Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services

Good afternoon and welcome. This is the Assembly Budget Subcommitee 2 on Human Services issues. First, I would like to welcome our Members to our first hearing of the year. First, I would like to welcome our new vice chair of the Committee, Assembly Member Johnson. Welcome. Looking forward to working with you.

I would like to also welcome our current Members, Dr. Sharp-Collins, Assemblymember Lee, and assemblymember Ahrens as well. Today we will be discussing the historic and enormous challenges facing CalFresh and efforts to fight hunger in our great state.

Today we will also be discussing issues and programs related to the Department of Social Services, including anti poverty, anti hunger and immigrant services programs, as well.

Before we invite our first panel to begin, I'll just make a few introductory remarks and then open it up for any of my colleagues who would like to do the same as well. This Committee will continue to live up to its name.

It is here that we consider how we serve one another, how we uplift our fellow human beings, and how we care for the most vulnerable amongst us. It's often said that a budget is a reflection of our values. And nothing could be further, nothing can be true. Truer.

The conversations that shape those values begin right here within these walls, within this room, at this historic time for our social safety net. So let's be clear. Everyone is welcome here.

We can't claim to be a Committee dedicated to human services if we do not recognize the humanity, the struggles and the needs of those who come before us seeking care and support. The government's number one mission should be to serve its people, and particularly our children, the elderly, at our most marginalized and often forgotten populations.

This Committee has had a strong tradition in making sure that those voices often forgotten are the ones that are highlighted here. And this year will be no different. We must acknowledge the historic moment we find ourselves in.

We want this Committee to know that we see you and that we stand with you, and that those who are worried about their services being recut or reduced.

We are doing everything that we can to make sure that we keep you stable, that we keep you safe, and that you have an opportunity to be on a path to thrive here in the state of California.

So as we work to better understand the complexities of this year's budget and prepare to face whatever challenges lie ahead of us, let's make sure that we do so together. We're all in this together.

No matter where you stand, no matter what your role is, our job is to make sure that we do the best that we can to serve the people of California. Because here in California, we lead whether our values are in good times or challenging times.

I always said that, man, the money was flowing back in the day, and then I was sworn in and then there was a deficit. So I'm not sure if there's a direct correlation, but either way, we still.

There's no way we can say we're the fourth largest economy in the world, but say that we can't still take care of people's basic needs. I refuse. I refuse to believe that. And I think together we can find ways to do it. It may not look the same, but that doesn't mean we can't do it. Right.

So I want to again welcome everyone in our first Committee. As you all know, we're all gonna. By the time we get out of here, I hope you saw the sun when you came in because that was the last time you were probably gonna see it today because I hope you're well hydrated, well fed.

I got my snacks and water here, ready to go. Because we are usually here for quite a long time now, we will start listening to our panel of speakers for issues on the agenda, and then we'll take public comment.

After all the panels have been concluded, each person providing public comment will have 1 minute each to make your remarks. There will be no votes taken in today's hearing. And so I'm going to ask the first panel to come up.

But it's going to be important that we do this just right because we do not have enough seats for the entire panel. So you all are going to have to take some turns. All right? We serve children here. We teach them how to take turns. Let's see if adults can do the same. All right.

First we'll have Department of Social Services, along with our CWDA as well as our United Public Employees, Contra Costa County, and we will start there. And then once we're done with that, then we will bring up the next round of people on this panel, which will be SEIU LAO, Department of Finance.

Director Troia is always a pleasure to see you, being able to work with you and looking forward to continuing to work with you in the future. And you may begin when you are ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, it's great to be here with you this afternoon. As you just heard, my name is Jennifer Troia and I am honored to serve as the Director of the California Department of Social Services. Thank you for this opportunity.

Also to discuss these very major changes to CalFresh that are implemented as a result of HR1. CalFresh currently serves over 5.3 million individuals in 3.1 million households with an average monthly benefit of $333. The federal changes under HR1 will have very major impacts on these households.

We estimate 2.3 to $4.3 billion in annual federal funding reductions, and the Governor's budget assumes that as many as 578,000 people could lose benefits as a result of HR1. In the face of these challenges, CDSS remains committed to ensuring that as many eligible Californians as possible retain access to CalFresh.

Our approach centers on minimizing harm by maximizing allowable exemptions, including using data to help people maintain benefits whenever possible, reducing administrative burdens, and connecting people to qualifying work and community engagement activities when required. I want to briefly highlight how we're approaching implementation of the time limit and work and community engagement requirements for able bodied adults without dependence.

You'll hear us because we love our acronyms in social services frequently refer to this group of individuals as ABODs. HR1 keeps the basic structure of federal time limit rules that pre existed but significantly expands who is subject to them and reduces who qualifies for an exemption.

As a result, more Californians will be subject to the time limit unless they're exempt or meet the community and work engagement requirements. To mitigate harm and support consistent statewide implementation, we are doing a number of things. First, we're maximizing exemptions by using data already available in our systems whenever possible and exploring additional opportunities for automation.

Our implementation timelines also reflect the time that is required to align policy, update the CalSAW's automation system, and train county eligibility staff. Federal rules require exemption screenings before we apply the time limits to individuals cases. For existing recipients. This occurs at their next recertification, meaning that most screenings will naturally take place over a 12 month period.

To to help manage the workload, we've also launched a statewide partner engagement series, county office hours, and expanded policy training to support clear and consistent implementation.

To further support counties and clients, CDSS is developing an ABOD Outreach toolkit with client tested messaging aligned with the Department of Healthcare Services and a county resource toolkit to support consistent exemption screening when the screening is needed and easier connections to qualifying activities.

We're also preparing to help individuals meet requirements where needed by expanding CalFresh employment and training programs and providing technical assistance to any counties that are not currently offering these employment and training programs, exploring comparable workfare programs outside of employment and training and working with our CALHHS and the labor and Workforce Development Agency to strengthen the cross system workforce connections.

Even with these efforts, it's critical to acknowledge again that we expect that many Californians may lose access to CalFresh. They would face increased food insecurity and greater difficulty meeting basic needs with corresponding impacts on their health and well being.

I will now turn it to Deputy Director Fernandez Garcia to further address questions about the anticipated impacts of HR1 that were outlined in your agenda.

Good afternoon again, my name is Alexis Fernandez Garcia and I serve as the Deputy Director of the Family Engagement and Empowerment Division.

In response to your questions related to the number of individuals we expect to be impacted by implementation of the time limit, California currently has about 2.7 million adults age 18 to 64 getting CalFresh, and those are the new federal parameters for age that define a person categorized as an ABOD.

Based on what we already know from our data, about 1.8 million CalFresh recipients between that age range were or about two thirds are already expected to be exempt. For example, roughly 880,000 of these adults live in a household with a child under 14 and therefore already qualify for an exemption.

This leaves about 950,000 adults, or about 17% of the total caseload, whose exemption status is unknown at this time or who may be subject to the time limit, including 600,000 people newly subject to the time limit because of HR1.

Based on initial budget estimates, we anticipate that of these 950,000 individuals, about 110,000 will be determined exempt based on new information collected by county eligibility workers.

At that exemption screening, about 179,000 will be subject to the time limit but are anticipated to be meeting the work requirement, and that leaves about 665,000 ABODs who may lose CalFresh at full implementation.

We also know that certain groups are more likely to be affected by the time limit than others, so preliminary indicators suggest that men are more likely than women to be subject to the time limit.

Adults age 55 to 64, who make up just 10% of the overall CalFresh caseload, represent about 31% of those projected to be subject to the time limit, and that is also the age range of the expanded parameters under HR1.

Coincidentally, people who are categorically who were categorically exempt before HR1, including individuals experiencing homelessness, former foster youth, and veterans, are now far more likely to lose CalFresh access.

Before HR1, multiple categories of lawfully present noncitizens, primarily humanitarian immigrants, were also eligible for CalFresh and under HR1, another major policy change in that legislation, eligibility has been narrowed to a much smaller set of categories, including lawful permanent residents who meet the five year waiting period, Cuban Haitian entrance and individuals under the Compact of Free Associations immigration category.

As a result, we estimate that 72,000 non citizens will also lose eligibility once HR1 is fully implemented. In closing, we thank you for engaging on this important discussion and for your partnership as we work together.

Good afternoon. My name is Ted Samara. I'm the Executive Director of United Public Employees, UPE. We are an independent union representing county and court employees in a variety of counties in Northern California and in the Central Valley.

For today, I'm here to speak for the CalFresh workers whom we represent in Sacramento county and Merced county who determine eligibility and administer CalFresh benefits. As you all are aware, CalFresh program is targeted for cuts coupled with new additional requirements for program participants due to HR1.

Without adequate funding, this could lead to thousands of families just in Sacramento county born without food or even enough food to feed their children, their families themselves, coupled with an increased in housing insecurity which will lead to more of these same children and families becoming homeless is a recipe that will lead to malnutrition and it will lead to death.

In Sacramento county alone, there are as many as 360,000 residents that receive CalFresh benefits. 70,000 are at risk of losing benefits under HR1's new requirements. Our CalFresh workers are the essential workers in the CalFresh program. We are the ones meeting with families applying for CalFresh.

These same workers are trying wholeheartedly to connect these families so that they can obtain the much needed resources for their basic survival. We are already underfunded, which creates a bottleneck in the entire system. As you explore funding options, keep in mind that there are two critical components that go into the funding of the CalFresh program.

The program benefits and the workforce. Any cuts to the program will result in cuts to the workforce without the workers who will be issuing the resources. Without enough workers issuing benefits will inevitably lead to further delays in families getting access to benefits. I want to walk you through the real life process.

Someone seeking CalFresh benefits must go through an intake meeting to apply. They can do this by phone, online, mail or going to a welfare bureau. Currently, it is difficult even to get a worker as the wait time can be hours and even days.

If you are fortunate to receive services that same day, you will leave with some benefit of maybe at least $50 depending on if you qualify for expedited services which are considered emergency services. $50. If it's a renewal of benefits, it can possibly take weeks because there are simply not enough workers.

Also, it is extremely common that and this is going to get worse Due to the new HR1 requirements, individuals often show up to intake meetings without all the proper documents. As a result, intake meeting often stops and is rescheduled. A lot can happen in those days and weeks. These delays will be attributed to children families going hungry.

One can assume that good people being put into desperate situations will take desperate measures to feed their families. Therefore, we pray that you allocate the 20 million in General funds towards CalFresh that was authorized in the 2025 Budget act which will go unused without action in the current year.

Provide that county match waiver to enable counties to continue to operate CalFresh. Appropriate additional funds to enable counties to implement H1 rules for Abom. Anything less will essentially result in tens of thousands of people just in Sacramento county just in Sacramento county losing their benefits.

Not having adequate funding for CalFresh programs will result in workforce reductions of the essential workers and delays will continue as the CalFresh recipients cannot get processed and enrolled in a reasonable and timely fashion. This is just scraping the surface. There's over 500,000, 500,000 Sacramento county residents that are enrolled in Medicaid. Thank you.

Next we'll have CWDA. Ted, can you take a switch with Tiffany with SEIU to make some room for her to make her testimony at the appropriate time? CWDA, good afternoon.

Carlos Marques MBAPP the County Welfare Directors Association A key metric for measuring famine by international authorities is when at least one in five households experiences an extreme lack of food.

Put another way, if all 5.5 million CalFresh recipients were a country unto themselves, a million of them experiencing extreme lack of food would constitute a metric for famine by the international community.

Thankfully, five and a half million existing CalFresh recipients and the nearly 1,000,000 adults who are at greatest risk of hunger are not a country unto themselves. They are part of a resource rich state that produces 25% of the nation's food and is governed by state lawmakers who can still mitigate federally provoked hunger.

Beginning on June 1, at least a million CalFresh recipients must rely on a well trained, adequately funded and fully staffed county eligibility workforce.

On behalf of California's 58 counties, I am here to sound the alarm that counties are not adequately funded nor are we adequately staffed to act as a backstop to unmitigated hunger for at least a million adults.

At greatest risk of losing food assistance, counties need immediate access to the 20 million General funds set aside in the 2025 Budget act and an ongoing investment starting with 103 million in budget year to bolster the eligibility workforce.

Our colleagues at the Department of Social Services have planned exhaustively for how to mitigate harm in the face of HR1 implementation, issuing county guidance in December that positions counties and empowers workers to serve as an antidote to otherwise massive losses and benefits. The only problem the state's plan is not funded.

For example, in addition to screening for exemptions at intake and recertification, per the guidance requires, our workers are required to evaluate a client for exemptions during several triggering events.

When someone discloses a change in circumstance when someone voluntarily discloses that they may no longer be eligible for an exemption if someone experiences a drop in hours and before, someone is at risk of being discontinued.

After accounting for time needed for robust screening as well as supporting clients through compliance, CWDA estimates that for some clients, up to an additional four hours per year will be required to implement the Department's guidance and HR1 responsibly, effectively doubling our existing workload for some cases.

When you factor in the vulnerable profile of impacted adults based on the national research, including that they are more likely to leave the program quickly because they believe that they are no longer eligible, have fewer links to the safety net outside of snap, have minimal information and minimal eligibility system data, and are also extremely vulnerable to chronic homelessness.

As CDSS has estimated, about 25% of impacted ABODs are experiencing homelessness. And finally, they generally have mental and physical limitations that do not meet the strict standards of federal disability assistance. The need for worker driven roles in building trust and engaging frequently and discerningly to prevent losses and benefits only becomes clearer.

In closing, we urge the Administration to release the 20 million set aside to support HR1 County implementation, the Legislature to invest an additional 103 million in General Fund but General Fund in budget year to implement HR1 consistent with the state's guidance.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and Members of the Committee. I'm Dr. Marla Stuart, the Director of the Employment Human Services Department. Excuse me. Sorry. I don't know why that happened. Let me start over. Good afternoon, Chair Jackson and Committee Members. I'm Dr. Marla Stuart, the Director of the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department.

We are the first responders to poverty and we do not have what we need to implement HR1 CalFresh work requirements that begin in 64 days in Contra Costa.

We currently support 106,296 individuals who rely on CalFresh children, seniors, college students, former foster youth, parents, veterans, individuals with disabilities, individuals who are without a home, and employed individuals working in low wage intermittent jobs.

Our monthly CalFresh issuance is $21 million which is expended locally in 30 cities and communities at over 700 grocery stores and which supports the salaries of over 3300 grocery employees. Eligibility work is holistic case management.

It includes sending and receiving vital mail, scheduling and conducting interviews, making and receiving phone calls, collecting and documenting information, determining new and continued eligibility, processing household changes, researching regulations, answering client questions, transferring cases, solving client problems, identifying and responding to fraud, connecting clients to other community resources, and now assessing compliance with work requirements.

And because people only apply for CalFresh when they are in a crisis, our eligibility workers are trained to do this work from a trauma informed perspective.

Due to federal regulations, applying for and renewing CalFresh is complex and difficult. The application is 29 pages long. From applicants, we require documents to validate identity, Social Security number, citizenship status, residency, income and expenses. Applications and renewals require an interview which averages one hour for English speaking customers and two hours for all other languages.

Following the interview, it takes one to two hours for the eligibility worker to finalize the application and to make a determination of approve or deny. We touch CalFresh cases a minimum of twice a year for a total annual eligibility worker time per case ranging from two to four hours.

Adding the new ABOD screening work essentially doubles the time needed for each case which is currently unfunded. To prepare, we are now providing 555 eligibility workers and their supervisors with 15 hours of training, a total of $5.2 million in salary and benefits which far exceeds the 177,000 that we did receive in current year.

For training for those individuals who are not eligible for an exemption and are not working, we do not have an adequately funded employment program. We do have CalFresh Employment and Training CFET for which we are currently funded about $2,000 per customer.

But under HR1 for CalFresh we need a program that is more similar to CalWorks Supportive Services for which we get about 5.7 thousand per customer.

We very much appreciate the Department's harm reduction approach to this dire situation and the addition of some training funding this year and the many forums that they are holding to collaboratively plan and we need new funding for training for ABOD screening and to bolster our employment supports. Eligibility workers are the first responders to poverty.

They are the gateway to CalFresh participation. If eligibility work is not adequately funded, we will not hold the line and CalFresh recipients will needlessly lose their benefits.

Mr. Chair Members Tiffany Whiten with SEIU California representing over 750,000 hard working Californians today, I have the honor to speak to you on behalf of our roughly 14,000 eligibility workers across the state. On the surface, it may seem like all they do is help people apply for benefits, but they do so much more.

Our eligibility workers help keep families together. They help people maintain their dignity. And in many cases, they help individuals stay alive. Every day, individuals sit across from our workers in moments of crisis, scared, overwhelmed and unsure of what comes next.

It is the eligibility worker who helps them navigate the process during some of the toughest times in their lives. Consider just one example. Our workers come face to face with families where parents have been detained by ICE or deported, leaving children suddenly in need of care. Often a relative steps in.

But adding another child to a household budget is beyond the reach of many working class families. Some of those relatives are seniors without health insurance themselves. Our eligibility workers step in to screen them for MediCal and CalFresh. They stabilize the household. They make sure food is on the table. They make sure medical care is accessible.

And that is just one small snapshot of what an eligibility may a worker may encounter on any given day. Now comes HR1 and its devastating implications for individuals and families. Our workers will tell you firsthand that communities are scared. This isn't about luxuries and it's about the basic necessities people need to literally survive.

Chris, an eligibility worker from Ventura county, will tell you it's not just communities who are scared who are afraid. The workforce is too. Many eligibility workers administer multiple safety net programs. While we may focus today on CalFresh, the reality is they must also master Medi Cal work requirements, CalFresh ABOD time limits and the complex intersections between programs.

These are not minor adjustments. These are sweeping changes with real consequences. Alex from San Diego county with 11 years of service will tell you that every program change means hours of checking and double checking eligibility. It means making sure no eligible person falls through the cracks.

It means ensuring compliance while upholding our mission to keep as many eligible individuals enrolled as possible. That takes time, that takes training, and that takes staff. On top of learning new work requirements and time limits, eligibility workers will be onboarding new individuals and families entering the programs.

And let's be honest, workers are already stretched thin, doing everything that they can to meet the needs of their communities. So what is California supposed to do? We ask you simply to do the right thing.

Do everything in your power to ensure that our communities are supported and protected at a time when federal actions are intentionally causing harm. Make an upfront investment in the workforce of 103 million for CalFresh so counties can hire additional staff and retain the experienced workers we already have.

We are already seeing some counties explore layoffs due to HR1. I cannot underscore this enough. This is the moment to strengthen our workforce, not shrink it. We have seen what investments can accomplish. During the ACA expansion. When we invested in eligibility staff, we successfully enrolled the expansion population and ensured coverage reached those who needed it most.

That success did not happen by accident. It happened because we prepared the workforce. We are asking that the $20 million secured in last year's budget begin to begin implementation of ABA time limits be released to counties now so training and hiring can begin immediately. June 1st is right around the corner.

Eligibility workers are the first responders to poverty. They show up every day for families in crisis. They are dedicated. They are committed. They believe in public service. But if they are not prepared, if they are not trained, staffed and supported, then individuals and families will suffer. Lives will be affected. Children will go without food.

Seniors will lose medical care. Working families will fall deeper into hardship. If we truly care about mitigating harm to families, we must support the workforce that stands between stability and crisis. Invest in them, prepare them. Stand with them. Because when strengthened, when we strengthen eligibility workers, we strengthen California families. Thank you.

LAO. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ryan Woolsey with the Legislative Analyst Office. I'll highlight three important items that we think should be kept in mind to Support implementation of HR1. The first is, as described by the Administration, it's going to be really important to focus on ways to use existing data and automate processes to limit the administrative burden.

There's been a lot of research into the impacts of requirements like those in HR1, and they can result in people who are eligible falling off of enrollment. So focusing on how to verify eligibility with minimal impact to the enrollees is going to be a critical thing.

Next, as you've heard, counties are really on the front line of implementing HR1, and so it's going to be important to think about how best to support counties. We're continuing to assess the funding proposed in the Governor's budget for Administration, and we will relay our comments on that to the Committee when we when we have them.

We also would recommend that the Legislature take steps to ensure that HR1 implementation is done in a way that's consistent with your priorities.

And that can be done by ensuring that key decisions are enacted in statute, as well as adopting other mechanisms to have reporting back on other items as implementation rolls forward, especially in cases where there's Federal Government guidance that's forthcoming.

I'll lastly note that your agenda includes a request for assistance from our office on drafting some trailer Bill language related to the population of legally present noncitizens that are going to be excluded from CalFresh and just wanted to know we're happy to help with that and we'll work with your staff after the hearing. Thank you.

Thank you Department of Finance

Noel Fakaji, Department of Finance speaking to the provisional language that came up of the 20 million. Wanted to just provide some background. So point in time at the Budget act we did include this flexibility given that the federal guidance was not yet released. I hear the urgency that has been brought up in the comments.

The Department of Finance is currently in receipt of a proposal from dss, so we're working closely on analyzing that and hope to have an update for the Legislature soon, but available for other questions as well.

Members of the Committee, Any questions, comments Assembly Member Ahrens then Cement and then Dr. Sharp Collins

thank you Mr. Chair.

I want to thank everyone for all their testimony today and really trying to highlight the Seri the Seriousness of the issue of implementing these draconian HR1 cuts, what they're doing in real time and how pressing it is for us to do everything we can in this process to help as many people as possible because of the Federal Government's actions.

My question is regarding on behalf of my colleague, Assemblymember Lee, his Bill AB3229 and I know my understanding is there was a report that was due last July that is delayed in being published.

And I'm wondering if you can just speak for the record, why the delay of the AB3229 report regarding the CalFresh fruit and vegetable pilot program? Why is it delayed and where is it in the process?

If I may, I'll take that one and say I do think we have an item related to the fruit and veggie pilot later in the hearing. So we're happy to get into greater details at that time, but also want to convey that I believe the report was transmitted to the Legislature yesterday.

Oh, yesterday, yes. Wow.

Just in time for the hearing.

How lucky for you. And can you speak as to why it was delayed? Because it was due in July.

I'm going to defer to my colleague Ryan Gillette, although I think he is the person that will later testify.

Usually when I'm delayed in my reports and homework, I have to give a reason why and I get a letter grade docked.

Hi, Ryan Gillette, Research Automation and Data Division, Department of Social Services so yes, we have been working on the report. We wanted to make sure that we got all the details right so that we could properly convey the impact before we make any recommendations.

Okay. Usually when it's delayed by that much, we and for transparency, not just for the Legislature, but for the public, we would like to have better communication as to why there are delays because it was due last July.

So I do hope that we can work with you all in your office moving forward about being more transparent, not just for the Legislature, but for the public when critical programs and you heard how dire these programs are and the cuts that are being faced, that if we can work a little bit more effectively as to if there are going to be several months of delay, there should be given a very clear and public reason why moving forward.

Absolutely understood.

Thank you.

Dr. Sharp Collins.

Thank you guys so much for being here today to continue to further the conversation about CalFresh. And so one of the questions, I know that each of you spoke about some of the likely downstream effects.

So looking at the impacts to poor children, homelessness and some of the negative health outcomes, but I'm looking at the mental health aspect of it and wondering if we can elaborate a little bit more and give us some more data.

Wondering if there is a data set that can help us estimate if welfare payments, you know, really looking at snap benefits, have an impact on the suicidal attempts. So looking at the mental health aspect of people who are receiving or therefore no longer receiving or things have been reduced. Can anyone talk about the likely effects of this.

So I'm diving into the mental health side of it.

We'd be happy to get back to you. I will say we did review research related to a variety of impacts on the positive side in terms of providing additional cash supports and other concrete supports do improve health, which would include mental health, well being, long term success of children.

There are a variety of factors and the research unfortunately does indicate in the reverse that the reverse is also true, that the removal of those concrete supports does have a deleterious effect on those same measures which specifically get down into behavioral health.

I don't have off the top of my head, but if there are particular studies we identified that called out suicidality or anything else, we'd be happy to follow up.

Thank you. Because I also wanted to make sure that we talk about this at our next CalFresh hearing that will be coming up as well. So just kind of queuing you up for that too.

But also going into a question about the implementations as pertains to the agriculture sector but also the grocers in regards to the HR cuts. So just wanted to get a little bit more of clarification on what it means for your employees, for the ag community, but also for the grocers considering that the HR cuts are coming.

Thank you, I can take that question. I appreciate that when SNAP was potentially halted in November, we did a lot of work with our grocery community and it helped us to really better understand our grocery community in Contra Costa County. In Contra Costa County alone, our annual benefit is $21 million.

I mean the monthly, the monthly issuance is $21 million. We have data that can show us where that is being spent. And it's being spent at over 700 county grocery stores. And the 21 million is equivalent to the salary of 3300 employees. Grocery employees. So there's a real multiplier effect with CalFresh.

And if people fall off CalFresh, it's devastating for them and their families. And the downside is homelessness for sure. But if the, if there's less money in the community for the for to purchase groceries, there will also be a very negative impact on grocery stores who may have to do layoffs.

That concludes my question.

Just a couple of questions here. You know, as I've been looking at some of the equally as important to CalFresh is in many of our social safety net programs we have embedded anti homelessness programs to ensure they are not falling into homelessness.

It's very hard to call something a safety net when people constantly fall into homelessness while they're receiving these programs, why don't we have a homelessness program in CalFresh?

Let me first start by confirming that we know that there's an overlap between food insecurity and homelessness. For example, in a UCSF statewide survey, we found that 70% of people experiencing homelessness in California did receive CalFresh as a critical support.

At the same time, we also know that CalFresh serves a very broad set of individuals and families with a range of incomes, as we noted earlier, over 5.3 million individuals.

As a result, receipt of CalFresh in and of itself does not serve as a sufficient eligibility criteria to help us narrow in on those individuals that might be as high at greatest risk.

So if we were to consider something like this for a state investment, we'd have to be in discussion around what the appropriate eligibility criteria would be.

And one other kind of important factor is that we would want to consider are the interplay between the receipt of any type of state funded benefit for something like housing support or housing services with the eligibility criteria, which are federal.

We wouldn't want the state funded benefit to unintentionally reduce someone's CalFresh benefit because the feds consider it income. So I think just happy to continue these discussions and provide technical assistance to the Committee. Dive into this topic with you all in more detail so we can talk about the different considerations.

I definitely want to continue down this road. I would love to see what a possible program could look like. I mean, obviously not with all the details that, you know, all the stuff that, you know, we would all be overwhelmed with, but I would really like to see us looking at that program.

I think that's one of the final programs that I think, particularly given the percentage of CalFresh recipients who are homeless. How do we, you know, how do we take a look at that and whether we can act on that now?

At least we have something in the future to say, hey, when there's opportunities available, this is the type of program we can look at. This is possibly how much it would cost, you know, those type of things.

And so I would like for us to, I would like to receive that information hopefully may, hopefully before the may revise if possible again sketch. I'm not talking about a whole, you know, I don't want you to try to hire five employees and you know, and all that kind of stuff to try to do it like.

I just want to make sure we can take a look at that. Secondly, I refuse to lose ground on the number of people we've been able to feed. I refuse to.

And even though the Federal Government has deemed some people worthy and not worthy, I believe that California still deems them worthy whether they stay on CalFresh or not. Therefore, if we had an opportunity to still get them benefits outside of the federal SNAP program, how much would that cost?

I don't know what the total benefit. I can find it.

If you don't have that, that's homework.

So, yes, if you're just looking at what we anticipate being lost during this initial phase.

So I'm Talking about the 665,000 people who we project to lose benefits, how much would that cost the state to be able to still provide them with assistance?

So the value of the benefits lost minus the three months of federal benefits that they're eligible for initially is in the $2.5 billion range. And that would just be a rough cut back of the envelope, providing everyone the equivalent benefit.

That's fair. Thank you for that and thank you for knowing that. Have mercy. That's impressive.

Spent a lot of time.

Okay. CDSS. Okay.

All right. We've already noticed before that the Legislature and the Administration came with an agreement on the $20 million to go to counties. And I do understand that the process is taking place. A process is taking place and now it lands with Department of Finance. Department of Finance.

When do you believe that you will come up with your decision? What timeline are you looking at? Because it looks like as we get closer and closer to June deadline, we're getting really. I really believe in setting up people for success, and I'm sure we want to set up our counties for success.

And the longer we wait, the longer it takes us, the less and less we're setting up our counties for success. What is your timeline on getting an answer to cdss and then to our counties?

Yeah, sort of understand sort of the interest and. Excuse me.

Oh, your mic.

Oh, I think it's on. I'll just be a little closer. Lourdes Morales, Department of Finance.

We sort of absolutely understand the interest, as my colleagues sort of noted within the Administration, we're really sort of thinking through the federal guidance and the resources that are needed at the county levels to ensure that we come forward with a proposal that reflects sort of our vision for the dollar.

So we're doing that analysis at this point, hearing you on the urgency, and we'll follow up as soon as we can.

Okay. What I'm going to really want to do and we're going to follow up. We really want a timeline. Like, we can't. We need more information.

I understand you're going through a process, but I would like to have you respond back in writing to this Committee on a timeline in which you believe you will be completing that process. Okay.

We can follow up.

Yes, Assemblymember Johnson, thank you.

Maybe as a new Member, I could get some clarity for the Department of Finance. I'm trying to catch up. So we voted on this last year. It has to be implemented by July. Is that correct? The provision June 1st. June 1st. Okay. So we're in almost March, to the chair's point. I don't understand.

Is that a feasible timeline, being that we're so delayed? And is this something you're actually going to be able to make happen based on the time we have left?

So the June 1st date is sort of fixed, and DSS may sort of speak more to that. The provisional language specifically related to $20 million, that was sort of identified during the sort of closeout of the governor's budget, of the budget last year.

At that point in time, we knew HR1 was law, but we were waiting for federal guidance to really understand what resources might be needed to sort of move forward with implementation of the legislation.

So the delays. Because you are waiting for federal guidance. I'm sorry, I didn't quite.

I'm sorry. The delay is because you were waiting for federal guidance.

So federal guidance is now received. And so we're doing the analysis to inform how to use those dollars.

I'm sorry, is that. I'm just trying to track. Is that, yes, you were waiting for federal guidance, and now you're reviewing that and you're an analysis. And now we're looking at a timeline.

That's correct. At the time the language, the budget was adopted, it was because we did not have federal guidance at that point in time. Okay, thank you.

Also, CalSAWs, one of the things that we want to do is obviously we've learned a lesson on the importance of ensuring that our social safety net is less reliant, more resilient from the Federal Government.

And we have been in quite a bind that we've relied so much on the Federal Government and its systems to implement our work that sometimes we're now being held hostage because now we can't use it for certain populations that we deem important to be able to serve.

When we think about CalSAWs, if the Legislature is able to provide policy, direction and statute in this June's budget to utilize the CFAP expansion to provide food benefits to any individual who. Who may be ineligible for HR1 or their immigrant status, but we still in California would like to serve them. Could we use SAWs for that?

If you had the appropriate policy direction to do so.

So I'll just, if I may lay a little bit of foundation for Committee Members who may not be as familiar with the circumstances as you are, Dr. Jackson. We implement right now a California Food Assistance Program, which is a state only funded food assistance program.

It specifically focuses on serving individuals who lost eligibility for federal SNAP as a result of 1996 welfare reforms.

The Federal Government at the time created an option for states that chose to continue to serve that population with state only funding to piggyback on the federal systems, the automation systems, the banking system, the federal treasury to continue to operate benefits for that population. We took them up on that option.

That is the current automation that we have for our operation of the CFAP program.

So last year, as we were talking about the populations who may lose benefits under HR1, including the 74,000 approximately non citizens whose immigration status under HR1 will mean that they lose benefits under SNAP, you asked us at the time if we could then serve them in the CFAP program.

And our answer then, which is the same answer now, is that the federal structure will not allow that. The only people we can serve through the federal automation systems are those who lost benefits in 1996 and who are part of that federal option.

Because the Legislature and Governor agreed to expand the CFAP program to an additional population which is 55 plus individuals regardless of immigration status, subject to the appropriation of funds for that purpose. We have been working to develop automation to be independent of the federal structure in our CFAP program.

Once we are at the point where we have automated an independent structure and we can provide our CFAP benefits without relying on the Federal Government in that way, it would be up to the state, as a matter of state law and the availability of funding to determine who we wanted to serve in that program.

But the current limitations related to the automation and banking systems would not apply any longer. We have been working on that automation targeted to the date, that is the expansion of the CFAP population. If you recall, that was a budget solution in recent years to delay that.

It is currently on track for October 1 2027 and we are working on that automation with that date in mind and we're on track for that automation. It is not however, in place yet. So if your question was as of June 1 this year, could we use that new automation? It is not yet ready.

However, if we wanted to capture the 665,000 people who will be losing benefits on the federal side, and we wanted to now include them in CFAP. Would you need legislative direction and approval to do so?

We cannot include them in CFAP for the reasons that I was just describing. We could potentially, and we have, I think, conversation last year.

For the CFAP expansion?

We cannot include anyone in CFAP who was not the population that was targeted in the 1996 welfare reform who lost benefits in CFAP proper.

That said, we did have some conversations last year about whether there would be other options for delivering benefits to individuals in the meantime. So, for example, in times of disaster, we have sometimes provided, like, prepaid gift cards to certain populations of individuals. We have provided other kinds of cash benefits.

So there may be other ways to deliver benefits to a targeted population of people until that automation is available. But the CFAP program itself can't be expanded until we are independent in cfap, until we are independent of the federal system.

I want to add just one little detail, that even on October 1 2027 if we were to want to add additional populations, we would need to understand the eligibility criteria to provide an estimate on what timeline that automation could be completed or at what cost.

Because the automation that's on track is very specific to Californians age 55 and older.

Correct. So if we wanted to go beyond the 55 and over, but still make the October 1st deadline, what type, by when, do you need statutory changes to be able to do that, to still make that deadline?

So I think we would have to take it back and understand more about the eligibility criteria. And the reason we'd have to take it back is because we do have many automation projects in the queue leading up to October 2027 that are federally required related to things like HR1, the MEDI CAL work requirements.

And it's just hard to assess what bandwidth the system would have to do that ahead of October 1st.

Totally understand. But it is possible to go outside of those 55 and over. Am I correct? Utilizing CalSAWs?

From a purely technical perspective, it would be feasible. With right timelines.

Okay, that was my question.

Right. That was my question. Mhm. How much do you think that would cost to be able to make additional tweaks to the program to go beyond the 55 and over population?

So we would have to submit an estimate with our CALSAWs partners, and we would require some eligibility parameters to understand what type of functionality is being requested.

So obviously, we want to capture. Before we start with a new population, we should be trying to capture a population that will be losing benefits. So you already have a snapshot of the 665,000 people who are going to lose benefits. So when you look at eligibility requirements, you already know what that population is in most cases.

I know it's a lot of people in different circumstances. Right. So given that, obviously there is. I mean, it's not something we have to dig too deeply into. Am I correct in that, or am I just.

I think we could do some General kind of cost estimates with those numbers. I'll give you one example of a criteria we would need to know is, for example, would the expectation be that we move those individuals back to federal CalFresh benefits if they become eligible?

That type of transition between programs would require more complex automation than if they were to stay on the state program indefinitely. So it, you know, we'd need to have some sense of the parameters.

Okay, thank you for that. On your disaster CalFresh trailer Bill proposal. I have to be honest, I'm skeptical of this proposal. What are the risk or potential adverse consequences of this proposal for any region or population that may experience a disaster?

So let me just pull up my. There's actually notes here. Yes. So just for other folks on the Committee, we are proposing to add an additional assessment to determine if disaster calfresh is the appropriate response when a declaration of disaster is granted with individual assistance.

Currently, state law does require that we apply to the Federal Government to administer that program every time there is such a declaration. And what we've seen in the last few years, as this has been in state law, is that disaster CalFresh is the appropriate response in many cases.

But because of the way that the Federal Government has been granting these declarations, there have been occasions where, for example, a county has been included in that declaration where there has been very limited impact on individual households. And so we've run the program in those counties with very few applicants, sometimes as little as none.

And there are many resources that go into preparing to operate a disaster CalFresh program. There are many federal requirements that go with that. Other examples include the declaration coming very late. And so the feds have denied our applications because it's months after the disaster itself.

And so what we're asking to do is build an assessment phase in as we're developing the plan with the counties, including, included in the disaster declaration. So we can determine if that is the appropriate response, primarily that individual people have been impacted and that businesses as well have been impacted.

I understand the concern that that could create some delays, but we're committed to completing the assessment in the same timeline that we currently develop the plan, which takes us about two weeks from the declaration and we wouldn't need to exclude all counties.

We could include some counties in a disaster declaration and not others if it's not appropriate in that county.

Okay, so you're saying that you don't anticipate any delays longer than the current process that's already in place. Right.

And, and for counties where we don't operate disaster CalFresh. CalFresh itself is still available and sometimes is the more appropriate response as it provides long term benefits to eligible individuals. Disaster CalFresh is one month of benefits.

LA, what are your thoughts on that? Do you believe that we should. Do you believe that additional screening can still be done in appropriate amount of time that will not be longer than the current process?

We haven't identified any concerns with the proposal. It does seem to make sense to have a more tailored option to make this as efficient as possible. We don't have any concerns with the timelines.

Okay, thank you very much on that. LAO, a question for you. You make an AI argument for helping to streamline and make processes more efficient in terms of helping counties to make sure that we're working on the eligibility.

Do you see any unintended consequences of automating some of these things where possibly, you know, a more human interface may catch certain things or ask certain questions that may actually find someone eligible then not eligible that maybe AI wouldn't be able to capture?

So to clarify, I don't think we have any specific suggestions with respect to the role of AI. That's clearly a dynamic and developing topic and I think it's not clear at all.

You mentioned AI though, did you not?

I don't believe I did.

Or did you just say automation?

Automation, yes.

Well, it's beginning to be the same thing around here.

There's a big difference. As the chair of the Tech Caucus.

We're not asking Silicon Valley right now. Thank you very much. Stop. Go on.

So the main area where we think this is going to be useful as described by the Department, is in leveraging information that already exists so that we don't have to ask enrollees to always provide that information.

Because to the extent you've got additional demands on a household to provide information, you're going to have people fall through the cracks. So really the focus is on trying to use what, what is available.

I think we would anticipate that there's going to continue to be some need for workers to review that information and take appropriate action based on that. But there is a lot of data out there that can inform these determinations and hopefully for many people we can avoid having to ask for that verification.

Thank you for the clarification.

Dr. Jackson. If I could add something here. I am the vice chair of the CalSAWs Joint Powers Agreement. So kind of on. On behalf of CalSAWs here we.

And as a county Director, we are never going to replace our human eligibility workers with AI, but I do think there are opportunities for AI to assist through CalSAWs. We have pilot tested now over the last year a call summary. We pilot tested that in one county where the worker is speaking to the client after the call.

The worker has to document the call. We've piloted an AI created call summary which the worker then reviews and signs off on. And what we found is that it's highly accurate and it reduces the worker's documentation time from about 10 minutes to about one minute.

So I think that's one good example that would be helpful to our workers.

Similar to Zoom's dictation function. Now where you can. Okay, whatever. I will not ask Silicon Valley. No. So just a couple of requests from this Committee that I think is going to be important as we go through this journey together.

First, I think it's important that counties and the Administration really come up with the appropriate numbers and workload assumptions so that we can try to get to a General Fund amount for the budget year. What is it going to take to do this correctly? Right. And it doesn't seem as though we're all on the same page yet.

And so I would like my request is really for counties and the Administration to get together to really come up with a definitive number that we can all live with. Okay. In case the Legislature wants to continue to invest in lowering caseloads. Right.

Making sure that we are have the workforce necessary to ensure that we are providing the most optimal service to clients to prevent them from losing their benefits. Okay. Is that something you all are willing to do or have already done already? Maybe I'm just behind the ball.

I will say, and I hope that the counties would agree that we do work very closely together on a very regular basis and have these conversations related to our assumptions as well as the proposals that they have put on the table and the assumptions behind their proposals and that we will absolutely continue those dialogues.

When do you all anticipate being able to get this Committee some of these assumptions? Because obviously we're definitely going to need it by the May revise.

I would defer to the Department of Finance if there's anything to add in terms of whether there's a proposal from the Administration typically would come in the May revise if there were any updates, but I don't know if they want to add anything.

No, that's correct. We would work through the May revision to assess resource needs and if there's anything there, you would see it presented at that point in time.

Yeah. I think my problem with that is that usually what comes from the Administration May revise may or may not include what the conversations and feedback has been from the counties.

And so I would like to have this conversation happen so that we can really make sure that we have a full understanding of what we believe it's going to take really to make this happen.

I think we when every time we've done this before, I believe there was a time where we actually were able to come up with a number when there was an agreement that counties were underfunded in a certain category and we actually came up with a number.

We didn't agree for every single digit in that number, but we had a ballpark. Right. And so I think that it's going to be incumbent upon us to be able to do the same. CWDA you have any input?

Sure. Thank you, Dr. Jackson, for the opportunity. I think we would welcome an opportunity before May revision to come to one mind on the workload and General Fund assumptions with the Administration.

I will say we've had over five, maybe six conversations successively since the release of the Governor's budget with Director Troia's team, both program and fiscal, and we just most recently furnished them with additional detail about the backup that informs our assumptions, which were informed by a survey that we conducted.

But I think the crux of the issue is that we have a disagreement about whether the existing CalFresh methodology, which captures some portion of the pre HR1 traditional ABOD work, is going to be sufficient for implementing a transformationally different set of policies under post HR1 ABOD time limit and work requirements.

That is ultimately at the heart of our disagreement today. We think we need an additional four hours in order to make sure that we can conduct the robust screening and support clients through compliance for those who don't qualify for an exemption.

We think that the survey is absolutely outmoded and not the accurate instrument to use to determine what the real workload impacts are going to be post HR1, because those impacts could not have been conceived when that survey was administered well before the pandemic.

So we look forward to continuing to refine that sort of, I think disagreement and hope to come up with a consensus proposal. But I do think we would need your leadership in order for that to happen, because I imagine that's not a traditional part of the budget process.

Yeah. It's a part of the Jackson process, though. And so do you believe that this disagreement can be resolved or is there still room to make room, or are we all dug in here? I think that's my question.

We have said several times in hearings and in those conversations that we are absolutely open to continuing to refine our estimates, which were in the January budget and working toward the May revision process. So if your question is, is there openness to the dialogue and to better understanding the assumptions that are appropriate, Absolutely, there's openness there.

What the end result of that will be? It's a little hard to predict in advance, but.

Oh, yeah, no, absolutely. I, I, I definitely get that. So what, what this Committee is going to do is we're going to check in to see in a week or two or so whether you all have met to really keep going at this. And if you have not, then I, I anticipate a meeting request with me.

And if I, I don't even like me. So I'm not sure how you all would like that. Go ahead.

I would just suggest that it be a multilateral conversation that includes the Department of Finance because it's, it's great news, by the way, that DSS has submitted a proposal to release a 20 million General Fund that was enacted under 2025 Budget act to the Department of Finance.

I still have questions, we all do, about how the federal guidance that was received in October would somehow change the contours of the assumptions that would inform the release of that 20 million. Because the state's guidance, which was released in December, contemplates and is consistent with that federal guidance.

And so I don't imagine the Department of Finance would come up with an independent analysis of the federal, you know, the federal guidance that would differ from your colleagues in the Department of Social Services to somehow change the assumptions that we don't need the funding. The guidance that CDSS has issued in December is a harm reduction document.

It is a harm reduction document. It is a very sort of, I think, informative piece of guidance for our counties. And they're embracing the guidance because there are a number of opportunities to actually place people in a safe harbor from losing benefits and having these work requirements applied. That plan, that harm reduction document, is not being funded.

And that's the main point that we're trying to emphasize today.

Okay. Department of Finance, do you agree to participate in these discussions?

Yes, we've been participating in the discussions with the counties and with DSS. So you've been sort of a part of those, sort of understand the questions and have been having back and forth about assumptions and approaches and that will continue.

Well, we'll be following up with you all in about two or two weeks or so to see where you all are at and then we can move on from there.

Secondly, there are a series of requests in the agenda on pages 13 and 14 that really talk about the harm reductions list of proposals which are found on pages nine and ten. I'm going to be asking for those requests to be responded to in writing on your best thinking on those subjects.

This includes we already Talked about the $20 million that was authorized by the Legislature. This also includes the technical assistance on the county and labor request for resources.

This also includes a request on what it would take to create additional capacity for the CFAP expansion to be a true food safety net against the federal cuts on this item.

I'm asking LAO for help in terms of the what language could look like to be able to include additional people to be able to be eligible in the CFAP program. This also include assistance from your legal counsels on possible blanket exemptions to maximize CalFresh retention.

We know you've all been doing deep dives in various populations in terms of blanket exemptions. We want to make sure that if that's possible for other areas or other populations as well.

Well, that can also be used, of course, because especially with IHSS, we know that there's some crossover with Medi Cal and so those are some possible things that we could use on the Medi Cal side with my colleague Assemblymember Addis as well.

This also includes the feedback on the county match waiver and the PMC County Penalties relief proposal as well. We know that this is a doozy in terms of the county match as well. We want to make sure that we address that and get those responses in writing. And then finally a universal ABACS caseload number. Right.

And then a disaggregation to fully explain how the caseload breaks down under HR1. So we know that the 665,000 and other numbers as well. What are these all these different people, what do these people look like? Right. I'm assuming they don't all look the same or have the same circumstances.

We need your help in trying to make sure that we take a look at that as well. Can the Administration agree to provide all of what's being requested by the Subcommitee?

Yes, we can. To work to follow up on requested items.

Thank you for that. Again, we would like the responses in writing so that we can make sure that we have that. And then once we get them in writing, Committee Members, if you would like, we will also get you the answers to that as well once we've received that. Any additional questions or comments from Committee Members?

That was a lot. Assemblymember Lee

There's a lot but very substantive and needed. Chair Jackson so I definitely appreciate and I would second all the comments from the chair today.

I know I missed a bit of the conversation earlier, but I would stress to the Administration, Department of Finance and of course DSS how important it is that we are mitigating harm as much as possible.

You know, this is the baseline survival safety net for our folks that is completely being screwed over by the Federal Government right now and we have to do our best to help people that are going to be screwed over.

I know in this context this is a budgetary exercise and unfortunately the less people we serve, the less the state budget and say apparatus will be reflected that way. Right. But it shouldn't be incumbent upon the counties to go and figure it out. It shouldn't be incumbent on our working families just figure out on their own.

I remain concerned that of the early action items for the Administration it was about compliance or sometimes even overcompliance with the federal attitude towards working people and immigrants rather than actually doing harm mitigation.

So the proposals outlined today I think are a really great start for for folks to consider and I really do hope that before the May revise we see some substitute action just as we saw.

And I really appreciate DSS distributing a lot of the food bank money that went out when the Federal Government shut down for about two months. People were out in the cold. People did not almost the holiday time did not have food access and we were smart enough to deploy that money quick for our food banks.

This is a similar situation in which we have months to watch this train come towards us. But we can't leave poor people out in the cold like that again. So I really do hope that that's reflected in the May revise and in the subsequent conversations with the Legislature.

Because right now as the January proposal, I'm not seeing that right now what I'm seeing is just base compliance with the Federal Government and that's it kind of thing. Right.

Like I feel there's more concern about the and we're going to talk about this later, but the payment error rate and compliance with that than protecting people who are going to literally lose their food benefits.

So in Addition to also some of Jackson's points about CalSAWs and a need for changes of our IT infrastructure, we need to get on that quickly. I mean, that is because we're so reliant on the federal infrastructure that also doubly screws our people over because we don't have the infrastructure to pivot and serve those people.

And it is something we've harped on for feels like years at this point that we needed these systems in place. And that is something that I think our positions demand even on a modern scale. So those things are really important. And then I just also want to flag that.

I understand how you calculated about 600,000 people who are probably at risk of losing coverage and losing their benefits. But unless there is a very adequate coordination with the counties, I do fear that number is a very optimistic number. This is a system designed to basically kill working class people by paperwork.

I mean, this is a system that is designed showing states that the more bureaucratic becomes more and more people fall off. And I know that these estimations are people who should be eligible should stay on. But there is the reality of people who just fall through the cracks of the system.

So I just want to echo again everything that our chair talked about today and really hope that the Administration will come and talk to us and work with us way before the May revise because this, a lot of disaster is looming ahead of us is really quick.

And I guess I'll save my questions for as we get into the other specific top policy topics. But again, I appreciate all your participation in cooperation with us.

I think my closing comments on this panel would just be this. We've been throwing around another, a number of numbers, but these are our friends and families and neighbors. These are real people. And from an ecological standpoint, the number is so large, the ripple effects certainly will be felt somewhere else.

And then we're going to be right back here scrambling to find out how do we clean up even that mess. But if we just did everything we could, now we don't have to do another mess to clean up. And it starts with those of us here in this room. So I would urge us think outside your silos.

We're all on the same team here. We're all trying to make sure these people are being served and they stay stable and we're human. So it's not going to be perfect. But doggone it if we can't say that we did absolutely everything that we could, shame on us. All right, and so let's get to work.

Let's support each other. Let's share information. Let's get in these rooms, right? I'll bring the food in the room if y'all need me to. Whatever. Whatever we need to do. So thank you all very much for your service to the state of California. I know you're working hard. I know these things are overwhelming.

But we're going to get through this together. Thank you all very much. Let's move on to issue number two. County administrative backfill. I'll ask those who are part of this panel to come on up.

Dss, cwda. And Director. You may begin when you're ready.

Thank you, Chair Jackson. Again, Jen Troia, the Director of the Department of Social Services. And I will just note for clarity that Ryan Gillette, who is our Deputy Director and Chief Data Officer, will be available for questions, but not speaking on the panel itself. Not a problem. No need to wait for him for that.

Okay, so HR1 makes two significant changes in addition to the changes we were already talking about and several others to the way that the Snap program or CalFresh in California is funded. The first is an administrative cost shift.

This cost shift prior to HR1 and since the creation of SNAP, administrative costs have been split 5050 between the Federal Government and the state governments in California, we split the state share of admin costs with counties. We pay the state 70% and the counties pay 30%. Starting in federal fiscal year 2027. So that's October 1st of 2026.

The Federal Government will only pay 25% of all admin costs rather than 50. So that increases the state's share to 75%. As the state share increases under our current law structures in California, so do the county share. So notably these changes also apply to CalFresh outreach.

We now receive only a 25% reimbursement from the Federal Government for CalFresh outreach expenses compared to the historical standard of 50% reimbursement. The governor's budget reflects these changes. So this includes an increase in the budget year that $382.9 million in General Fund and $149.5 million in county funds to cover the reduced federal share in the budget year.

So beginning October 1st. So next I want to shift gears and talk about the second major change to the way that SNAP is funded. And this is a benefit cost shift tied to state's payment error rates or the per prior to HR1. And since the creation of SNAP, benefit costs have been 100% federally funded.

HR1 instead establishes new benefit cost sharing tied to each state's per or payment error rate beginning as early as federal fiscal year 2028. So that's October 12027. The share of benefit costs each state is responsible for ranges from 0 to 15% depending on their per in prior years.

Importantly, benefit cost sharing may be delayed through Federal fiscal year 2030 for states with a per greater than the way it's written in the statute is 20% when multiplied by 1.5.

But what that translates to is any state with a per of over 13.4% and that's if they have a PER higher than 13.4% in either federal fiscal year 25 or or federal fiscal year 2026. So the PER, stepping back for a second, measures the accuracy of each state's eligibility and benefit determinations based on a sample of cases.

It's the sum of both any underpayment and any overpayment of benefits issues. So this includes errors that may be made by the state, in our case the counties or errors that may be made by the clients.

Our PER in California in Federal fiscal year 2024 which which is the most recently available was 10.98% which is on par with the national average for California.

If our per remained over 10% but below 13.4% in federal fiscal year 2025 and 2026, this would result in a 15% benefit cost share under HR1 or $2 billion in new state costs beginning in federal fiscal year 2028.

In response to this tremendous cost pressure, the Legislature and Governor gave us funding last year and we have embarked on a multi year accuracy improvement initiative which is grounded in data and informed by our engagement with counties and partners. I will turn it over to the Deputy Director to talk more about these efforts.

Right. So as Director Cholla mentioned, as part of the 25-26 budget, the Legislature and the Administration approved a one time investment of about $20 million General Fund. We have a head up with some of the funding allocated. Been leading a quantitative analysis of the drivers of the perm.

This analysis is helpful in understanding what the drivers are and additional qualitative analysis is going to help us understand why these are drivers of the perv.

We started our contract with a partner called Westat to support this deeper qualitative analysis in more than 10 counties that is currently underway and what is clear from our initial work is that there are no silver bullets, right?

Some early observations of our data include that households not reporting an income change account for 27% of payment error dollars and eliminating this type of error could reduce our PER by up to 31/2 percentage points.

As another example, 14.5% of all our error dollars relate to the shelter deduction, including not accurately reporting shelter expenses or calculating it incorrectly. Eliminating this type of error could reduce the PER by up to 2 percentage points and in another finding nearly 50% of the errors.

So regardless of whether they are caused by counties or by clients involve not acting on information that is already available in the case record.

It is important to note that in the past implementation of major program changes including things like eligibility, policy changes or operational challenges such as the pandemic have temporarily increased individual states PERS and in turn the national average.

We would expect a similar temporary effect resulting from the changes as significant as implementing the ABOD time limit at nearly statewide scale and along with all of the other policy changes enacted under HR1.

So really emphasizing that this will be a multi year effort and as our analysis work continues, what we will be doing is prioritizing solutions based on that analysis.

In parallel, we have already embarked on a multi pronged approach to improving income verification which was a clear driver of the error rate as well as some proactive client communication tools. And so I will say Assemblymember Lee to your comments about solutions that are good not just for improving accuracy but also good for clients.

A couple of examples include implementation of new tools like truv, a consent based income tool which supports the facilitation of required verifications expanded use of the work number which is an existing third party payroll source that counties use.

We would allow them to use it for more Members of the household, reducing the amount of paperwork that counties have to submit and automation of what is called the Payment verification system which is income data from the Social Security Administration and the Unemployment Development Department or excuse me, Employment Development Department edd.

Our future solutions beyond these will be prioritized based on the results of our analysis and we hope around mid year to have sort of phase two set of solutions. In closing, the administrative and benefit cost shifts introduced by HR1 represent extremely significant changes to CalFresh.

We are deeply committed to reducing the payment error rate while balancing our priorities around client access.

Thank you Chair Jackson and Members. Andrew Shane, Managing Director with the County Welfare Directors Association this panel couldn't be more wonky and so I just want to remind us that we are talking about food access.

As we just heard, the complexity of HR1 is surging the county workload and the need to invest in our county workforce, but at the same time is depriving the resources that counties need in cutting the federal share in half.

That means that on October 1st overnight counties face an effective 50% increase in in their administrative share for CalFresh. Many counties across the state, rural and urban, small and large, will be unable to meet this increased match.

Our most recent survey indicates that approximately one in four counties struggle to meet their current match and about half will be unable to meet the enhanced match.

This cost shift is existential for counties to administer CalFresh, and the Californians who rely on the program to eat 60% highlighted their inability to invest in the harm reduction Strategies we just got done talking about 80% noted that their Department or agency will be looking to make cuts going in the wrong direction at the time when we need more system capacity.

These will be severely impacted absent a match waiver which is budget neutral. If a county cannot increase its match, a county loses out on the associated state and General funds approximately 1/3 cut to program funding.

The reason it is budget neutral and we can get into this in the discussion is is that thankfully and we greatly appreciate that the Governor's budget includes the state's share.

But without the match waiver, a county that cannot increase its own share will have to forego those resources and the associated federal funds leaving critical dollars on the table during this time. So I want to reiterate that there is no scenario in which all counties are going to be able to meet their elevated match.

There is strong precedent for this action. Match waivers were adopted in the Great Recession as well as COVID 19 and our proposed trailer Bill largely mirrors those policies. This is temporary but critical relief for counties to adjust to the new normal under HR1. Switching to the payment error rate.

Again we are asking for budget neutral action to hold counties harmless from penalties outside of their control. I want to underscore what the Department just raised that the payment error rate measures accuracy not fraud and that one in five of the dollars that is in our air rate currently is is recipients not getting enough food assistance.

Again, the complexity of HR1 is only going to increase this. As we just heard, California's area has been historically low. It's only risen recently with the COVID 19 and the new threats from HR1.

In addition the Federal Government shutdown and HR1 they threatened to at least temporarily increase these payment errors outside for factors that counties can account for. So pre HR1 there is long standing federal policy that when a state's error rate is higher than the national average for two years a state can be assigned a fiscal penalty.

And in California a large portion of that is passed to the 19PMC what are called performance measurement counties which as you can see include both Riverside and Santa Clara. Even slight changes in the payment error rates or impacted counties can mean swings in the millions of dollars again threatening county budget at this critical time.

So we are requesting Terry LeBlanc try this temporary relief just from the errors caused from these federal changes that are outside of county's control which would prevent the costly and time consuming appeals process.

Thank you Lao on the payment error rate. Clearly addressing that is a key fiscal priority for the state. The LIO and the Department of Finance have both identified structural deficits in the state budget in the out years and this contributes to that significantly.

If the state is required to pay a potential 15% share of benefit costs, it will be critical to see the results of the analysis the Department is doing so that we can know where to focus and get the most improvement in the error rate as quickly as possible. That concludes our comments on this issue.

No further comments at this time, but available for questions.

Members of the Committee Anything on this item? Just real quick. Obviously, Given the ABOD change requirements, how does this impact the penalty error rate?

Traditionally we have seen that major programmatic changes do have a temporary effect of increasing the payment error rate. The confusion in the program policy rules, the need for change management does result in a temporary increase in the error rate.

So I think we would expect that that would be typical and that we would probably see that here as well. So while we are working in that multi year period to bring the payment error rate down as much as possible, we recognize that it would be unsurprising to see temporarily an increase before that decrease.

May I just add on to that briefly, there are helpful resources from the USDA that also uplift the importance of the workforce and the training in order to enact that.

And just to say, as long as and robust as the discussion you all just had was, we didn't even unpack all of the complexity of the policy or really underscore how how many counties haven't had to implement this policy for decades.

And so you can just imagine the complexity and the scale of the situation confronting state counties and workers.

Obviously in the Governor's January proposal it didn't seem like it reflected or that there is an expectation that counties can absorb the match requirement since it did not incorporate a waiver within the January budget. What gives you confidence that counties have the resources to be able to absorb that?

To clarify, the Governor's budget does project that there are additional county funds given the the change in the federal cost share. This is consistent with current law, current practice, and that's what you see in in the proposal.

I'm not sure that answered my question.

I think if I can add, as my colleague explained, the Governor's budget does presume that there would be the additional county match.

Hearing the concern, as we said in the other panel, happy to sort of continue conversations about the approach moving Forward to implement HR1 and appropriate resources, but there's nothing built into the Governor's budget around a match waiver at this point.

So the Department of Finance does believe the counties can afford that.

It's consistent with the current law and so just carries forward the existing cost sharing ratio moving forward, adjusting for the change in the federal match. So it keeps the 7030.

Yeah. So let me just state for the record that county law, current law, and the ability of counties to pay are not two aren't the same thing. And so I really want to make sure that we double down because again, if we want to improve error rates. Right. And we want to improve error rates, why?

Because we know that it'll have greater fiscal impact to the state and the counties. So if we want to pre. If we want to prevent those penalties from coming, we want to make sure that counties are resourced appropriately to ensure that we don't have this penalty rate this penalty in the first place.

So I just want to make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for failure to say that we're not giving counties what they need, but we want to make sure that we don't have a penalty from the Federal Government, but yet we're not helping them make sure that they're helping us as a state.

So I want us to make sure that we're going to continue to drill back down on that. That's why it's important for counties Administration and finance to sit together. We got to figure that out because that's a huge red flag there that the Legislature does intend to make sure that we address as well.

Any additional questions or comments from Members of the Committee? Seeing none. We want to thank you all very much. We will continue to keep this item open as we continue to move down to this through this process. We'll now move on to the next issue. Issue number three, California Food Assistance program.

If you are on panel number three, come on up. CDC, DSS, Nourish California, Western Center on Law and Poverty.

Apparently there should be a carrot here. Am I.

That's me.

Oh, not the vegetable. Oh, okay. I won't play Not a queen. You should have put a carrot right there. Anyway, CDSS, you may begin when you're ready.

Okay. Again, Alexis Fernandez Garcia with the Department of Social Services. We spoke about this a little earlier on, but I will just reiterate some of what what we shared, so we're all on the same page.

So the California Food Assistance Program is a state funded benefit program that provides CalFresh equivalent benefits to certain lawfully present non citizens in California who are not eligible for federal SNAP solely because of their immigration status.

And so, as Director Troia mentioned, a federal option to administer CFAP was provided to states as a result of the passage of the Federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, or PEORA, and eligibility for CFAP today is tied to that act with regards to the CFAP expansion to people 55 years of age or older, regardless of immigration status that is on track for implementation on October 12027 subject to appropriation for that purpose.

Let me tell you a little bit about our efforts that are underway. We've been holding quarterly webinars with all stakeholders to engage participants and provide updates on the CFAP expansion, as well as hosting several advisory groups on specific components of implementation.

We are in the final stages or just selected a outreach contractor to support outreach efforts ahead of the October 1 date. A total of 12.5 million is budgeted for this outreach and lastly, automation efforts have resumed as of January 2026. Approximately 15%, give or take of the required automation has been completed.

The remaining work includes reviewing existing designs, assessing potential modifications based on the policy guidance that we have issued since we started, and completing testing to ensure it functions within the parameters of the system. A total of 26 million is budgeted for automation from 2324 through 26-27.

In response to your questions about further expanding CFAP and whether it can be used to provide food benefits to people who may lose CalFresh due to HR1, I'll just restate again kind of the two the two reasons that is not possible today.

First, state statute currently limits CFAP eligibility to lawfully present noncitizens who lost federal CalFresh eligibility due to Peora. And then second, California currently implements CFAP based on that federal option. That option allows CFAP benefits to be issued like CalFresh, for example, direct from the federal treasury.

If California were to extend CFAP eligibility to additional groups of individuals, two things would be required. State statute change and the administrative infrastructure that would be available on October 12027 under the Automation that is currently underway.

Also highlighted in the agenda, it was recently discovered that some lawfully present and financially eligible noncitizens who were eligible for federal CalFresh benefits prior to HR1 may have inadvertently been provided state funded CFAP benefits. Once these potential errors were identified, the deter the Department determined they were likely due to a significant influx of new humanitarian immigrants.

The complexity of the immigration statuses, the document documentation that we had to collect, and rapidly changing federal guidance often delayed. So these errors will be corrected as counties implement changes to non citizenship or, excuse me, non Citizen eligibility under HR1 beginning April 12026.

So as we reassess immigration status for households, we will appropriately assign people either to Federal CalFresh or remove them from Federal CalFresh or CFAP, depending on their circumstances. Based on a point in time estimate, we assume approximately 22,700 non citizens may be currently incorrectly receiving state funded CFAP.

I will just emphasize that given the complexity of this policy area, we we continue to research the potential errors and refine our impact estimates. So you will likely see new numbers that are again more refined with the additional research that we have been doing.

Like other lawfully present noncitizens who lose federal CalFresh, these individuals can receive food benefits under the CFAP expansion assuming they are age 55 and older and that that expansion is funded. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Great. Good afternoon Chair and Members. My name is Jackie Mendelsohn with Nourish California in partnership with the California Immigrant Policy Center. We lead the Food for All campaign and I'm here today on behalf of the Food for All Coalition partnership of more than 100 organizations across the state working to advance immigrant rights and food security.

And our coalition has been fighting for equitable food access since 2021 and many partners have been on the front lines in response to harmful federal actions, working directly with immigrant Californians and their families to ensure that they are safe, fed, healthy and supported. And today I'm here with three urgent requests.

First, 72,000 humanitarian immigrants in California have been abandoned by the Federal Government as we've spoken about many after escaping violence, persecution and torture by their government, and some after being of service to the US as translators in Afghanistan. Due only to their immigration status, they will soon be inhumanely kicked off of food assistance.

So we ask that you lead on California's values of immigrant inclusion. Hold the line by folding this population into the CFAP expansion and mitigating the harm that Trump's HR1 will bring and to ready the state to support newly excluded immigrants and cfap.

Please invest in additional support to administrators to assist this population in enrolling and staying enrolled in benefits. Second, it is critical that you keep your promise to implement the Food for all expansion of CFAP to Californians ages 55 and older, regardless of immigration status in October 2027. And third, ensuring the system is ready to do this.

We are heartened to see preparation for this historic expansion still on track and we urge you to renew your commitment to an on time implementation.

Immigrant communities already face hardship in getting the food that they need and many now have to choose between safety from kidnapping and and leaving home to work or get groceries amidst federal violence that threatens the stability and security of many immigrant communities.

Food for all is a beacon of hope, representing a permanent solution that enables families to feed themselves with dignity. The automation and systems readiness work for the 55 plus expansion is the same expansion work that will enable us to protect Californians from feeling the brunt of present and future harm from the Federal Government.

So by renewing your commitment to this expansion, you are not only ensuring that immigrant communities who have been waiting too long for life saving food assistance will be able to feed their families, but you will also ensure that our state has a separate system that will usher in a new era of supporting Californians from federal harm.

Importantly, please consider how we can sequence other automation updates to CFAP without delaying your commitment to the 55+ expansion. I want to conclude by saying that as a coalition, we align ourselves in support of my colleagues here in the room here, advancing other solutions to the extreme harm that HR1 will bring.

We recognize there are many priorities in this moment, but we see these as complementary rather than competing. In order for our state to thrive, California must take every action possible to ensure that our residents aren't denied the basic resources that they need. We are closely coordinated, united in a shared mission, and want to continue to work together.

Our vision is food for all, we mean for all Californians with no exceptions or exclusions. And we and the coalition are here for whatever additional information that you need to advance these requests. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Over here.

Oh, you didn't like that chair, huh? Oh, okay.

This one's nicer.

Oh, we get a little picky around here. Okay.

Good afternoon, Dr. Jackson and Committee Members. I'm Keely O' Brien with the Western Center on Law and Poverty and I'm here representing the California Anti Hunger Response and Employment Training Coalition. And we are also a Proud Member of the Food for All Coalition. So we are definitely united.

Our collective goal is to expand our investment in state funded food benefits to prevent people from being cruelly cut off and to protect our existing commitment to expand CFAP. By passing HR1. The Federal Government traded away our health and food benefits in exchange for handouts to the ultra wealthy.

In fact, HR1 tax provisions benefiting just the top 1% highest income people will cost the Federal Government $1.5 trillion annually. Nearly identical to the size and scope of the cuts to SNAP and Medi Cal. Medicaid. Excuse me. One of these SNAP cuts was the dramatic expansion of the work requirement.

As a result of this cut, 665,000 Californians are projected to lose food assistance. People being cut off face significant barriers to meeting work rules Even though about 75% of them are working. But they work in low wage jobs with unstable hours, inconsistent schedules, caregiving responsibilities, physical limitations and transportation barriers. The research is clear.

Work requirements will make this even worse. They do not increase employment or earnings and they have a disproportionate racial impact. People will be cut off due to fluctuating hours and and barriers to reporting, not because they found stable jobs. And when food benefits are cut off, people struggle to afford food, rent, transportation and health healthcare.

So health and educational outcomes will get worse and families will be destabilized. The solution is a robust state level anti hunger response carrot benefits are state funded food assistance benefits equal to what people would have received through CalFresh.

These benefits would be provided to people who lose eligibility because of the work requirement time limit and would ensure people continue to have access employment training programs. The cost is approximately $1.3 billion. But failing to invest in these benefits would remove billions from local economies.

And we cannot help people meet work requirements by shrinking the economies in which they're trying to find work. And let's be clear, California can afford this. The water's edge corporate tax loophole alone drains 3 to $3.5 billion annually from state coffers.

We could Fund carrot benefits three times over just by asking multinational corporations to stop hiding their California made profits in the Cayman Islands. The 200 billionaires in California hold around $2 trillion in wealth. Fully funding these benefits will cost less than 0.065% of that hoarded wealth.

We could feed every person in the state for the next decade with just the growth in billionaire wealth from the last six months. This is not a scarcity problem. It requires us to prioritize.

We are not going to choose between feeding one hungry family and another just because California's most profitable corporations would prefer to stash their wealth in offshore accounts than pay their fair share in state taxes like the rest of us. Finally, frontline county workers cannot implement these complex rules without resources.

The $20 million General Fund previously authorized must be released immediately. Otherwise eligible people will be wrongly cut off and error rates will rise. Our budget reflects our values and with this budget, California must do what is right and become the first state in the country to protect its communities from this hunger cliff.

It would be absolutely shameful to ask millions of Californians to sacrifice their health care and their food benefits just because we're too afraid to make the wealthy pay their fair share. Thank you for your partnership on these critical goals and appreciate the opportunity to speak today.

Thank you very much. LAO.

Thank you, Mr. Chair Ryan Woolsey with the LAO on the planned expansion of CFAP to individuals age 55 and older regardless of immigration status.

This is a kind of policy that is inherently challenging to estimate the cost of it just because of limitations in the data about the eligible population and lags in when that data becomes available.

As part of our review of the governor's budget, we took another look at this item and what we found is that the data that are available indicate that the undocumented population in the country grew significantly from 2021 to 2024 and then at the same time likely had some offsetting reductions beginning in 2025 related to changes in federal immigration enforcement.

At the same time, in California, we have been implementing expansions in the Medi Cal program to the undocumented population, and these expansions have resulted in much higher enrollment than previously projected and this is consistent with the national growth in the undocumented population.

So based on that, we believe that the cost to implement the planned expansion likely exceeds previous estimates. Our understanding is that the most recent estimate was on the order of about $170 million a year. But we believe that based on the experience with the Medi Cal program, annual costs would likely be between 250 and 630 million.

And that wide range really illustrates the significant uncertainty around take up who's eligible. We would note that in an initial year when it's implemented, the cost likely would not be that high. That's intended to be like an ongoing fully phased in impact, but we wanted to raise that for the Legislature's consideration in the budget process.

Department of Finance no additional comments at this time.

Members of the Committee. A couple of zero, did you Assemblymember Lee.

Just want to clarify with the lao. So you said that the cost, actually I think you said was 630 million. And is that the ramp up for the infrastructure or is that the direct payments for the population that you were saying?

We believe that the ongoing cost just for the benefits would be between 250 and 630 million ongoing. So that's not the infrastructure updates.

Right. So you're saying on an annual basis, should the program be inclusive of all the folks who want to include in there be in the 250 to 630 million ballpark. And because it's variable, because of the populations. Okay.

The second question is we had a bit of this discussion in the first panel about adapting this CFAP program to include more people, you know, legal California citizens who are being bumped off of the programs and stuff. And I understand that this is going to be an element discussion later on.

But just to clarify, as dss, you said that a lot of this program is governed by state statute. Right. So it really isn't within our determination of who's in CFAP program. Correct.

So once the infrastructure that we've been discussing is in place, currently on track for October 12027 we would have a standalone program within our eligibility system and it would be up to the state to determine the eligibility criteria for for that program. And in most cases, that would require state statute change.

And then secondly, I know this is on schedule for October 12027. Is there any real way to speed this up so it's not one more year from now? And in case I've seen other programs where October 1st will be missed will come and go. So is there a way we can actually speed this up?

Is it a matter of what is the matter of can it be done faster? Do we put more money towards it? What is the issue here? Why timing?

So we would have to consult with our calsos partner about any option to move that forward. I will highlight two things. If additional eligibility criteria are introduced, it depends a lot on the complexity of those criteria and how long it would take to sort of design that in the system.

And the second thing I'll mention is that with the number of changes that are federally required within the Same system, the HR1 changes, the MEDI Cal changes related to redeterminations and whatnot, we would just have to look at the total calendar leading up to that date to see if it could be moved up.

Judd, I would ask that you check in with your CalSols partners and get that. Get that answer. In terms of fast tracking the technology part I know the eligibility part is separate from just making sure the system can do what it's designed to do while we work on who it needs to serve.

Okay.

But if you can get that to Assemblymember Lee and to this Committee, that would be appreciated. Please. Mr.

Chair, if I could just add on to this point and not to be too Silicon Valley about it. My district's creating AI that can trick people faster and faster every six months. I am just trying to understand what is the real technical impasse that the programming or something can't understand. More computing.

I mean, the laws take a long time to do and you just got to factor into the system. I know the Governor is a big fan of innovation technology, so I'm wondering why is it that the same innovative spirit can't be applied in Cal Sos? So if we could follow up about like what, what those real.

I don't know if it's like a real technological impasse or whatever it is, but I do think this is a matter of urgency and if it's an infrastructure thing, it's just very much solvable in that case. So that's why I just want to add some urgency to that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, assemblymember. I think my notes tell me here that we are expecting 22,700 recipients to lose CFAP. Is that correct?

That is the current estimate, and we're continuing to do refinements to see if that number is accurate.

And who are these people? Kind of tell us who these people are.

So what we can tell based on the data is that when a large number of humanitarian parolees arrived in the US from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and later from additional parolee programs, there were eligibility errors at the local level.

The federal guidance at that time was very delayed and it created a period where the parolees applied for food assistance, but we lacked the guidance to understand if they should be placed into federal CalFresh or CFAP.

My best what we can tell from our reviews is that in an abundance of trying to get people onto benefits, they were placed into CFAP instead of federal CalFresh in an inadvertent error. And so now as we've gone back to look at immigration status again, particularly under HR1, we will have to make that correction.

And so they will be removed from CFAP instead of being removed from federal calfrate.

And how many of those will be who are will also be ineligible for CalFresh, meaning we know they don't believe on CFAP. How many of them will be able to receive CalFresh?

None of them they will not after HR1 is implemented beginning April 1st.

And is it just determined that they are ineligible or that they don't need assistance?

This is purely a technical policy issue. They are financially eligible but they are not eligible under the immigration statuses under HR1.

So if they notwithstanding their immigration status you would, would you agree that given their income that most likely they are facing food insecurity?

Yes. So these are people who are financially eligible for food benefits.

If I may, I just want to add 1.0 again Jen Troia on behalf of CDSSjust to add there are some individuals depending on their immigration status who could become eligible again for CFAP. So as your immigration status changes.

So that does not negate the overarching point that many of them may end up in the position of food insecurity. But I did want to add that nuance that in looking at their eligibility we would also determine whether there was a change that allowed them to be served by CFAP under the CFAP rules.

Is there anything we can do for them?

So this goes back to the original discussion around the current state statute for CFAP and the federal option that we use to administer register CFAP being tied to peora.

So we would need to opt out of that federal option, have the infrastructure in place in the system that we've been talking about specific to the 10-1-2027 date and then change state statute as well.

Is there anything we can plan on doing for them in the meantime? Because we're still looking for almost a year or more for them having no assistance. And so are there anything and is there anything that you foresee we can do for them?

I mean obviously we knew that there was the 72,000 people who were going to be losing CalFresh. So we tried to supercharge our food banks as a way to divert them to somewhere else so that they can still get food of assistance.

I mean 22,000 is a large number and I will, I mean hopefully they're not in the same county because that can create quite an instability in a county for that to happen. Right.

So they are part of our total impact estimate. So I just want to be clear, it's not 72,000 plus 22. They are part of our total HR1 impact estimate. And as Director Troia mentioned earlier, we have in the past looked at alternative options, things like one time payments either within the system or outside the system.

Maybe we could work together, provide technical assistance on that topic to understand what the options would be.

Okay. Jackie, you asked this Committee to make some commitments I'm not sure if I have good news for you. I'm one that does believe that we need additional revenue. Some of the bills that were cited, my name is on them. But absent revenue, we are now being given yet another task.

And you're right, it's because we're Federal Government is making room for billionaires to make more billions. But now we have 665,000 people who are going to be losing food assistance that's estimated to cost rough numbers, $2.8 billion. And my goal, or my thinking is, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it's totally fine.

If I was in your position, I would probably correct me if I was, you know that first we have to make sure that if they're currently receiving benefits and they lose them, it seems to me that the first thing we should prioritize are those to keep them being serviced so that we don't lose ground.

And then once we have them stable, we continue to move forward to new populations. And so I'm not sure if, number one, can we do that while still making the October deadline for 2027? I don't know. Right. We're asking a lot of questions, we're trying to figure this out and all that kind of stuff.

What's my initial thinking? My initial thinking is I'm not sure if we'll be, we'll be able to, we'll have to see after the may revise and what additional dollars may be available and those type of things. Do we want to serve them all? You better believe it. But I also don't want to.

I think it's also my responsibility just to show just how bad these decisions are. And I don't think I would do anyone justice by trying to sugarcoat which is really a. Man made decision to allow people to suffer by the Federal Government.

But this is what we are dealt with and we're going to do the best we can to deal with this issue. Because Members, I'm a humanist. I believe that if you're human and you need some support, my faith tells me feed them if they're hungry.

I think that we have a whole hard road ahead of us and I'm glad you all are with us to go along this journey to push us, to educate us to be thought partners in this on how we can move forward.

But at the same time I want to let people know regardless and to be honest, depending on how much even if we decided to or we're able to get additional revenue, the numbers we're Looking at for additional revenue is still not enough to handle the amount of cuts that the Federal Government has done.

And so at the end of the day, do I predict that people are going to be hurt? I absolutely do. Your thoughts?

Yes. Thank you, Chair Josh.

And you can give me a whooping if you want to.

Also listen, I can't because I understand, I hear you, and I fully respect and also appreciate this position because like you said earlier today, like we've talked about in many conversations, this is part of holding the line. And if we don't hold the line, we lose ground.

And I recognize that we in the coalition recognize that we're having many of these hard conversations in order to best be able to support you in the Committee in making these tough decisions. And I'm not saying that we don't hold the line, but what I am saying is that. And you support this.

It's just that no Californian should go hungry. So that this difficult, weird conversation that HR1 is forcing us to have, I mean, HR1 is operating as intended. It's trying to pit us against each other. It's trying to pit these hunger priorities against each other among many other evil things that it's done. And so I'm so with you.

And we in Food for all are so with you. And we want to work with you because like I said, we're united in this vision. We want food for all. While in our work we aim to have food for all, regardless of immigration status, and that's our North Star. We will keep pushing you on that. I promise.

We will keep bringing that to you. We also believe in food for all Californians, regardless of immigration status, regardless of age, regardless of any of these identities. So I think the message we'll keep holding is that no Californian should go hungry.

We can't be picking and choosing who gets to put food on the table and feed their families. And thank you for your support and leadership on addressing revenue solutions so that we can think outside of our existing framework. Yeah. And thank you for your historic support on Food for All.

No, absolutely. I just put my name on it. Assemblymember Lee and Damon Conley. Assembly Conley are the ones leading it. On it. But certainly want to be supportive as much as I can be. I don't mean to put you on the spot. I think that. I think that the public needs to hear us debate this.

You see what I'm saying? We have a lot of conversations behind the scenes, and I think it's important for us to have these tough discussions and even hear tough answers from me so that people understand just the extent in which we are trying to think about these things. Right?

And so I I I thank you for engaging with me on the on this. Any additional questions or comments from any Members? I thank this panel so very much. Really appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

We will move on to issue number four, Emergency Food Banks and California Food. And CDSS. You may begin when you are ready.

So CDSS works with a network of food banks statewide to administer the Federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, or tfap, the Federal Commodity Supplemental Food Assistance Program and the state funded Cow Food Program. The Cow Food Program specifically allocates state funding to TFAP food banks for the purchase, storage and transportation of food grown or produced in California.

CAL Food receives an annual baseline appropriation of $8 million, which CDSS allocates to a network of 49 food banks that serve all 58 counties.

Many CDSS food bank partners are also Members of the California association of Food Banks, which you'll hear from in just a moment and which reported that in 23 and 2024 their Members served an average of 6 million people per month, up from 4.5 million during the height of the pandemic in 2021.

2025 estimates will be available soon, but early indications are that food banks have continued to serve more people in 25 than in previous years. As such, we expect demand to increase throughout 2026 because of the significant changes to CalFresh eligibility which we've discussed today.

Including all state and federal funding sources administered by CDSS food banks, state and federal resources declined 28% year over year from federal fiscal excuse me, state fiscal year 23-24, 24-25 because the 25-26 data for federal food programs is not yet available, the most recent year to year percentage change is unknown, but anecdotally we are seeing less federal food flowing through the TFAP system than in previous years.

Additionally, USDA offered several TFAP bonus offerings in 24-25 that have not been replicated in 25-26, and this has had a significant impact on supplemental food resources for food banks.

It's also worth noting that since 22-23 food bank partners have received 260 million in Cal Food funding, including 24 million in the baseline total, providing a critical amount of food when it has been needed most.

As we move through the remainder of the current year, food banks see fewer resources on the horizon from both state and federal sources. We have heard from food banks that without this additional funding food banks will be more dependent on philanthropic sources to try to backfill the loss.

They may also have to limit the number of distributions or scale back the size of each distribution to help stretch their resources. As we have previously highlighted, HR1 will impact who is able to access CalFresh benefits, which will very likely have a direct impact on the demand on local food banks.

I'll stop there and hand it to my colleague.

Hello, my name is Josh Wright. I am the Director of Government Relations for the California Association of Food Banks. We represent 43 food banks that partner with nearly 6,000 agencies across the state and our mission is to end hunger in California.

Our latest estimate, based on the Census Household Poll Survey indicates that about 22% of households in California are facing food insecurity, while nearly 27% of households with children are food insecure. Black and Latino households face even deeper disparities.

HR1 will exacerbate food insecurity in California as the real human impacts of the largest cuts to CalFresh in the program's history begin to take effect. Many Californians turn to food banks in times of crisis, and we expect a significant surge in demand as HR1's key provisions take effect.

We polled our Members in November of last year after the government shutdown that delayed CalFresh benefits. 92% of food banks reported increases in the number of households served and the amount of food distributed during the shutdown. 55% of food banks reported distributing more pounds of food last year compared to the previous year.

And it's important to note that some of the food banks that did not distribute more food noted that this was due to the decrease in federal TFAT foods rather than a lack of need. Food banks are already serving a record 6 million Californians per month, up from 4.5 million during the height of the pandemic.

While serving more people, food banks have lost federal funding. Last year, food banks received 38% less food, over $100 million less from the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program, known as TFAP.

This means that food banks are already in the difficult situation of serving a record number of people with less federal funding before the CalFresh cuts in HR1 take effect. Additionally, the state's primary funding source for food banks, Cal Food, is set to drop to its baseline funding of just $8 million if new funding is not approved.

This is a 90% cut from last year's funding of 80 million. The Cal Food Program enables food banks to purchase California grown and produce foods that aren't typically donated to CAL food helps food banks meet the diverse needs of different communities they serve while also supporting California's critical food producers.

Our food banks continue to emphasize to us that additional food funding is the most important resource for meeting current and future local needs.

This year we are asking you to sustain vital cow food funding at 60 million annually and approve an additional 50 million of one time funding to help us respond to HR1 for a total of 110 million in the 2026-27 budget.

We also urge you to shorten the lines at food banks by enrolling and keeping as many Californians on CalFresh as possible. This includes ensuring county workers have the resources they need to provide robust client engagement and exemption screening. And it includes preserving the CalFresh outreach network which is affected by the administrative cost shifts in HR1.

In addition to my comments on CAL Food, I also wanted to uplift the budget request of the California Association of Diapers Diaper Banks I'm sorry? Diaper banks are asking for 16.5 million in ongoing funding in the 2026-27 budget to sustain the distribution of diapers and wipes to families in need.

Diapers cost upwards of $100 per month and a survey from the National Diaper Bank Network found that 25% of parents reported missing five days of work per month because they did not have enough diapers to send their children to daycare. Unfortunately, even more families will struggle to access diapers as essential safety net.

Programs that low income families rely on have been cut under HR1. Without this vital funding, Diaper bank funds will expire in June 30th of this year and we will lose the network of diaper banks that provided over 204 million diapers to 2.7 million infants since its creation in 2022, just as they are needed the most.

A representative from the Association of Diaper Banks is available for questions on this. We look forward to partnering with the Legislature to protect and strengthen the state social safety net. Thank you for your commitment to ensuring all Californians have food on their table.

LAO.

Nothing to add on this item.

Department of Finance.

No further comments at this time.

Administration do we have any numbers on our burn rate yet from this? Obviously given the shutdown we had to we released funds early. What is our burn rate? What are we and do we have enough funds currently that you believe will be sufficient for the remainder of this fiscal year?

So we highlighted that as of around mid January, 48% of ongoing Cal Food funding so the baseline had been sent spent and 14% of cow food had been spent. That said, so baseline.

Give me what that number is. Baseline.

5.3 out of the 8 million spent. This is of mid as of mid January and 29 million of the augmentation. Now there is a delay because of the way we receive invoices after the fact. So spending has exceeded that. We just haven't seen it yet in our invoices.

Okay, we're going to request to continue to get updates as you get updated numbers so that we can keep on track. Do you believe, Josh, do you believe that you guys are going to make it through the fiscal year?

It's hard to say as we see, you know, it's hard to predict what our need will be. We do space out how we spend cow food dollars. Food banks don't typically spend through things with cal food dollars immediately.

They use the cow food dollars to help balance their sheets as they're trying to taking in donations and other things as well. So the spend rate tends to be intentionally spread over time rather than rapidly deteriorating. So it's hard to know definitively at this point.

But as we face this unprecedented need, we know that we will definitely need more funding in the future.

I would anticipate that as well. Members of the Committee, any questions on this item? So we will obviously hold this item open, but as stated in the agenda, I want to continue to ask for updates on the utilization rate of our cal food dollars. Up until when do you anticipate the next numbers coming out?

I think we can get to one update at the end of this month. The next set of. We have. We spend approximately 5% per month, so we can get you an update for end of February and then there'll be a delay till the next update.

And I think that would be a good indicator on whether there's an uptick or not. Right. To try to see if there's been a surge in util utilization, those type of things. And so we just want to keep.

You know, I'm always trying to look for ways to kind of get an indication on the pulse of the population, what they're going through. And it seems to me that this might be a good indication as we keep getting updates. Is it exceeding our cash flow? You know, is it exceeding our expectations in terms of utilization rates?

You know, are things slowing down, whatever it may be? So please keep us up to date and we'll look forward to the next updated numbers at the end of. Do you mean the end of February or the end of March?

We're at the end of February, so I mean, we will get you an update for spending through February. We might need to get it to you in early March. It's already in the month. It's a short one. Okay. We're on the same page. Yes. Yes.

You know, I'm trying to. Trying to figure this baby out. Okay, well, thank you so much for this panel. Really appreciate it. Let's keep sharing information. We'll move on to issue number five.

And just as the panel is coming up, this Committee continues to be interested on how we can continue to make sure that if students are eligible for CalFresh, we continue to lower the barriers necessary to help them to get the assistance that they are, that they are owed.

I must say that CDSS is doing a great job of continuing to be inventive and find ways to be able to do so, but we want to continue to find ways that we can keep our students housed and fed as much as possible.

One of the things that we are interested in is, how do we continue to break down silos? How do we make sure that we continue to create more, no wrong door processes? So that if they are utilizing or applying for one thing that you know, they can be told whether they might be eligible for another and being able to get access to that without going to yet another site, yet another department, yet to another entity to be able to do so.