also provides households based on individual requests or automatically depending on the circumstances, supplements to bring them to the maximum.

The department is proposing trailer bill Language to codify the provision of $300,000 in general fund necessary to support administrative costs at the state and at the county level when there is a declared disaster and D-CalFresh is in operation.

This is technical cleanup as the language replicates an uncodified provision of a 2017 piece of legislation, SB, or excuse me, AB 607.

Thank you. Any comments from LAO? Not seeing any questions. Thank you so much for your presentation. We will now move to issue number five, CalWORKS budget overview.

Thank you very much again, Jennifer Troia on behalf of the department. CalWORKS is known federally as the TANF program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and it is our state's Welfare to Work program. In addition to providing cash assistance to eligible low-income families with children for participants who are eligible, the CalWORKS program provides education, employment and training programs and supportive services like childcare, all of which are aimed at giving families opportunities to build resilience, achieve critical economic mobility, and to disrupt poverty.

The 2025-26 Governor's Budget includes $6.4 billion in total funds for CalWORKS; 961.4 billion general fund. The caseload for CalWORKS and the governor's January budget is projected to be around 360,000 families in 2024-25. That's a 2.7% increase from the 2024 Budget Act.

The caseload is estimated to be close to 362,000 in 25-26, so that's a year over year increase of around 0.6%. The Governor's Budget also projects a very small increase in the CalWORKS maximum aid payment levels, a 0.2% increase.

To be more specific, effective October 1, 2025, with an estimated cost of $7 million in 25-26 and 9 million in 26-27. That increase in grant costs would be funded entirely by the projection of available revenues in the Child Poverty and Family Support sub account of the Local Revenue Fund, so local realignment funding.

And it's important to note as we are on the cusp of the May revise, that those projections get updated at the May revision. But this is the January budget proposal. Based on the projected caseload. The counties also receive a fixed amount of funding annually for administering CalWORKS and providing employment services.

The funding is provided in what we call the single, which is essentially a block grant that allows fungibility across three components, Eligibility Administration, Employment Services, and the Cal Learn Intensive Case Management Program. The total single allocation funding for 24-25 in the Governor's Budget is held to the budget act level of 1.7 billion total funds.

That represents the funding level that was committed to the counties in the 24-25 budget. It's not adjusted for a lower than previously projected caseload because we are essentially holding the counties harmless. The Governor's Budget includes 1.6 billion for the single allocation in 25-26.

So, it's a decrease of 44.5 million due to that lower employment services projected caseload, which we do then adjust for. You asked us to talk a little bit about the challenges that families who are receiving CalWORKS face to achieving stability and what elements of the CalWORKS program are the most effective in supporting them.

So, what we know is that families participating in CalWORKS are frequently experiencing a really significant number of complex barriers to employment, to economic mobility, and to family wellbeing that can include domestic abuse, mental health or substance abuse challenges, or homelessness or housing instability.

We also know that nearly 60% of adults entering the CalWORKS program do not have a high school diploma. And their clients and advocates indicate a greater need for language access to streamline the multiple steps required for documentation and verification; that can result in families either not being found eligible for CalWORKS or not applying at all.

Counties and caseworkers as well, report that these requirements and processes create administrative burdens that prevent them from spending more time engaging with and supporting families to meet their goals. So, we are constantly working to streamline as much as possible in the program.

The CalWORKS program offers a a wide array of services and supports like family stabilization services, counseling, job skills training. They're all designed to help families address these barriers and achieve long term stability and their employment goals.

Over the years, the Governor and Legislature have invested in the program and the counties have implemented a really wide array of services and supports that we know are really critical to empowering families.

We changed our laws regarding what counts as work participation to allow greater flexibility for education and for barrier removal services, and to provide targeted family stabilization for those who are experiencing really significant crises. We've emphasized access to childcare, subsidies to housing and homelessness services, to education and training programs. We created home visiting programs.

We provide subsidized employment. We have the Family Stabilization Program for families in crisis. We have mental health, substance abuse, and domestic violence survivor services. And we have program components that are also focused on family preservation and reunification for families whose children were removed by the child welfare system.

So, as we move forward in administering the CalWORKS program, we are continuing to emphasize not only securing employment and doing so quickly, but also building on our prior efforts to focus on participant supports, barrier removals and skill development to facilitate stable and meaningful long-term employment and wellbeing.

Finally, you asked us to provide an overview of a report that we provided to the Legislature pursuant to the requirements of Assembly Bill 161 on policy options to center family engagement and reduce administrative burdens in the CalWORKS program, including the associated costs and savings.

We did submit that required report earlier this year and it is the product of consultation with legislative staff, with representatives of county human services agencies, the county welfare director's association, advocate representatives, and labor organizations that represent county workers. The report includes the estimated cost of each policy option, including impacts to grants, automation and childcare.

The policy options are organized into three overarching categories. First is centering family engagement, the second is reducing administrative burden and the third is supporting local implementation. The anticipated administrative efficiencies and additional workload are also noted for each of the options in the report.

So as an example, the first policy option included in the report focuses on upfront engagement by caseworkers with clients by eliminating sanctions and penalties during the first 90 days of engagement in the program.

That policy would require statutory changes to adopt and there's an estimated fiscal impact in the first year of 1.9 million and ongoing at 1.7 million. That represents the cost to restore the grants for the families each month who would no longer be sanctioned during that time.

There would also be some county efficiencies that would result from that change. For example, the counties would no longer be following up with those individuals who are out of compliance in order to try to cure their sanctions.

Those efficiencies are accounted for in an estimated total savings line that aggregates the impacts of all the proposals in the report. There's 12 additional policy options presented. Happy to answer questions about any of them.

In particular, they range from changes in welfare to work policy to eliminating certain requirements like the resource limit or income in kind policy, as well as new activities to support local implementation and I will pause there.

Thank you so much. Any comments from LAO?

Sonia Schrager Russo with the LAO; in terms of the CalWORKS proposal within the Governor's Budget, there are no major new proposals for the program included. We will continue to monitor that as we head into the May revision. Coming first to the Single allocation as has been mentioned, single allocation funding is projected to decrease within the Governor's Budget year over year.

As was mentioned by the director, this is largely due to estimated decreases in employment services caseload. Our office does still have questions about the sufficiency of the single allocation funding.

As you may be aware, the eligibility administration component of the single allocation's methodology was reassessed last year as is statutorily required every three years, although that was the first reassessment under the statutory requirement which is relatively new.

The Governor's Budget does not include findings from this reassessment which were primarily focused on the eligibility worker rate at the county level and funding for applications independent of changes in caseload.

Based on the administration's most recent estimates, over 200 million in additional funding would be needed to update that component of the single allocation based on those findings from the reassessment last year. Speaking more broadly about the single allocation, the potential impacts of the currently proposed single allocation funding are not fully clear at this time.

Counties have underspent total single allocation funds in recent years, so along with the fungibility of the various single allocation components, as the department has mentioned, counties may be able to fully fund current activities going into the 25-26 budget year under the current proposal in the Governor's Budget, that is without a change in the methodology for the eligibility Administration component.

However, we have heard from counties that they have overspent the eligibility administration component in recent years. This is primarily by moving funds from employment services to cover more statutorily required eligibility and administration activities at the local level, and counties therefore report that their proposed single allocation funding amount may be insufficient to cover costs in some counties.

We're continuing to monitor this issue as we head into the May revision and continue to work with the administration to understand current year expenditures of single allocation funding and our most recent understanding is that data suggests increased expenditures of overall single allocation funding.

Turning briefly to the June 2024 budget package reductions, the Governor's Budget maintains the multiyear and ongoing reductions that were included for the CalWORKS program in the June 24 budget package. These were focused on employment services, intensive case management, the home visiting program, and mental health and substance abuse services.

The impacts of these reductions may vary by program and from county to county. The reductions, as you may recall from last year, were intended to align funding for these components of the CalWORKS program to utilization and to avoid local service reductions.

And based on most recently available expenditure data and assuming no extraordinary caseload changes year over year, some counties may be able to maintain or just slightly reduce current services within this reduced funding amount in the budget year.

However, since programs are locally implemented, some counties may have preemptively reduced services resulting in varying service levels from county to county, and counties do report that many of these services are beneficial to participants who are able to receive them.

Finally, just in terms of our general comments on CalWORKS within the overall budget framework, our office estimates at this time are roughly balanced budget, although we will reassess in the coming weeks heading into the May revision and we also project significant budget deficits in future years.

As such, we see this as a potential opportunity for oversight within the Legislature of CalWORKS program components and offerings. This could present an opportunity for the Legislature to consider if there are low or no cost ways to address some of the challenges that CalWORKS families and local counties face when delivering the program that the department highlighted.

Thank you. Any comments from the Department of Finance?

Department of Finance. Nothing further, but happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Senator Menjivar.

Thank you so much. Let's, Director, let's start with what LAO, the last point there. If we're looking at the page 25 of the briefing that our wonderful staff put together, there are four things that cost us nothing or are net neutral and changes recognizing being mindful of the budget.

Our minimum request is, or our question is what is stopping us from implementing those for example, welfare to expand allowable welfare to work activities removing or making job club optional. Suspend some current welfare to work data reporting requirements.

Just wondering if they don't cost us nothing, why wouldn't we move forward with them or can we move forward with them?

All of the options that we presented are options that we believe can be implemented and we have provided the costs. And I agree with you that that is the reflection of the way that we have estimated the costs for those particular policies. The Governor's Budget does not include a specific proposal to take action on those policies.

But we don't have any particular feedback for you from a technical assistance perspective that there are any necessarily challenges to doing so. I don't know if Finance will -

Yeah, Department of Finance, just noting that Governor's Budget was point in time, right, at that point in the FRA pilot was a thing and still alive, right? Yes. So, some of these, you know, options were planned to be implemented in there during our May revise process. We are reassessing some of them.

Great news. Thank you so much. Okay, so hopefully in May revise we can see something like that. Other questions: I'm wondering if we have a response or why we're seeing a variation of some sanctions, different sanctions across counties. What do we think that's due to?

It's something that we are taking a closer look into, and I don't have a specific answer for you right now. There's a tremendous amount of flexibility in terms of the program implementation at the county level. That said, our CALOR program is our Cal Work's Outcomes and Accountability Review system. It has a wide variety of measures.

There's 26 total measures and it does include sanction rates. So, it is allowing us to bring forward that data and have this conversation in a way that will go deeper than we've been able to in the past and to engage with the counties and they will be providing improvement plans.

So, it will be an opportunity for us to look at those kinds of questions about variations in counties and on a statewide basis and to take the opportunity to try to improve outcomes and ensure that we're both being accurate and that best practices are disseminated across the state.

So, we do have a process for engaging in that question. And it's a question that we share and are excited to look into further.

Looking forward to getting more details on that. And what are we doing? There's a very low uptake in stage one childcare impacting our individuals, recipients, their ability to work. How can we help them get connected to that service?

So, I do want to say that it is a little complicated to understand all the trends between all of the services stages of childcare within CalWORKS. There's stage one as an entitlement, and you move to stage two when you are considered stable.

Different counties have different definitions of what they consider stable and how they implement that practice. So sometimes we see higher numbers in stage two and lower numbers in stage one. And so just looking at any one individual stage makes it difficult to know what the actual uptake in childcare is.

And so, I just, I do want to say that you kind of have to look at all the stages taken together to understand the larger trends. That said, childcare is an entitlement within the CalWORKS program.

And it is very important to us that families understand their ability to access it and that that entitlement is carried out as an entitlement. There are some families we know who may not access childcare through the program because they have other arrangements that they've made either with the other parent or relative and neighbor.

We do offer the family friend and neighbor program as a part of the voucher program through CalWORKS. So that's something else that we do try to raise awareness of, to make sure that families know of the resources that are available to them.

So, is there a possibility that some people aren't doing the stage one and they're doing that option instead? And that's why it's a low uptake.

It's possible that it could be that it's possible that people don't prefer necessarily to utilize the program. We hear a variety of things.

The advocates do indicate to us that they believe we can do a better job of making sure that all of the caseworkers are aware of and providing the information that is needed to the families to connect them to, for example, the local resource and referral agencies and the awareness of the entitlement. So that is something that we do work on.

Director, you said counties have different definitions of the stages?

They have a different definition of when you transition from stage one to stage two. So, the statutory definition is that you move from stage one to stage two when you've been deemed stable.

But different counties interpret stability in a different way.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you. Again, along the lines of the federal government, since, you know, significant amount of funding for CalWORKS comes from the federal government, are there any concerns Any conversations about the possibility that the funds that we receive may be reduced or eliminated?

The TANF conversation has not been as prominent as some of the conversations about Medi-Cal and SNAP in the headlines or in what we are hearing. That said, there have been some proposals that have been floated that we have heard related to reductions in funding. TANF is already a block grant at the federal level.

And so, there is in some ways a little bit less reform that's been considered, I think. But there have been conversations about the possibility of reducing the block grant or reducing aspects of it or changing some of the policies. Nothing very concrete at this point that we are tracking as coming down the pike that we know of.

So, we're monitoring closely, and we'll pay attention. But SNAP and some of the other programs have been bigger focuses of the conversation.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right. We will now move to issue number six, CalWORKS Permanent Housing Assistance, SB 1415 implementation.

SB 1415 is a bill by Senator Glazer which was chaptered last fall. The bill changes the calculation of income for purposes of eligibility for permanent housing assistance programs. And to implement these changes, we're requesting $180,000 in general fund to support a limited term position for two years.

Those resources would allow the department to develop guidance and regulations, make automation updates and provide technical assistance and oversight to the counties related to the CalWORKS Homeless Assistance Program and the changes that were enacted through establishment. SB 1415.

Thank you. Any comments from LAO? Department of Finance? Not seeing any questions. Then we will now move to issue item number seven, CDSS automation and EBT issues.

Good morning. You may begin when you're ready.

Can you hear me? Yeah. Thank you for having us. My name is Ryan Gillette. I'm the Chief Data Officer and Deputy Director with the Research, Automation and Data Division at the Department of Social Services.

California, like most other states in the nation, has experienced a dramatic rise in electronic skimming of EBT benefits due to unprotected magstripe EBT cards. CDSS in partnership with the Office of Technology and Solutions Integration, OTSI, our EBT vendor, Fidelity Information Services, FIS, has been working to improve the security of the EBT cards used to deliver cash and food benefits to our clients.

Central to this effort has been the deployment of new EBT cards with integrated chip tap technology which will help protect against skimming theft. I'm pleased to report that California is now the first and only state in the nation to deliver EBT benefits through chip tap enabled cards.

On January 2, 2025 a California cardholder completed the first ever EBT chip tap transaction in LA County. Mass card deployment then began in late February of this year and as of April 30, all clients have been issued new cards that include chip tap functionality. The shift also included replacing printers and card pending devices in all 58 counties.

This project has been a tremendous lift made successful due to the close partnership and collaboration between dedicated civil servants at the county, state and federal level as well as our EBT vendor FIS, the third party processors that develop the code that allows these transactions to clear, the retailers and the financial industry merchants, our advocate community, CalSAWS, and of course our clients.

I also want to acknowledge the special investigative units in counties that have been working tirelessly to pursue criminals who perpetrate these crimes. Here are some additional details about how the rollout has gone, in terms of card replacement, approximately 4 million magnetic stripe EBT cards have been replaced with the new chip tap enabled cards.

New chip tap cards are also available to be printed over the counter at local county welfare department offices. In terms of card activation, once an EBT card holder receives their new card, they have 180 days to activate the new card before their old magnetic stripe card becomes unusable.

A successful transaction using the new card will activate it and automatically deactivate the old card. Our most recent data shows that about 50% of cards that have been mailed out have been activated so far, which is ahead of expectations in terms of activation rates at this point.

In terms of the wildfires that happened earlier this year in LA, cardholders within the mailing addresses and zip codes that were impacted by those firestorms were pulled out of the initial weeks of card mailing to ensure that they were not impacted during that tragedy.

With regards to retailer readiness, retailers must also make updates to their point of sale terminals for clients to be able to benefit from the enhanced security features of their new cards. As of April 30, 99.9% of all EBT transactions using chip tap cards are processing successfully.

But just to clarify what this means, only about 15.8% of EBT transactions are processing through chip tap lane. An additional 73.3% are falling back to magstripe. This is as expected. While retailers are continuing to update their code to accept the chip tap functionality, 6% of EBT transactions are occurring online and 4.8% of EBT transactions are manual key entry.

The EBT vendor is outreaching to retailers in which new cards are not transacting successfully, but this is an extremely small occurrence that is minuscule at this point. The vast majority of retailers use a point of sale terminal that could be updated to process chip tap transactions.

So at this point the onus is on retailers to work with their third party processors to get those updates installed. CDSS is partnering with USD FNS to outreach to EBT retailers in California and the broader states to encourage retailers to update their point of sale terminals as as soon as possible.

With regards to client outreach to prepare California cardholders for the transition to EBT chip tap. CDSS developed a client outreach strategy to inform cardholders about this transition and we came up with a variety of communication materials.

This included posting informational banners on EBT Edge and the BenefitsCal client portals, text messaging out to the EBT cardholders statewide, providing informational flyers for county welfare departments to show in their offices and for community-based organizations to use as well, creating public service announcements in different threshold languages to ensure that people get this information in the language that makes sense to them and we've created toolkits that are available for all sorts of stakeholders to provide communications to the clients about these updates.

Within the next few weeks, CDSS will also send targeted outreach emails and text messages to households that have received cards but have not yet activated them, encouraging them to complete the activation process.

In terms of success so far, it will take a little bit of time for the full impacts of chip tap to make their way through the system.

As I said, retailers still need time to update their point of sale terminals, cardholders need to activate their new cards and client and store clerks will need to get accustomed to the new routine at the register. That having been said since we began mass card replacement, we were already seeing a sizable decrease in theft.

We don't want to claim victory yet, but we are very encouraged by the trends that we're seeing. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much. Any comments from LAO?

Sonia Schrager Russo, LAO. We plan to continue monitoring the theft rates. We would note that the Administration is estimating significant cost savings in the budget year as a result of the new cards and decreased theft rates.

As the Administration has indicated, this is predicated upon the successful chip transactions as opposed to the swiping of the cards. So we'll continue keeping you all updated on that.

Thank you. Anything from the Department of Finance? Well, I want to thank you so much for--

Do you have-- Okay. I want to thank you so much for that presentation and really want to commend the Department on being first in the nation for implementing this and, you know, look forward to seeing the data to ensure that our vendors, you know, change and get the new technology.

And really I'm excited about the possibility of saving the state some money. But this is amazing and something that you all should be very, very proud of that this is gotten up and running so that other states can follow.

Julia Erdkamp, Executive Director of CalSAWS. Pleasure to be here. I'll take each question and just go through our responses. So you asked for us to provide an overview of the total budget for CalSAWS for the 25-26 year. So the CalSAWS we included it.

But I can just reiterated here. The CalSAWS budget for 25-26 includes 342 million for general maintenance and operations. Operations for CalSAWS includes hardware, software, cloud services, technical infrastructure services such as WAN/LAN help desks, system performance monitoring, batch operations and project management, as well as personnel, legal services, print, quality assurance services and facilities.

The remaining 34 million, so 9% of the total budget accommodates the system changes and we itemize them in the documentation provided and that included the BenefitsCal changes, CalSAWS's interface with CARES, CalHEERS's interface as well as intake, worker, customer appointments and worker availability.

There is an additional 24 million of additional system changes and that has in that category, that's anything from any of the policy maintenance, online help training, texting notifications, some of the integrations, software and security upgrades-- Uh oh, did I go back on? Okay. All right.

--change management communications, worker-facing system usability, some of our ancillary systems such as IVR report and state request, as well as the bank changes and office schedules and warrant print updates, so that includes a total combined budget of 376 million. Is this not close enough? I'm sorry.

The next question was how and when might the overall CalSAWS's budget change as a result of the contract changes? Well, for us we expect minimal changes in the the contract and those changes were incorporated into the January 2025 IPDU which is with the Feds for review right now.

So we expect minimal changes, but downstream we will see a reduced cost due to some of the lower hourly rates with the contract changes. However, having said that, I think it's important to look at that holistically and talk about question three, which is the overall budget and what we can expect now post-migration.

So the question that was asked was how will the CalSAWS budget change now that the migration of all 58 counties into a single system is complete? How can we expect the speed of CalSAWS to change with the automation of new policies now that the migration is complete?

So as you all know, in October 2023 we were successful in migrating all 58 counties into one system. So with the completion of the migration, we no longer need the migration cost. However, with all 58 counties now utilizing the system, the maintenance and operation costs offset the elimination of the migration costs.

So we have to work on scaling and we have to work on optimizing performance now that we have so many counties and users in one system. So the budget will continue to be updated on an annual basis as the system evolves to continue to optimize performance and meet the evolving policy requirements.

Now, regarding automation speed, there are a few variables that we have to consider and determine in terms of policy changes. First, we have the capacity issue, which is the funding that is available for maintenance and enhancements and that will remain the same for the foreseeable future.

As the system evolves, this funding must be strategically allocated toward multiple priorities and multiple programs, including performance optimization, system integrations like CalHEERS and CARES, and evolving policy requirements. But also we have to consider that with the complexity of CalSAWS, we have to carefully manage the introduction of system changes within individual releases, right? So we want to mitigate the risk.

We don't want too much change at one time, so we're always balancing the volume of changes, including policy automation, to ensure that we uphold system reliability while also implementing the necessary updates.

So that being said, we continue to work on enhancing our ability to automate policies further, working on a more efficient change management process, improve collaboration with the counties, our state partners and the advocates to ensure our policy changes are well-coordinated.

We are using tools to improve some of the manual work that we have to do and hopefully automating that. So by leveraging these strategies, we obviously aim to continuously enhance CalSAWS's ability to support policy changes while maintaining system integrity and reliability.

Thank you. Any comments from LAO? Department of Finance? Senator Menjivar,

Thank you so much. And I think you kind of started, you kind of touched on it. I'd like to hear maybe DOF, LAO step in on this. You know, so CalSAWS, it's up and running, we're just focusing on the maintenance enhancements. And you talked about some of the need for additional funding there. But I just, I guess the budget keeps increasing.

Why would we increase it when it's ready to go and we're no longer creating the program? Shouldn't the budget be decreasing if we're just maintaining it?

Yeah. Department of Finance. I don't have that information in front of me, but happy to work with your office in terms of providing that analysis.

It'd be helpful, maybe LAO, am I missing something here? If a program's up and running and we're just doing maintenance, shouldn't we be using less money to maintain it?

Ginni Bella with the Legislative Analyst's Office, I think is an excellent question. It's one that we often have, and we have an analyst in our office that really looks at IT projects. So we can bring this question back to him and really ask about whether this is an outlier or what we sort of observe across projects and report back to you.

Okay, that would be really helpful. Thank you.

Do you want me to maybe chime in a little bit on that? Okay. All right. Well, there's a couple things right now. So last year, the 24-25 budget, it's about 5 million-- I think it was 369 that in terms of-- 369 million compared to this year, which is the 376.

We are in the middle of transition of vendors as well, right. So there's transition costs that has to be considered on top of the normal maintenance cost. So while we're also running, we're also doing a lot of knowledge transfer to make sure that there's continuity, but there's also a lot of information sharing.

So we have sometimes two in a box that's occurring just to make sure that there is a thoughtful and strategic and secure handoff of our vendors. So there is a little bit of an uptick that we would expect--

Perhaps at one time because we're switching vendors, so once we get this vendor up and going starting hopefully next year.

Yeah, yeah. So we'll see-- Yeah, we'll see some changes there. Again, I did mention the lower hourly costs for the incoming vendors, but also some of the additional cost is because you're in one system, there is additional scaling that has to happen in terms of cloud services, security.

As it is one system, there is additional security requirements that we have to implement as well. So I know they'll do some analysis and provide you a more thoughtful response. But I did want to explain that there are some additional costs that come with it being 58 counties in one system.

Okay, thank you so much.

I would just also add briefly a lot of the other efforts that we have going on in the state require some sort of integration or partnership with CalSAWS. And so there are things that we can put forward that will require building out some module or connection to CalSAWS that influence that cost too.So there always will be ongoing costs.

So long as the return in this investment is that policy is implemented faster and we're able to see that move forward.

Yeah. Thank you so much for the presentation. We will now move to the next item. Issue number 8, Information Systems Division Growth and Sustainability.

All right, is that on? There we go. Good morning, Madam Chair, Committee Members. My name is Chad Crowe. I'm the Deputy Director and Chief Information Officer at the Department of Social Services. This morning I'll be presenting the Information System Division Growth Sustainability proposal.

In this proposal, the department requests 2.3 million general fund in 25-26 and 26-27 and 1.5 million annually thereafter. This is for seven permanent positions, 1.5 million over two years, one-time cost for contracting services to support growing information and technology needs.

In recent years, the department has experienced significant growth in staffing to accommodate the number and complexity of new programs, programmatic oversight and regulatory responsibilities. The department staffing increased by over 45% in the last seven years to over 6,000 employees.

However, the department's IT operations support staff has not kept up with that pace of the department and has only grown at under 5% growth in that same time period.

There are significant needs for resources to support the day to day information technology functions which include supporting platforms, supporting legacy mainframe systems, properly ensuring security updates, securing network infrastructure, managing user accounts, managing information assets and IT assets, deploying equipment, along with new solutions.

The proposal will help address some of the increased workload which allows the department to continue to serve our clients and stakeholders. So happy answer any questions at this time.

Thank you so much. Any commentary from LAO? Department of Finance? Not seeing any questions. Thank you so much for your presentation. We will now move to public comment. If any witness here in room 1200 would like to make a public comment, they may come forward. Please limit your comment to one minute per person and you may begin.

Good morning. My name is Jose Mireles and I represent SBCS Corporation. We implement two Promise Neighborhood initiatives in San Diego County and I'm here to ask for your support to prevent the funding cliff for Promise Neighborhoods.

The Promise Neighborhood initiative is a cradle-to-career approach that not only helps improve academic outcomes, but it's also at its core a systems alignment and partnership development strategy.

It is a holistic approach that has addressed health, education and social disparities, including serving over 2,000 children with mental health services, a 16% increase in high school graduation, over 184% increase in families accessing food services.

So without the continued support, over 130,000 children and their families are at risk of losing critical support services at the end of the day this June, as well as losing over 55 jobs in the process.

We would also lose the momentum gained in with the partnerships and the development of all the alliance systems that we've worked for so hard. So for this reason we are asking, we urge the the Legislature to prioritize those 17.5 million for the 25-26 budget year.

Thank you.

Thank you Chair and Members. Andrew Shane from GRACE End Child Poverty. I'll be very quickly, very quick. On CalFresh, obviously the cuts are very concerning. The USDA also issued an extremely concerning press release that they are seeking the data about CalFresh recipients. So we're working very closely with the Department and we'll be working with your teams as well.

On SUN Bucks, I just want to thank Senator Perez. We're hopefully working toward an online application. There's 1.8 million children need to apply. We can draw down $216 million in federal funds so we have a more accessible process. On CalWORKS, this is the year, I really want to thank the state.

We finally had the Administration, we finally have the technical assistance. It's published in your report. Even if they're low and no cost items, these are high impact for families on sanctions, family-centered flow and supportive services, like childcare. And then lastly, I'll just say on the EBT chip tap, I really applaud your comments.

I was just in D.C. on a national panel lifting up the work by the state. There is more to do to get that 15% of the chip tap, we are the only state with chip tap cards on the street. There are so many voices right now talking about waste, fraud and abuse. The main fraud program is stealing these benefits. We're the only state with protections.

Thank you.

Becky Silva with the California Association of Food Banks. I just wanted to share a couple comments.

In addition to the Cal Food request that we talked about earlier, we urge you to fund the statewide application for SUN Bucks as you just heard about from Andrew, to make it easier for families who need to submit an application to draw down those benefits that they're entitled to, to sustain funding for the diaper bank program, which several of our food bank members operate, to expand CFAP for undocumented Californians of all ages and to invest in our poorest children and families by reimagining CalWORKS. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Rebecca Gonzales with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. I want to align my comments with Becky Silva from the food banks. We support all those programs. I want to do a special shout out for Reimagine CalWORKS.

It's been a long road over three years trying to figure out how we can make the program better and we think we have a lot of proposals that are no cost or low cost or even save money and it's a way to move the program away from its racist and sexist roots. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of Fullwell, more specifically, the CalFresh Fruit Vegetable EBT program. This program is a smart, targeted program that reduces hunger, improves public health and supports California farmers all at the same time.

It provides a penny for penny matching dollars up to $60 a month in forms of rebates through an EBT card when CalFresh participants buy their fresh fruit and vegetables at any of the 90 participants participating retail locations across the state, majority being in Southern California. Last year, the Legislature and the Governor provided $10 million in funding.

This allowed the program to run for three months and was met with overwhelming demand. In January of this year, the program saw record numbers and $3.3 million earned by 67,000 CalFresh households. That averages out to be about $49 a month in supplemental benefits.

After the funds ended, the California Department of Social Services surveyed those who used the program and 95% of the respondents say they want to see the program expanded. 92% said that the program supported families health and 80% bought more vegetables than ever before.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning Chair, Members. I'm Chris Carter with the LA Regional Food Bank. The LA Food Bank urges you to support the Cal food program at 16 million to fight hunger in Los Angeles County and across California. In the last three years, the LA Food Bank has distributed the equivalent of 25.4 million meals through the Cal food program.

The LA Food Bank also urges you to support funding for the diaper bank program at 16.5 million. Diapers are a critical resource that we and our state partners provide to families in need. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi everyone. Good morning. Hailey Solaris with the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. I'm here to urge you to please support 60 million ongoing funding for Cal Food as well as 16.5 million for diaper bank funding. Our food bank alone was able to spend $1.8 million California grown food in fiscal year 2023 and 2024.

And all 258 of our distributions between both counties positively is impacted by Cal Food. 68 of what we send out to the community at these distributions is that fresh proteins, produce and dairy is impacted positively through this Cal food program.

Just to put in perspective of how much food insecurity is on the rise, we're distributing enough food product for 2.7 million meals each month.

In regards to diaper bank funding at 16.5 million, you know, the average family spends about $100 a month per child per month and they're having to choose between basic needs and food and diapers. So we strongly urge you to support these two. Thank you.

Kelly Brooks, on behalf of the County Welfare Directors Association. Related to issue five, we would uplift the budget request championed by Senator Caballero to allocate $245 million in 25-26 to make counties whole for the underfunding of the single allocation and update the single allocation budget methodology.

These resources are critical to ensure counties can meet mandated eligibility workload while also maximizing employment-related case management capacity and supporting clients with complex needs helping lift families out of poverty.

Also related to issue five, counties have a vested interest in the strengthening the CalWORKS program as a member of the Reimagine CalWORKS Coalition. CWDA urges adoption of family-centered reforms. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Members. Tiffany Whiten with SEIU California just would like to align my comments with my colleague over at GRACE END child poverty related to CalFresh and SUN Bucks. Also wanted to lift up support for the proposals related to Reimagine CalWORKS that are no cost, low cost or even potentially cost savings.

And then finally with my partners over at CWDA, just wanted to uplift the proposal related to county admin funding. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Elizabeth Espinosa on behalf of the California Association of Diaper Banks, in support of the diaper bank funding request included in the proposals for investment on today's agenda. We urge the legislature to continue funding for diaper banks which has been included in the state budget for the last six years.

Thanks to the legislature, the most recent round of investment included 9 million in one-time funding that expires on June 30, 2025. Unfortunately, the Governor's budget does not provide funding for diaper banks in 25-26 and many of the diaper banks will cease operations at the start of the fiscal year. Diapers are one of the most requested items at food banks.

Previous state funding has allowed diaper banks to distribute 160 million diapers to over one million families with 1.6 million infants. We hope we can count on the legislature support for 16.5 million to continue the diaper bank funding. Thank you so much.

Good morning. Darby Kernan on behalf of Nourish California. Commenting on the one items for investment the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT pilot budget request. We urge this subcommitee and the Senate to fund the restart of the critical program.

The CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT pilot is a proven cost-effective way to reduce hunger and improve health by making fresh food more available and affordable for thousands of low income Californians. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Kim Lewis representing Children Now and just wanted to speak in support of the Reimagining CalWORKS proposal. I know last year we had to make some tough choices in the CalWORKS budget, particularly around the home visiting program.

And I would just note that we appreciate DSS for implementing in a way that didn't really hurt our families who were enrolled in home visiting as well as the staff there. And so thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair and Members. Chris Zgraggen with Capital Advocacy on behalf of the San Diego Food Bank. Just wanted to echo the support comments that were made by my counterparts at other food banks in support of Cal Food and the 60 million and then also the diaper bank funding.

Both these programs have been included instrumental in providing food and diapers to those in the San Diego region. We'd encourage the legislature to support that. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Adriana Mata and I serve as the Chief Community Impact Officer for Second Harvest Santa Cruz County. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Senator Laird for being our food champion and the efforts to increase the baseline funding to $60 million.

I also want to share an update of our new diaper bank program. In three months, October to December 2024, we were able to distribute 610,000 diapers with support from our 28 partner agencies. We do have a wait list.

Due to the escalating cost of nutrition and basic needs, we will exceed the ongoing community need because demands are very high. We hope to count on your continued support and thank you for your leadership to nourishment and diaper equity across California.

Thank you.

Good morning. Richard Raya, CEO of Marin Promise Partnership. I'm here in support of the It Takes a Village budget request. I am representing a neighborhood called the Canal, which is the most segregated Latino census tract in the entire Bay Area.

Two-thirds of our housing is overcrowded and only 14% of our third grade students are reading at grade level. Our community would like to come together as a village to address the immediate needs of this immigrant community and also prepare the students and their families for long-term economic mobility.

This means breaking through silos between schools, city, community-- I'm sorry, county and residents for a cradle-to-career approach. It Takes A Village will fund community backbone agencies to connect students and families to academic supports as well as health housing, behavioral health and legal aid among many other support services.

We've seen this approach work with the four existing CDSS-funded Promise Neighborhoods. And It Takes a Village will allow us to replicate this approach in other communities like mine at a time when it's most needed. These public private partnerships are accountable to measurable results--

Thank you.

--and leverage philanthropic investments at a one to one match. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Edgar Chavez. I'm the Executive Director of Hayward Promise Neighborhoods, part of the California Cradle to Career Coalition and California Promise Neighborhoods Network. I'm speaking on behalf of issue 9 pertaining to the funding cliff for Promise Neighborhoods and the budget request championed by Senator Wahab, 17.5 million over three years.

The funding is essential to avoid a cliff that would cut off services for over 130,000 children and families statewide, including South Hayward, which was one of the-- in a zip code with one of the highest impacts in Covid rates in the Bay Area and halt progress in some of California's most vulnerable communities most impacted by this federal funding cuts.

Thanks to the state's initial investment, HPN has reduced food insecurity by 90%, a critical issue on today's agenda. And increased access to nutrition resources by 184%. We coordinate across schools, universities, health systems to meet families where they are, especially moments of crisis as other social benefits are at risk.

Good morning. I'm Paramdeep with Klamath Promise Neighborhood and I'm speaking on behalf of KPN. On issue number nine, because of the funding cuts, we're supporting Senator Wicks and Wahab the 130,000 children and families statewide, including KPN and halt the progress in California's most vulnerable community and most impacted. It's a critical issue in today's agenda.

Just to give you a scenario. We are rural in Del Norte County. The population is 27,628 people. That is only 42.8 people per square mile, which is the least populous county in California. Because of the Klamath Promise Neighborhood, we were able to decrease chronic absenteeism by 16%.

Five out of eight students increased in percentage of their meeting their math and english goals. Last six months we have served over 5,500 individuals accessing services provided by KPN and we have 17 funded partners. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Kevin Buffalino with Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services. Here to advocate for $60 million in ongoing funding for Cal Food and 16.5 for the California diaper banks. Here in Sacramento county, we're now feeding about 310,000 people every month, which is the most people we've ever fed in our 49 year history.

Hunger really is at an all time high and we've only been able to keep up with that because of the investments from the legislature and the Cal Food program. Without ongoing funding, our allotment of Cal Food will go from about $2.1 million a year down to about $300,000.

It'll be impossible for us to keep up with demand, causing us to cut back on some of our services to our residents here in Sacramento county. For diaper program, the network, 11 of us, have provided over 160 million diapers over the past six years. We need that continued ongoing funding to support the program.

Without it, the program will close its doors, cease operations and force families to make those impossible decisions between groceries, rent and diapers. Thank you.

Good morning. Anallely Martin with the California Immigrant Policy Center. I'm also here on behalf of Nourish California and the Food4All Coalition to address the CFAP expansion. We thank you for for protecting the expansion of CFAP to all Californians ages 55 and older by October 2027.

And we urge you to take advantage of the momentum we've built for Food4All and not only protect our investment, but expand the program to include all ages so that everyone at the same kitchen table has enough to eat.

California has become the fourth largest economy in the world in part due to the economic and social contributions of immigrants. Yet so many are excluded from the safety net programs our federal and state taxes pay into. According to the Public Policy Institute of California, just over 40% of undocumented Californians are living in poverty.

This includes hardworking families with children and caregivers for aging adults who are experiencing need today. At a time when the federal administration spreads fear and misinformation about our neighbors because of where they were born, California has a choice.

We hope you can join us in creating a truly inclusive safety net by expanding CFAP to all income-eligible undocumented Californians. Thank you.

Good morning. Danielle Bradley on behalf of the California State Association of Counties. Here to uplift the budget request along with CWDA and SEIU, in support of the CalWORKS RightSize County administrative funding request, which calls for a one time increase of 245 million in 25-26 and ongoing funding to support an updated budget methodology for county administration. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Juan Diego Castro with the Mission Economic Development Agency, backbone to the Mission Promise Neighborhood and we're here to support the funding request for the It Takes a Village act. This funding is crucial to support our local Promise Neighborhoods and develop a scalable model for proven place-based anti-poverty initiatives.

Promise Neighborhoods bring necessary resources to community members and also acts as integral partners with school districts. In San Francisco's Mission District, the Mission Promise Neighborhood has been a vital resource for children and family who have received a holistic set of services including access to affordable housing, health services and other public benefits.

Promise Neighborhoods have demonstrated proven capacity to develop innovative and scalable models for stronger educational support systems across all neighborhoods. Through our collective impact model and Mission's Promise Neighborhood, we have been able to come together and close the gap for early childhood education slots by piloting co-location of early childhood education centers and family child care units.

We've helped also increase the graduation and college-going rates by about 20 to 25% and we're asking you to please support the $17.5 million budget request.

Without this approval, our families and neighborhoods stand to lose critical high impact services and we could see losses of our educational gains in the neighborhood and without these services located at the schools, it's likely that our community members won't access the services. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Santiago Martinez from Mission Economic Development Agency, backbone organization to Mission Promise Neighborhood.

I'm here on behalf of the It Takes a Village budget request and really just to highlight without the action and state investment for cradle-to-career, our services and work will not be able to achieve our intended goals, which is reducing family homelessness, preventing childhood welfare system impact, kindergarten readiness, student mental health and post-secondary college likelihood--

Sorry, post-secondary college linkage and workforce development. Thank you for your time.

Hi Chair and Members of the Committee. Emerald Evans with GRACE End Child Poverty California.

Regarding issue nine, we stand in solidarity with our partners who have joined us from all over the state, including from your district and request for your support for Senator Wahab's one-time 17.5 million budget request over three years.

California's initial investment expires at the end of this fiscal year threatening a funding cliff to the four promised neighborhoods that will abruptly end services for over 130,000 children and families, causing the job losses of 55 employees.

These place-based initiatives are advancing state programs including early child care and education, bridging the gaps of community schools, addressing infant mortality, increasing affordable housing and providing accessibility to the array of safety net programs. Without action, state investments from cradle-to-careers will not be able to achieve their attended goals or reach communities at all.

We're asking the legislature to raise any revenues needed to achieve this request. We have the wealth in California to support a more equitable future. Thank you.

Good morning Madam Chair, Members. Dylan Elliott on behalf of the counties of Solano, Napa, Merced, Humboldt, Fresno, Kern and the City and County of San Francisco, aligning ourselves with the earlier comments made by our friends with CSAC and CWDA with respect to single allocation increase in funding one-time and ongoing, respectfully urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Luanne Nguyen, Deputy Director of the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization.

As we approach the May Revise we want to share with you some ideas and thoughts that we have about the approach that we think should be taken in light of the ugly storm that we're in with the fiscal situation being what it is and with the federal government doing what they're doing to our people.

We think that as you go into May Revise and as you think about all the proposals before you that you should first think about keeping money in the hands of families as much as possible.

Give families the grant and the dollars that they need so that it's fungible, so that they can do exactly what it is that they need to do with those dollars and trust poor people to make the right decisions for themselves. Second, we think that you need to do everything you can do to prevent homelessness.

Third, think about economic efficiencies like the Reimagine CalWORKS policy proposal before you that will allow us to do better for people with less money in a situation that warrants that. And then when we think-- We'll write you.

Hello, Yesenia Jimenez with End Child Poverty in California. Also for Parent Voices California and Child Care Law Center. We really are urging you to invest in our poorest children and families by reimagining CalWORKS. Families need sanctioned reform, supported services and a family-centered flow.

If Congress does cut the block grant, we need a technical fix to prevent an automatic decrease in the cash grants. Also, standing in solidarity with our California Immigrant Policy Center, we really urge you to keep our promise to undocumented elders to fully expand CFAP by October 2027.

In fact, we urge you to prioritize that we ensure access for all, regardless of age. We support Senator Wahab's It Takes a Village budget request as shared by Promised Neighborhoods and Cradle to Career folks here.

Finally, to truly protect Californians, we ask the legislature to raise the revenues needed to meet urgent needs now, ensuring families can thrive, not just survive in the state of California. We are in a tough budget year. We will be in a tougher budget year without raising revenues. In SD 39, 187,500 people live in poverty.

That number will increase by 6.7% without the safety net. In SD 12, over 81,000 people live in poverty and it will increase by 12%. Thank you so much.

All right, well, I want to thank all of you who came to participate in public testimony today. If you are unable to testify, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review or visit our website.

Your comments and suggestions are important to us and we want to include your testimony in the official hearing records. Thank you and we appreciate your participation. This hearing of Budget Subcommitee 3 on Health and Human Services is adjourned.