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” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org January 30, 2016 Issue #2016-01 more on page 2 2016-2017 CalWORKs State Budget HIGHLIGHT- $2 billion taken from CalWORKs to be used for the State rainy day fund In Brief On January 8, 2016, Governor Jerry Brown revealed his 2016- 2017 state budget for CalWORKs. The Governor’s budget proposes to transfer over $2 billion from the CalWORKs pro- gram to the General Fund. The Governor also proposed to put an additional $2 billion into the state rainy day fund. What a coincidence! Governor Pete Wilson, with full support of the Democratic Legislature, began this annual transfer of funds from the mouths of CalWORKs babies and children, living in deep poverty, to the state general fund back in 1998. The annual State raid on CalWORKs money has ranged from 1 billion to $1.5 billion a year. This year, Jerry Brown has proposed to cross the $2 billion dollar mark, which is about 30% of all funds that should be used for CalWORKs’ eligible families with babies and children. See the CalWORKs Budget below: On November 17, 2015, DSS approved Santa Cruz County’s application for a CalFresh Restaurant Meals Program (RMP) in Santa Cruz County. The RPM program is available for homeless and elderly to use their food stamps to get hot meals at food stamp certified restaurants. Santa Cruz brings the number of counties with a RMP to nine. The other counties are Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Luis Obispo. Lainie Gray is in charge of the Santa Cruz RMP program. Kudos to Santa Cruz County. A list of county RMP contact can be found at ccwro.org. CalWIN has been broken up to four (4) regions: Region One – Alameda, San Luis Obispo, Tulare and Ventura; Region Two Contra Costa, Orange, Sonoma and Yolo; Region Three Fresno, San Fran- cisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Solano; Region Four Placer, Sacramento, San Diego and Santa Barbara. DSS asked counties to correct their CAPI cases reporting. DSS states Counties are either reporting fewer paid recipients in Item 10 than Item 6 or re- porting greater number of paid recipients than Items 6 and 7 combined. Santa Clara County asked DSS Why does the STAT 47 require the number of ABAWDs when there are no ABAWDs? Who are the ABAWDs that counties should capture? A DSS analyst re- sponded that FNS has clarified that persons who do not qualify for one of the exemptions at MPP 63- 410.31 or .32 are considered ABAWDs and must be reported even if they live in a waiver county or receive the 15% exemption. Are counties tracking ABAWDs? Chart # 2 reveals how the three consor- tia responded. Federal TANF Block Grant $3.7 billion State TANF Match $3 billion Total TANF Money for CalWORKs $6.7 Billion TANF Money Available for CalWORKS in 2016-2017 Year Average Grant Percent of the Federal Poverty Level Percent of the Supplemental Poverty Level 2015-2016 $514 31% 21% 2016-2017 $497 30% 20% CalWORKs Average Grant Reduced by 3% – Mean- while the 2016-2017 budget proposes a 3% reduction in the average CalWORKs grant for CalWORKs families with babies and children leading the United State of America in child pov- erty . See Chart #1. CHART #1 CalWORKs Family of Three (3) 1 CCWRO Welfare News January 30, 2015 # 2016-01- page 2 Con’t from Page 1 ABAWDs Tracking Codes Used by California’s Billion Dollar Computer System CalWIN The following tracking codes were used in the CalWIN system for ABAWD work requirements C-IV Logic was removed in 2010 when waivers went into effect LEADER Used these codes when there was no waiver. Not being used today LRS No information. Not tracking ABAWD Code Description Description Code Description CO Consecutive They used to populate the element in the FX 20 and send a code 1 in DE 1359 (ABAWD Indicator) ONLY when the person was ABAWD. 9 Inactive\/ Ineligible FS aid program EX Exemption A Beneficiary appealed negative action (APP) MC Moved to CFAP C Non-Compliant 2nd consecutive set of months MF Moved to Federal E ABAWD Exempt NW Not meeting work require- ment G Good cause TK Ticking M Moved from non-exempt to exempt county N ABAWD non-compliant W ABAWD Compliant SOURCE: DSS How Many ABAWDs in California today? Mystery STAT 47 is the only state reporting instrument for ABAWDs and it does not track the number of California ABAWDs. The DFA 296 tracks the CalFresh caseload. For the quarter of July- August-September, 2015, the DFA reveals that there were an estimated 150,000 non-assistance CalFresh cases added to the CalFresh caseload each month. The report also reveals that a higher number of cases were terminated each month. Month Cases added Cases Terminated 7\/2015 154,806 137,498 8\/2015 147,865 155,531 9\/2015 158,430 167,137 All CalFresh applicants are automat- ically registered for work unless they are exempt. The STAT 47 reveals that during the same quarter 222,853 CalFresh recipients were registered for work. The STAT 47 also shows that 113,157 cases were new ABAWD cases. The report does not show how many old ABAWD cases there are. Also the report does not show if the 113,157 cases are in addition to the 222,853 or part of the 222,857 cases. To get the answer to this case we traveled through the instructions of the STAT 47, which were not help- ful. It is just mind-boggling that after giving counties over $2 billion a year the public has no idea of how many ABAWDs cases California has today. CHART #2 2 CCWRO Welfare News January 30, 2015 # 2016-01- page 2 – The alleged purpose of the California Welfare-to-Work (WtW) program enacted in 1998 was to secure self-sufficien- cy for CalWORKs beneficiaries. In 2015-2016, the Legisla- ture appropriated over $3 billion for this failed program. Under WtW California welfare recipients are forced to par- ticipate in a segregated employment program. Unemployed non-welfare families can access many state and federal work and training programs that are operated by employ- ment experts. These programs provide real assistance in finding employ- ment. Welfare recipients cannot access these programs unless the WtW case manager approves the program. For the most part, welfare recipients are limited to the WtW program operated by welfare workers. California spends over $3 billion each year on the WtW program. An estimated 50,000 persons find jobs that result in the termination of CalWORKs benefits, but do not lead to self-sufficiency. In fact, California’s outdated earned income disregards result in termination of aid to families with earned income below 100% of the federal poverty level. The Depart- ment of Social Services does not collect monthly publicly available information about the level of earnings of the Cal- WORKs leavers . So what is the real purpose of the WtW program? Sanctions. Many assert that the reason the TANF (formerly AFDC and in California called CalWORKs) caseload numbers went down was because folks went from welfare to work. Accord- ing to research by Sanford Schram, (see Do Welfare Sanctions Help or Hurt the Poor? Estimating the Causal Effect of Sanctioning on Client Earnings Richard C. Fording, Sanford F. Schram and Joe Soss – Social Service Review Vol. 87, No. 4 (December 2013), pp. 641-676 ) and many others sanctions have been the major contributing factor to the AFDC\/TANF caseload decline, not folks getting jobs. A CalWORKs sanction occurs whenever a WtW participant allegedly fails to participate in a WtW activity without good cause. Research has shown that most sanctions are a result of lack of supportive services. CCWRO and other advocates have suggested to California’s welfare officials that the actual availability of transportation and child care should be verified before requiring a Cal- WORKs recipient to participate in a WtW activity, just like welfare workers verify the recipient’s income and resources before issuing any type of government benefits. However, California’s officials have REFUSED to verify that the participant actually has transportation and child care before being asked to participate. We believe that their reasoning is that this will result in higher supportive services costs and reduction of the sanction rate. In 2006, the California State Legislature passed AB 1808, giving counties $230 million annually to increase welfare to work engagement and reduce sanctions. Since getting the $230 million a year counties have done what they do more money means more sanctions. Sanctions have increased by a 150%. (See the TABLE on this page.) To pay for it, the 2006-2007 state budget suspended the meager CalWORKs COLA that would have cost only $143 million. In the 2007-2008 state budget again suspended the CalWORKs COLA that would have only cost $124 million. Today, impoverished families with children live on a fixed income at 1989 levels when milk cost $1.44; a loaf of bread cost less than $1 and a first class stamp cost 22\u00a2. In 2015, families pay more than $3 for a gallon of milk; over $3-4 for a loaf of bread and 53\u00a2 for a first class stamp; not to mention the cost of diapers, formula and other basic necessities of everyday life. It is unfair to lay all of the blame on AB 1808. SB 1041, en- acted as a part of the State Budget in 2012, also played a ma- jor role in the escalation of WtW sanctions in California as predicted in these publications when SB 1041 was enacted. Today, CalWORKs families live on a fixed income that equals to 31% of the federal poverty level (FPL) and 21% of the Supplemental Poverty Level. Today anti-hunger advocates and other advocates for the poor are working hard to raise SSI benefits to 100% of the federal poverty level. But they do not talk about raising CalWORKs benefits to 100% of the FPL. We wonder if poverty advocates consider CalWORKs families who receive means-tested benefits, less worthy than the elderly, disabled and blind who also receive means-tested benefits at 100% of the FPL? California’s WtW Program is a Monumental Success in Imposing Sanctions A Total Failure in Making Families Self-Sufficient Month\/Year WtW Enrollees WtW Unduplicated Participation WtW Participants Sanctions Percentage of Sanctions October 2006 195,246 111,589 38,645 20% October 2007 189,592 132,396 39,990 21% October 2008 192,645 134,881 39,415 29% October 2009 215,467 149,361 46,941 31% October 2010 196,307 139,558 46,961 34% October 2011 167,528 124,958 45,626 37% October 2012 157,116 119,946 49,852 42% October 2013 170,400 117,793 51,442 44% October 2014 188,631 126,298 59,372 47% October 2015 172,274 114,040 57,145 50% Source: DSS WtW 25 Reports 3 ”

” California’s Proposed Budget Transfers $1.4 billion from CalWORKs Families to the General Fund for Budget Year 2016-2017 Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org March 28, 2016 Issue #2016-02 (more on page 2) March 2016 SSI Recipients Lose $122 Million While Enduring Food Insecurity – For 2016 = $1.5 Billion Loss Prior to 1975, less than 25% of the aged, blind or dis- abled received food stamps. At that time, in order to obtain food stamps, the applicant had to make a personal appearance at the county welfare office. Frequently, the It is California State Budget time and again the CalWORKs program is slated for another round of cuts that take money from 500,000 babies and children living at 31% of the federal poverty level. This year’s proposed budget proposes to transfer $852 million from the CalWORKs program to the CalGrant program. CalGrant is a student assistance program for low-income students with income below 200% of the federal poverty level in com- munity and state colleges. Most of these students are not eligible for CalWORKs. CalGrant is a great program, but it is not a CalWORKs program. The Governor and the Legislature want to increase the CalGrant amount without using General Fund money or Prop 98 money, so they raid the Cal- WORKs line item. Table # 1 is a brief history of the funds transfer from CalWORKs to the CalGrant from 2013-2014. The ideal proposed maximum CalWORKs grant for 2016-2017, according the Legislative Analyst office will be $704 for a family of three and Cal- Fresh will be $497. The total benefits for a family of three would be $1,201. The reality is that the majority of families of three do not receive the maximum amount of aid for a family of three. As a result of sanctions due to the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule, or being timed out, they receive aid for a family of two or one. If SSI recipients were al- lowed to received CalFresh, at an estimated $135 a month per single SSI recipi- ent approximately 1 mil- lion single SSI recipients in California would not be food insecure today. application process to get food stamps was too burdensome for aged, blind or disabled appli- cants. In 1975, the pro- cess changed. In Cali- fornia, SSI recipients started to receive $10 in their SSI grant allocated to the purchase of food instead of getting food stamps. This process resulted in more money coming to California since 100% of SSI recipients got the $10 benefit. In 1975, SSI recipients received a combined state and federal benefit that equaled 109% of the federal poverty level. In 1987, SSI benefits equaled 122% of the federal poverty level. Today, the SSI benefits for a single per- son is equal to 90% of the federal poverty level, which includes the $10 food stamp money. SSI benefits were reduced when the SSI and CalWORKs COLA’s were suspended during the recession in 2008-2009. If SSI recipients were allowed to receive CalFresh today, a single SSI person would receive an estimated $135 a month about 1 million single SSI recipients in California would not be food insecure today. The combined SSI and CalFresh benefits would bring their combined benefits to 106% of the federal poverty level. With the ability to submit CalFresh applications on-line and the use of other forms of technology, most SSI re- cipients would not have to attend an in-person meeting at the welfare department. (more on page 2) Fiscal Year Millions Taken FY 13-14 $542 million FY 14-15 $377 million FY 15-16 $521 million FY 16-17 $826 million Dollars taken away from CalWORKs and given to CalGrant T A B L E #1 www.ccwro. CCWRO Welfare News March 28, 2016 # 2016-02- page 2 Maximum CalWORKs (CW) & CalFresh (CF) Benefits v. the Actual Average CW & CF Benefits for a Family of Three (3) CHART #2 2 In March 2016, California failed to restore CalFresh for SSI recipients. This means that California refused to utilize $122 million in 100% federal CalFresh dol- lars. Using the Zhandi Economic multiplier, effec- tively California gave up about $4 billion a year that would have created over 40,000 jobs in California. In April 2016, about one million SSI recipients in California will continue to endure food insecurity because they can’t get CalFresh. It is time to STOP food insecurity for about one million SSI recipients NOW. Over 120,000 families receive reduced benefits due to the MFG rule. The punishment is swift and severe deep poverty. As evidenced by research reports, an- other major reason why parents are excluded from the CalWORKs grant is for not participating in a welfare- to-work program. This often happens because they did not have child care and transportation and the county REFUSED to verify that the family needed transporta- tion and child care services before being required to participate in a welfare-to-work activity. The CalWORKs program is infested with ways to punish poor families for being poor. So what does the average family of three receive in California today? Table # 2 reveals the average benefit level according to the DSS budget documents versus the maximum for 2015-2016 and maximum according to the Legislative Analyst office. Table # 3 below is a partial list of programs that will receive CalWORKs funds for 2016-2017 for persons not eligible for CalWORKs. Source: DSS and Legislative Analyst Reports Source – Department of Social Services * -This reflects the exclusion of $312 million of stage 3 money that is used for CalWORKs California has secured the shameful honor of having the highest poverty rates for children in the nation in the terms of the supplemental poverty rates. This could change if the lawmakers did two things: 1) A $600 million investment would insure that Cal- WORKs families do not suffer deep poverty, defined as having a fixed income over 50% of the federal poverty level. $600 million represents a little over 40% of the more than $1.4 billion slated to be transferred out of the CalWORKs budget. See Table #4; 2) Approximately $230 million would be needed to repeal the barbaric Maximum Family Grant (MFG) that affects over 130,000 poor babies and children. After these two changes, the California lawmakers would still be able to transfer $500 million from the CalWORKs program. Budget Item Student CalGrant Commission $826 million CDE Child Care Programs not Serving 100% CalWORKs Recipients* $257 milion Transfer to Title XX $364 million Total Available $1,447 million 2016-2017 State Budget TANF Funds Not Used for CalWORKs Eligible Families SSI Recipients to be Deprived of $1.5 billion in Food Stamps While Many Go Hungry CalWORKs Budget Raided by Lawmakers While Children Live in Deep Poverty Budget Initiave Cost Repeal of Maximum Family Grant $230 million Bring CalWORKs Grants up to 50% of the federal poverty level with the Goal of having grants reached the level of the CalWORKs minimum basic standard of adequate care – W&IC 11452. $600 million Major 2016-2017 CalWORKs Initiatives To Bring Children Out of Deep Poverty NOW! Benefit Type Maximum Benefit Average Benefit Difference CalWORKs $704 $497 $207 CalFresh (Also known as SNAP) $511 $307 $204 Con’t from Page 1 Con’t from Page 1 T A B L E #4 T A B L E #2 T A B L E #3 http:\/\/www.ers.usda.gov\/publications\/err-economic-research-report\/err103.aspx ”

” CDSS Policy Can Very Well Result in Elder Abuse Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org April 18, 2016 Issue #2016-03 (more on page 2) APRIL 2016 MILESTONE SSI Recipients Lose Annually $1.5 billion Monthly $122 million Daily $4.906 million 4 The Governor’s budget estimates that California’s food stamp caseload will grow by 5.8 %, while the CalWORKs caseload will go down 5.6%. Meanwhile, the welfare-to-work caseload is estimated to go down 0.3%. Does not add up. 4 In April 2016, SSI recipients who endure food insecurity will be prevented from getting food because California contin- ues the policy of refusing to allow SSI recipients to get Cal- Fresh benefits. This results in over 1 million SSI recipients be- ing denied $122 million in CalFresh benefits each month or $4 million a day. What a shame – these are all federal dollars. 4The Governor tasked CDSS with adding 400,000 children to CalFresh next fiscal year but did nothing for CalWORKs children – meanwhile California leads the nation in child pov- erty. 4 The county single allocation for 2016-2017 will be $2.66 billion and only $6.1 million of that money comes from the state general fund according to the County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA). See W&IC 15200 et.seq. 4 A county asked CDSS if a MFG child could receive GA. CDSS stated that an MFG child is considered part of the As- sistance Unit and is considered aided in the CalWORKs case. What an illusion. The child receives no CalWORKs money but is considered to be aided ? 4 Counties can’t meet the deadlines required by ACL 15-99. On December 23, 2015, Stanislaus County asked CDSS about a married IHSS client whose spouse works in Alameda County on Mondays through Saturdays and works overtime. The spouse only comes home to Stanislaus County two Sundays a month. The County asks if it can allow for meal clean up because the IHSS recipient in question is married and has a spouse. The County also asks if it should pay for domestic services. On December 29, 2015 CDSS responded that due to the length of time the spouse is absent, meal clean up seems appropriate and possibly a health and safety issue… CDSS also said that The spouse is considered able and available to complete laundry, shopping for food and errands tasks per MPP 30-763.413. Since laundry, shopping for food and errands do not need to be completed daily, the spouse can complete these tasks when he is home. The spouse can do domestic chores when he is home. Could this be getting close to elder abuse? How does a dis- abled person eat for 28 days when the spouse is not home? How dirty does the house have to be, how hungry does the person have to be, and how dirty do her clothes have to be to be considered a victim of elder abuse? MPP 33-315-2 states: The adult protective services pro- gram is to prevent and remedy the abuse, neglect, or exploita- tion of elders and dependent adults who have been harmed or are at risk of harm. Section 15610.07 of the Welfare and Institutions Code states: Abuse of an elder or a dependent adult means either of the following: (a) Physical abuse, neglect, financial abuse, abandonment, isolation, abduction, or other treatment with resulting physical harm or pain or mental suffering. There is no evidence that the IHSS program beneficiary has the ability to store food for two (2) weeks. What if the ben- eficiary is on a special diet? Do CDSS adult services officials shop two times a month? Do CDSS adult services officials clean the house two times a month? Do CDSS adult services workers do laundry two times a month? Does the IHSS beneficiary have enough change of clothing for doing laundry only two times a month? Would forcing an IHSS beneficiary to live in a dirty house for up to two (2) weeks cause mental suffering ? In Brief Over 1 million SSI recipients will endure food insecurity. http:\/\/www.leginfo.ca.gov\/cgi-bin\/displaycode?section=wic&group=15001-16000&file=15200-15207 http:\/\/www.dss.cahwnet.gov\/lettersnotices\/EntRes\/getinfo\/acl\/2015\/15-99.pdf CCWRO Welfare News April 18, 2016 # 2016-03- page 2 2 ACL 15-99 states: (In Brief, cont’d. To ensure that CalWORKs adults are receiving the benefits of the WTW 24-month time clock (MTC), CWDs are to identify cur- rently aided or sanctioned adults (as of the date of this letter) that met all of the following three conditions for any consecutive six- month period between January 1, 2013 and September 30, 2015: (1) The adult(s) was aided; (2) The aided adult(s) had zero hours of participation in a WTW activity; and (3) The adult(s)’ WTW 24-MTC ticked. For the adults identified, CWDs are required to (1) identify the population meeting criteria described above, (2) untick months ap- propriately from the WTW 24-MTC as described below, (3) notify clients of the months unticked from the WTW 24- MTC and, (4) attempt to engage them in WTW activities, if appropriate. By February 15, 2016, CWDs must provide to CDSS the informa- tion requested in this letter using the attached reporting form. At the 1-7-16 CWDA CalWORKs Policy Committee (CPC) meeting counties stated that they have the several challenges of complying with this directive: (1) Not enough time; (2) Ability to pull data (3) No informing let- ter (What was ACL 15-99?) (4) Counties were hoping for more collaborative effort between CDSS and counties. CDSS response to counties, according to the CWDA meeting minutes, Do what you can to show you are working on it. The reason for the reporting requirement is to look at these cases and start to resolve them. By February you may not be able to com- plete the report but need to make an attempt and provide what you have. Is this CDSS leniancy policy also applicable CalWORKs beneficiaries when it comes to SAR 7 submission and compliance with WtW requirements? 4 CDSS identified the list of 11 counties that would be visited by the CalWORKs Eligibility Bureau in 2016. The visits will be in-person or remote. Last year’s visits revealed problems with anticipated income and immediate need CDSS determined that the policies need to be clarified. During the 2016 visits CDSS will review the implementation of the pregnant-women-only cases, drug felon cases and truancy cases. 4 On August 13, 2015 Riverside County asked CDSS: Would the stepsister of a deceased or absent biological father be consid- ered a caretaker relative for the eligible child? On September 1, 2015 CDSS CalWORKs Eligibility Bureau responded: Yes, as she is the aunt of the eligible child related by marriage. 4 CDSS was asked When a person has committed fraud, is the person automatically not entitled to be in the CAPI program for good? Just because the county thinks that somebody has commit- ted fraud does not mean that the person actually committed fraud. CAPI recipients are innocent until proven guilty. CDSS respond- ed, Not necessarily. In cases in which fraud has been confirmed, the county and\/or consortium is responsible for imposing any ap- plicable penalties ACL No. 00-73. We were unable to locate any statute or regulations that would specify penalties for intentional program violations for CAPI. Even though there is no authority to impose any penalties upon CAPI recipients, CDSS points out that the SAWS 1 talks about penalties. The CDSS response implies falsely that counties can impose penalties not authorized by statute or regulations by referring the county to the SAWS 1 and implying that the penalty rules for CalFresh and CalWORKs on the SAWS 1 may apply to CAPI. 4 CDSS has policy of denying CAPI indigence exception be- cause the applicant failed to provide a elderly abuse report done by the county welfare department. CDSS stated If the county requested supporting documents and the claimant did not provide them, then the county should deny the exception for insufficient evidence. How nice. Just ask for something that the aged, blind or disabled non-citizen indigent applicant does not have and then deny CAPI to the needy person. 4 San Benito County is issuing paramedical hours that are less than the hours stated on the SOC 321 completed by the doctor – a violation of state law. 4 On November 30, 2015, Shasta County asked CDSS what should they do with an IHSS client who turns 18, is nonver- bal and can’t move his arms and legs. Who will be signing his timesheet? On December 21, 2015 CDSS responded that A Power of Attorney agent or conservator is not required in order to sign the recipient’s timesheet. ACL 12-55 (11-1-12) introduced form SOC 839 , which the recipient completes for this pur- pose. Any person designated by the recipient as an authorized representative (AR) can sign the AR form. CDSS points out that the recipient may not assign his\/her provider as the timesheet signatory, as this represents a conflict of interest. 4 On November 19, 2015, Los Angeles County IHSS Program Policy Division wrote to CDSS that the DPSS IHSS Qual- ity Control Staff has criticized IHSS workers for not having documentation that county staff mailed a SOC 821 to the IHSS applicant\/recipient’s physician. The SOC 821 is the protective supervision form . On December 4, 2015 CDSS IHSS analyst responded that The County is not required to mail form SOC 821 to the physician. 4 CDSS CAPI unit released an undated All County Letter regarding authorized representatives for CAPI. In order for a per- son to be eligible to be designated as an authorized representative by a CAPI recipient the county has to make a determination that the proposed authorized representative is capable of helping the CAPI applicant . And what are the standards for determining capable ? Does the person have to have a high school degree? How about a college degree? Can the county do a drug test? Does the person have to have a car? Will the county do a credit check? This rule implies that CAPI recipients are incapable of determining if a person des- ignated by the CAPI applicant is capable of helping him or her and they need the county to make that determination for them. This also creates a huge unfunded mandate that would have to be paid by the State for the time that it takes counties to determine if the persons designated by the CAPI applicant are capable of helping him or her. http:\/\/www.dss.cahwnet.gov\/lettersnotices\/entres\/getinfo\/acl\/2012\/12-55.pdf http:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/cdssweb\/entres\/forms\/English\/SOC839.pdf http:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/cdssweb\/entres\/forms\/English\/SOC321.pdf http:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/cdssweb\/entres\/forms\/English\/SOC821.PDF http:\/\/www.dss.cahwnet.gov\/lettersnotices\/entres\/getinfo\/acl00\/pdf\/00-73.PDF CCWRO Welfare News April 18 , 2016 # 2016-03 – Page 3 IMMIGRANT CAPI BENEFICIARY FORMS IN ENGLISH ARE A CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION 3 The Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI) is for beneficiaries whose primary language generally is not English. These are are non citizens, but are lawfully residing in the United States and are a vital part of our community. The CAPI program was enacted in 1998 (Stats 1998, Chapter 329 – AB 2779) and has been violating the civil rights of CAPI beneficiaries from the beginning. Under current law, if more than 5% of the program beneficiaries have a certain primary language, then CDSS is responsible for providing those beneficiaries with notices in their own primary language. The 2015 DSS ABCD 350 – Annual Recipient Report reveals that the primary language for 45.43% of CAPI is Spanish, 9.68% is Armenian and 5.33% is Russian. Some languages have no translated forms at all. CAPI recipients whose primary languages are Arabic, Cambodian, Farsi, Hmong, Korean or Ukrainian have no CAPI forms or notices of action in their primary language. TABLE # 1 reveals that after 18 years of the 12 forms that CAPI applicants interact with, 8% have not been translated in Spanish, 83% have not been translated in Armenian and 67% have not been trans- lated in Russian. This is a violaiton of the civil rights of California’s Spanish, Amenian and Russian speaking CAPI recipients that has been going on for 18 years. English Armenian Chines Russian Spanish Vietnames SOC 453- Cash Assistance Program For Immigrants (CAPI) Statement Of Household Expenses And Contributions SOC 453 SOC 453 SOC 453 SOC 453 SOC 455- Authorization for State Reimbursement of Interim Assistance SOC 804- Statement Of Facts For Determining Continuing Eligibility For The Cash Assistance Program For Immigrants (CAPI) SOC 804 SOC 804 SOC 804 SOC 804 SOC 804 SOC 807- Cash Assistance Program For Immigrants (CAPI) Request For Waiver Of Overpayment Recovery – Income\/Ex- penses SOC 807 SOC 807A- Cash Assistance Program For Immigrants (CAPI) Request For Waiver Of Overpayment Recovery – Without Fault SOC 807A SOC 809- Cash Assistance Program For Immigrants (CAPI) Indigence Exception Statement SOC 809 SOC 809 SOC 809 SOC 809 SOC 810- Applicant Certification Of Contact With SSA To Change Status From Institutional Care To A Home Setting SOC 814- Statement Of Facts Cash Assistance Program For Immigrants (CAPI) SOC 814 SOC 814 SOC 814 SOC 814 SOC 830 – Request for Conditional CAPI After Naturalization Pending SSI\/SSP Eligibility Determination SOC 830 SOC 830 SOC 830 NOA 691-Notice of CAPI application denial NA 691 NA 691 NA 691 NOA 692 Notice of CAPI Change NA 692 NA 692 NA 692 NOA 693 Notice of approval of CAPI application NA 693 NA 693 NA 693 TABLE # 1 http:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/research\/PG369.htm CCWRO Welfare News April 18 , 2016 # 2016-03- Page 4 WTW OUTCOME SUMMARY A lot of sanctions. Very few jobs. Is this the Welfare-to-Work OR the Welfare-to-Sanction program? California leads the nation in child poverty. $2.3 billion now being spent on WtW could be better used to lift California’s poor children out of deep poverty by bringing their cash aid up to 100% the federal poverty level, now. Source: State Department of Social Services WtW 25 reports SB 1041 Recipient Impact Analysis January 2016 Four (4) year California WtW Program Outcomes REPORT * Annual WtW Expenditures are $2.3 billion for 2015-20167 4 WtW Activity January 2012 January 2013 January 2014 January 2015 January 2016 WtW Participants Being Sanctioned this month 46,924 50,889 57,279 60,305 57,741 % of WtW Participants Being Sanctioned this month 39% 42% 49% 51% 52% $ Loss by WtW Participants Being Sanctioned this month – Estimated @ $125 per sanction. $5,865,500 $7,159,875 $7217,625 WtW Participants in Postsecondary Education 10,050 9,579 8,200 7,189 5,638 % of WtW Partipants in Postsecondary Education 8% 8% 7% 6% 5% Number of Unduplicated Participants Who Entered Employ- ment That Resulted In Termination of CalWORKs 3,145 4,108 2,492 3,722 4,221 % of Number of Unduplicated Participants Who Entered Employment That Resulted In Termination of CalWORKs 3% 3% 2% 3% 4% Taxpayer $ Cost Per Unduplicated Participant Who Entered Employment That Resulted In Termination of CalWORKs * $60,521 $46,334 $76,380 $51,139 $45,093 WtW SANCTIONS Unduplicated Number of Participants in a WtW Activity this month 119,810 119,946 117,845 119,396 111,930 Number of Unduplicated Participants Geeting Transporation 60,400 60,589 64,757 65,974 56,575 % of Number of Unduplicated Participants Geeting Transporation 50% 51% 55% 55% 51% $ Loss by WtW Participants not receiving transporation – Estimated at $100 per month per participant $5,920,190 $5,938,954 $5.545,570 WtW TRANSPORTATION SUPPORITVE SERVICES WtW JOBS OUTCOMES WtW POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION http:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/research\/PG276.htm ”

” Hillary Clinton On TANF? She Loves it. Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org May 25 , 2016 Issue #2016-02 more on page 2 4 California Department of Education (CDE) pres- ents a revised state child care plan every three years. On 3\/11\/16 CDE submitted a state plan to HHS. The plan reveals that California is out of compliance with federal law and will have to submit an amendment to the State Plan. A child care recipient who has violated the law, faces criminal prosecution; their child care payments stopped; and faces possible jail time. When the state government breaks the law, the state must file an amended state plan. 4 The USDA Office of Inspector General is look- ing at the administrative cost per CalFresh case. They are visiting Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties. In California, the cost is $26 per case, while in other states, the cost is $10 per case. Actually, the Califor- nia non-assistance SNAP\/CalFresh cost is about $79 a month. California, New York and Ohio use 1\/3 of all SNAP administrative dollars nationwide. The OIG report is due September 1, 2016. 4 CDSS is expanding its internal webpage called extranet to include handbooks, policy interpreta- tions, letters and more. The extranet is a part of the DSS web page but is only accessible to certain autho- rized individuals, including counties. 4 DSS CalFresh Expedited Services reports known as DFA 296X are being converted to CF 296 effec- tive with July 1 through September 31, 2016 should be reported to DSS no later than 10-20-16 according and ACL 16-39. The ACL state that the April 1, 2016 through June 31, 2016 report is due July 20, 2016, but the last 296X report shown on the DSS webpage is for the quarter ending September 31, 2015 that was received October 20, 2015. If Candidate Clinton wins the election, do not look forward to making TANF better for poor famlies and children. Ms. Clinton’s webpage proudly declares that she supports welfare re- form, which was actuallyDEFORM. Welfare DEFORM enacted the TANF program. Before TANF there was the AFDC program. Unlike AFDC, TANF imposed a time limit for families with children to be on aid – 5-years or less. Moreover, under AFDC, 70% of the money went to payments to families. In TANF only a meager 30% goes to payments to families and the remaining 70% goes to the welfare bureaucracy. In her 2003 book, Living History , she agreed that Bill Clinton should sign the TANF bill and she worked hard to round up votes for it. This is also the bill that limited food stamps to 3 months out of every 36 months for able-bodied-adults- without-dependents (ABAWDS) causing extreme hunger in America. In Brief 1 May 2016 SSI Food Insecurity Report 1.3 million SSI recipients endure food insecurity because they cannot get Food Stamps. Their $ loss: Daily – $ 4 million Monthly – $ 122 million Annually $ 1.5 billion CCWRO Welfare News May 25, 2016 # 2016-04- page 2 CHART #2 2 Counties are required to reconcile the IEVS hits in the following quarter in an effort to minimize the overpayment. However, they don’t. Many of the IEVS hits are not reviewed for years – which can lead to large overpayments. After the overpayment reaches a $1,000 or more, the fraud machine kicks in. The fraud investigators get a warrant for the working, former CalWORKs recipient, sometimes arrest her or him at his or her place of work. Upon conviction the former recipient is ordered to make restitution of the full amount. Saddled with a felony record, it is nearly impossible for the individual to obtain employment with a large enough income to allow repayment. Effective January 1, 2016 there were 882,031 IEVS hits from 2015 that had not been reviewed. Dur- ing October 1 through December 31, 2015 counties reviewed 395,700 hits. Of those, 367,068 had no dis- crepancy just a big waste of time. Only 28,632 had a discrepancy. Of the 28,632 reviewed only 5,069 resulted in the termination of aid and less than 10% or 2,332 were accepted by the welfare fraud unit and less than 10% go to prosecution. Counties are supposed to report every quarter within 30 days of the end of the quarter. Trinity and San Benito County just did not report. Who cares that the State Agency requires a timely IEVS Hit report? Now if a CalWORKs recipient in Trinity or San Benito County failed to submit a SAR 7, boom NOA all benefits stop. Santa Clara County re- ported that they receive 0 IEVS hits from October 1 through December 31, 2015. It’s amazing. Colusa County has 501 IEVS hits and they only process 5 a month. At that rate they would catch up in 33 years. Imperial County has 28,571 IEVS hits waiting to be processed and they only process 863 a month. At that rate it would take them 11 years to catch up. Meanwhile, each quarter increases the outstanding IEVS Hits and increases both the num- ber and amount of the overpayments. PRACTICE POINTER: Individuals being charged with overpayments and fraud should note that any overpayment occurring after the county knew or should have known about the overpayment should be a county error. Legal Authority – DSS Regulation MPP 20-006.4; Federal Law 45 CFR, 205.51; 264.10 and 7 CFR 272.8 See page 3 for Table #1 – County-by-County rankings for the October 1 through December 31, 2015. Source CDSS DPA 482 What happened to the reports for October 1-Decem- ber 31, 2015 received on January 20, 2016? Or the reports for January 1 through March 31, 2016 received April 20, 2016? The last report available to date is for the third quarter of 2015. 4There may be an underground policy circulat- ing that former SSI recipients, including children, whose SSI has been terminated, are not eligible for CalWORKs. In fact, the CWDA CalWORKs Policy Committee (CAT) minutes state: SSI recipients whose SSI has been suspended and that are not on aid do not get aid or SSI. They are not eligible for CW . This is incorrect. In CalWORKs, income has to be actually available to be considered. State regulations provide that only children and adults who are receiv- ing SSI are excluded from the assistance unit. It appears we may have disabled or blind children and\/ or parents being denied SSI and CalWORKs at the same time. 4 According to HHS data for 2014, California has the second highest sanction rate in the nation, follow- ing Missouri for work-related sanctions. For non- work- related sanctions, California ranks 8th in the nation. Often, we see overpayments that have gone on for several years. Some cases involve former Cal- WORKs recipients who now work. The welfare department in each county receives Income and Eligibility Verification system (IEVS) reports. IEVS is a matching system comprised of various electronic cross matches that match applicant\/recipient name and Social Security Number (SSN) with various databas- es. There are two IEVS systems: one is for applicants who are applying for aid (IEVS Applicant System) which is administered by Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), and a second is for ongoing eligi- bility verification of current recipients (IEVS Recipi- ent System) operated by California Department of Social Services (CDSS). An inconsistency is called a IEVS hit . Counties cause large overpayments then prosecute for welfare fraud. Con’t from page 1 CCWRO Welfare News May 25, 2016 # 2016-04- page 2 – Page 3 TABLE # 1 – County IEVS Back Log 3 County IEVS Hits Not Processed IEVS Hits Processed During the quarter Months Needed to Catch up Statewide 1,164,998 395,700 12 Colusa 501 5 401 Imperial 28,571 863 132 Nevada 4,438 147 121 Placer 24,709 1,052 94 Alameda 131,560 8,326 63 Butte 15,153 1,635 37 San Joaquin 79,976 8,751 37 Lassen 964 108 36 Siskiyou 3,591 462 31 San Bernardino 90,407 11,681 31 Ventura 47,194 7,547 25 Del Norte 1,326 215 25 Kings 8,707 1,460 24 Stanislaus 19,598 3,628 22 Mariposa 356 72 20 Calaveras 555 118 19 San Francisco 10,632 2,357 18 Monterey 15,464 3,608 17 Yuba 1,880 470 16 Yolo 2,494 641 16 Modoc 97 30 13 Mendocino 1,822 601 12 Kern 17,759 5,950 12 Fresno 46,607 16,401 11 Sutter 1,462 564 10 Sonoma 7,325 2,923 10 Tuolumne 874 381 9 Madera 2,486 1,089 9 Lake 677 297 9 Los Angeles 474,857 221,647 9 ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org June 10, 2016 Issue #2016-05 1 Also gone: Once-in-a-life-time (to once-a-year) for CalWORKs Homeless Assistance Medi-Cal Estate Recovery What Else Did We Get? $10 monthly increase in CalWORKs Grants $4 monthly increase in SSI grants $45 million for County SSI Advocacy Maximum CalFresh Certification Periods $8.7 million more for Community College CalWORKs Programs $15 million for California Immigration Services $5 million additional Equal Access Funds By monday all of these changes will be in trailer bills that would be publicly available. The budget com- mittees will have heairngs on the bills next week and the buidget bill and trailer bill will be signed before 6-15-16. Maximun Family Grant (MFG) Rule To End – Effective January 1, 2017 Latest State Budget News CCWRO Welfare News June 10, 2016 # 2016-05- page 2 CHART #2 2 4 The California SAWS System will consolidate all current on-line application portals into one portal some- time between 2017 and 2018. This statewide portal will be used for CalWORKs, CalFresh and Medi-Cal. For some reason this new system will not have a solution to the current highly flawed inter-county-transfer process for persons to report a new address and allow the system to trigger and complete the inter-county transfer process. 4 On March 25, 2016, David O’Meara of Orange County asked DSS if drug felons are eligible for post aid child care? On March 28, 2016, Linda Horne of DSS responded that Once ex-felons have exhausted their cash aid, they will continue to be eligible for child care as a former recipient in Stages One and\/or Two. 4 Elaine Carroll, Deputy Director for DSS Adult Services plans to retire at the end of the year. 4 According to DSS’ FSP 14 reports during January 2016, a total of 3,038 WtW participants received Family Stabiliza- tion Program services. 1,313 participants received other services. The remaining 1,725 participants received various services, such as 468 participants received domestic violence services, 1,434 participants received mental health services and 267 participants received substance abuse services. As to why 38% would receive other is puzzling. Some coun- ties use the other category such as for a child seat, but that should be an ancillary service and not a family stabilization cost. Persons in Family Stabilization (FS) are entitled to sup- portive services that includes ancillary services. Ancillary services is any necessary expense that the participant needs in order to participate in his or her WtW activity, including FS, other than transportation and child care. 4 The California Welfare Sanctions Machine has more WtW Participants in Sanction than participating in some counties. There are 17 counties in California that have more sanctioned participants than actual WtW participants. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the U.S. House of Rep- resentatives, announced a new plan to fight poverty block grants that has been around and continuously rejected for two (2) centuries. He calls it a better way but for the poor it will be a worse way. While the authors of A Better Way have de- nounced the slow recovery of the economy and pointing out that the real unemployment rate is 11% and not 5%, there is no acknowledgement that unemployment and underemployment exist in the United States. A Better Way also ig- nores that adequate jobs are not being created to meet the needs of the population. However, this flawed plan imposes work requirements without concrete evidence that there are jobs available, which they know it is not true This proposal borrows heavily on the alleged success of the TANF program. Yes, TANF was a real success for the state bureaucracies they flourished in new found money, while families with babies and children endured misery and deep poverty. Beore TANF 70% of the money went to payments to families . After TANF only 30% of the money goes to payments to families. The program is called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), but it really is Temporary Assistance to Needy States (TANS). Ryan’s flawed proposal calls for stronger work requirements based on the false premise that poor people just don’t want to work. As we said above, where are the jobs? Moreover, is there a work requirement for giving farm subsidies for billionaires who simply sit and count their money? This proposal would also block grant such programs as the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and housing programs. The Paul Ryan plan would mean more misery for poor Americans, including children and families. This is a anti-poor and anti-family proposal that should be buried like the George Bush proposal to privatize social security. Paul Ryan’s Way of Fighting Poverty – Take from the Poor & Give to the Bureaucacy In Brief County WtW Sanctions WtW Participants Madera 422 112 San Joaquin 3476 1192 Kern 5031 2398 San Bernardino 10628 9377 Merced 1325 1235 CCWRO Welfare News June 10 , 2016 # 2016-05 – Page 3 3 Managed Care Plans Fleecing California Taxpayers IHSS CMIPS BLUES Annually there are at least 30,000 Medi-Cal cases where the Medi-Cal recipients move from one county to another. Although the Medi-Cal beneficiary may not be able to ac- cess the same managed care services in the new county, the old managed care plan (MCP) continues to collect monthly payments for al- legedly providing medical assistance until the case transfers and disenrollment occurs. For adults MCPs collect about $300 a month and for children over $100 a month. Assuming it takes a month or two, this is an estimated 6 million dollars that we believe MCPs are fleec- ing California taxpayers. The Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) is a major contributor to this multi- million fleecing of California taxpayers. Medi-Cal beneficiaries who relocate should be able to go on-line and disenroll from the MCP that is not serving them. However, DHCS op- poses this and insists that Medi-Cal beneficia- ries should try to contact their welfare worker who will disenroll them on-line, or the DCHS ombudsman office. Recently, welfare workers in Los Angeles County complained that they experience great difficulties contacting the DHCS Ombudsman office by phone to disenroll Medi-Cal benefi- ciaries who are no longer living in their county. The reason that Los Angeles County workers call the DHCS ombudsman office rather than doing the disenrollment on-line, is because Los Angeles County did not allow welfare workers to have access to the internet. Medi-Cal recipients should have the same access to disenroll that welfare workers have, especially given the fact that many Medi-Cal recipients have to go to contcat a call-centers to talk to somebody. Often Medi-Cal recipients are asked to leave a message. But the message does not say exactly when they would get a call back. Many times when the call-back comes the Medi-Cal recipient is out shopping or doing other errands. Some message say we will call you back in 24-hours . Does that mean the Medi-Cal recipient has to sit in front of the phone for 24-hours waiting for the call? Santa Barbara County developed their own database called Client Assessment and Documentation Instrument (CADI) that not only shows the hours and minutes of services authorized, but it also show the calculations of Paramedical, Respiratory services, Ambulation and Accom- paniment to Medical Appointment hours. The State has its own statewide computer system called Case Management Information and Payrolling System II (CMIPS II). DSS insists that Santa Barbara County insert the authorized hours for the various IHSS services in CMIPS II so that DSS quality control staff and data collectors can review. DSS has informed counties during a webcast that documenta- tion outside of CMIPS II will no longer be accepted, but Santa Barbara states that they never received an ACL to this effect. Santa Clara County had an IHSS Quality Control review on February 9-12, 2016. Seventy cases were reviewed with 13 cases had Paramedical Services. Seven cases had authorized hours that were less than the hours indicated by the licensed health care professional on the SOC 321. The DSS letter to Santa Clara County stated If the county de- termines that the Paramedical Services tasks take less time than the time indicated on the SOC 321, the county should contact the health care professional signing the form to discuss their concerns. If the health care professional agrees that less time is required, a new form should be obtained (ACL No. 08-18) ACL 08-18-13. Q: The Paramedical form (SOC 321) needs revision, as it is unclear and many doctors do not understand the IHSS definition of Paramedical services. Can the county fill out the form for the physician to sign for completion if he\/she concurs? A: The CDSS has modified the Paramedical form (SOC 321) for clarity. The new ver- sion was released in April 2006. Counties may have social workers identify the IHSS Paramedical services by filling out the form and then having the physician sign for comple- tion. Additionally, some counties with Public Health Nurses (PHNs) have their PHNs contact the recipient’s physician’s office and speak with his\/her nurse to explain the SOC 321 form and suggest timeframes for the Paramedical Services being requested. The PHN then faxes a partially completed SOC 321 to the doctor’s office where she\/he can review and sign it for completion. The fact the physician signs as the appropriate licensed health care professional complies with the requirements of MPP Section 30-757.19. This is why county workers unlawfully contact doctors and have policies that the IHSS beneficiary is not allowed to submit a form to the doctor. Counties should comply with 19-007.11 which provides: Permission If the applicant or recipient does not wish the county to contact a private or public source in order to de- termine eligibility, the applicant or recipient shall have the opportunity to obtain the desired information or verification himself or herself. CCWRO Welfare News April 18 , 2016 # 2016-03- Page 3 How Much Do We Spend and What Do We Get? A lot of Sanctions. Very Few Work. Welfare-to-Work OR Welfare-to-Sanction? $2.3 billion could be better used to lift California’s Children, who lead the Nation in Child Poverty, out of deep poverty. Source: State Department of Social Services WtW 25 reports WtW Update plus SB 1041 Impact Analysis January 2016 California Welfare-to-Work Program Outcomes REPORT June, 2012 June, 2013 June, 2014 June, 2015 Number of Unduplicated Participants Participating in a WtW Activity 117,336 119,946 122,710 118,365 Sanctioned Previously and Currently 48,000 51,552 62,734 59,083 Noncompliance this Month 25,835 26,513 27373 38,150 Good Cause this Month 12,776 13,503 16,539 15,936 Set for Sanctioned this Month or Next Month 13,059 13,0100 10,834 22,214 TOTAL Number of Families Being Sanctioned and to be Sanctioned Next Month 61,859 64,562 73,568 81,297 PERCENTAGE Unduplicated Partici- pants Being Sanctioned this Month and to be Sanctioned Next Month 53% 54% 60% 69% Secondary Education 420 175 175 123 Self-Initiated Program (SIP) 10,078 10,506 7,784 6,280 TOTAL Participants in Secondary Education – College 10,498 10,935 7,959 6,403 Percentage of Secondary Education 9% 7% 6% 5% Dollar Loss to CalWORKs Families Due to Sanctions this Month Estimates at $125 Per Sanction $7,732,375 8,070,250 $9,196,000 $10,162,125 Number of Unduplicated Participants Who Entered Employment That Resulted In Termination of CalWORKs 4,108 3,567 4,528 Percentage of Unduplicated Participants Who Entered Employment That Resulted In Termination of CalWORKs 3% 3$2,284,070.000 3% 3% 4% Total Cost for Employment Services & Child Care $2,284,070,000 $2,284,070,000 $2,284,070,000 $2,284,070,000 Taxpayer Cost Per Unduplicated Participants Who Entered Employment That Resulted In Termination of Cal- WORKs $46,801 $46,334 $53,361 $42,036 3% ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org July 25, 2016 Issue #2016-06 In Brief IHSS Application Chaos4 Starting July 2016, 24 C-IV counties will be is- suing GA\/GR benefits via an EBT card. The C-IV consortia requested direction from DSS as to how the counties should inform the General Assistance\/Gen- eral Relief Loan Payment recipients of the payment method change. DSS responded that the notice issued to the GA Loan beneficiary shall be consistent with MPP 22-001(a) (1) and 22-077.1 – adequate and timely notice of action is required before the change can become effective. On the 2nd Wednes- day of each month, Marin County sched- ules a 24-month clock day whereby every CalWORKs case is reviewed to determine if the clock should be ticked by both the worker and the supervi- sor. On that day no meetings are scheduled. 4 Counties have difficulty issuing replacement EBT cards for Inter-County Transfer (ICT) beneficiaries. Counties no longer have access to a current ICT coordinator list that contains the contact information for the person handling inter-county transfers in each county. When an ICT problem arises, the counties must call around to locate that county’s coordinator. Each county should have a number that would be an- swered for ICT purposes to prevent homelessness and food insecurity for EBT card holders seeking replace- ment EBT cards. 4 The Federal FNS CalFresh waiver for early denial ended April 1, 2016. Yet, counties continue to issue illegal early denials. DSS submitted a new waiver request, which has not been approved. DSS has in- formed counties that they should continue this illegal practice. Most people, if not all, apply for IHSS by calling the county welfare department. The initial challenge for IHSS applicants is to find a live person. After waiting on hold for a long period, there is a conversation with an anonymous person who takes the information but does not provide any confirmation of the ap- plication. It is hoped that the county doesn’t lose the application since it is the only documentation that supports the application. However, advocates have received many reports from individuals who stated that they had applied for IHSS by phone but the county denies the existence of the application. For several years, advocates throughout California have suggested that the Department of Social Services require counties to provide applicants with a con- firmation number. To date, there is no confirmation number process. As people complained that they had applied for IHSS by phone and counties said they did not receive the applications, CCWRO sponsored AB 1797 by As- sembly Member Lackey (R) and Assembly Member Weber (D) to require the counties to provide the applicant with a confirmation number. AB1797 is currently on the Senate floor. Another problem that IHSS appli- cants confront is the meaning of completing the application. (Cont’d on page 2) CCWRO FACT What was taken from the CalWORKs program in the 2016- 2017 state budget? Over $1.9 billion CCWRO FACT 1.3 million SSI recipients lost $124 million in food stamps each month this summer. Annually, there’s a $1.5 bil- lion loss of federal money for California’s food- insecure SSI recipients. CCWRO FACT The average CalWORKs grant is equal to 33% of the federal poverty level in 2016-2017 CCWRO Welfare News July 25, 2016 # 2016-06- page 2 CHART #2 4 CWDA is conducting a survey of non-utilization of child care by CalWORKs eligible families par- ticipating in a WtW activity. 11 counties have been selected. The plan is to review 30 cases from each county. The report should be coming soon. 4 As of August, DHCS will be phasing in the new Medi-Cal BIC cards. DHCS will start issuing the new cards to applicants and individuals seeking replace- ment cards. DHCS is planning to do a statewide release in January of 2017. 4 The RAND corporation is now in year two of its review of the implementation of SB 1041. RAND sent out a 60-question survey to the 58 counties in May with a response deadline set at June 17, 2016. According to our sources, DSS emailed information to aid counties in responding . 4 In May 2016 CalWIN discovered a defect where- in auto-rescind did not occur when barcoded renewal forms were received from Medi-Cal beneficiaries. Counties had to use a work around to restore the cases that were unlawfully terminated. C-IV does this manually, which is more expensive. A reasonable person would consider complete the ap- plication as answering all of the questions and signing the application. Not so, for DSS IHSS officials. Com- pleting the IHSS application is just the first step in the application process is the position of DSS. CDSS created a policy wherein the 30-days for pro- cessing the application starts, not from the completion of the application, but from the date that the county receives the certificate of need, i.e., the SOC 873 required by W&IC 12309.1 . W&IC 12309.1 is silent about when the county should ask for the SOC 873. It could be the date of the application, the next week, the next month, or when- ever the county decides to make the SOC 873 available to the applicant. ACL 11-55, the SOC 873 implement- ing ACL, does not require that the county any timeline provide the applicant with a SOC 873. Once the applicant gets the SOC 873, the applicant must make an appointment with the doctor. That could also take days, weeks or months. Many doctors also charge IHSS applicants for completing the SOC 873 since this is not a Medi-Cal service. Some IHSS applicants have paid out-of-pocket $100 for the completion of the SOC 873. Only when the SOC 873 is completed and received by the county, does the 30-day application process start, according the DSS’s underground rule . It ap- pears that many counties are carrying out the unlaw- ful policy of requiring an SOC 873 before conduct- ing an assessment. This results in applications not being processes within 30 days of the application in blatant violation of state regulation MPP 30-759.1. 30-759.1 Each request or application for services shall have been made in accordance with Section 30-009.22. .11 Recipient information including ethnicity and primary language (including sign language) shall be collected and recorded in the case file. .2 Applications shall be processed, including eligibility deter- mination and needs assessment, and notice of action mailed no later than 30 days following the date the written application is completed. An exception may be made for this requirement when a disability determination in accordance with Section 30- 771 has not been received in the 30-day period. Services shall be provided, or arrangements for their provision shall have been made, within 15 days after an approval notice of action is mailed. 30-009 .22 Application .221 Any person shall have the right to apply for services or to make application through another person on his behalf. The application may be signed by the applicant or his authorized representative. .222 A person who indicates to the Primary a desire to apply for services shall be afforded the opportunity to apply immedi- ately. .223 The application shall be in writing on a form prescribed or approved by the Department, dated and signed, and shall include all information necessary to establish eligibility. .224 If the request for services is received by telephone or letter, a social service staff member, with the express authoriza- tion of the applicant, may sign the application. However, such an application does not meet the requirements of 30-009.23 for establishing eligibility. Eligibility information must be verified or the applicant must sign the application statement during a face-to-face contact. .225 The social worker may sign the application for services on behalf of any child who has been declared a Dependent of the Court pursuant to Section 600, W&I Code, or who is in place- ment not ordered by a court and whose parents or guardians are not available to sign in his behalf. .226 Written application is not required for the information and referral service program or for the protective services pro- grams. Information in the case record describing the basis for initiating the investigation and validation of a need for protec- tive services serves as the written application. However, when such services are provided to a child and\/or the child’s family and potentially may be funded through Emergency Assistance – Abused, Neglected or Exploited Children Program, an Emer- gency Assistance Application\/Eligibility Determination form (SOC 349) shall be completed. .227 The application shall be acted on promptly and the deci- sion on it shall be rendered as soon as possible, but not later than 30 days following the date of application. We report, you read the regulations and decide. In Brief – Continued from Page 1 IHSS Application Chaos- Continued from Page 1 ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org September, 13 2016 Issue #2016-07 Los Angeles County has been talking to the State about their concern for CalWORKs homelessness. They heavily lob- bied the Legislature to get $4 million in 2016-2017 for the housing support program for CalWORKs for Los Angeles County. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County DPSS also has a policy to discourage welfare workers from issuing homeless as- sistance benefits to homeless CalWORKs families with children. Los Angeles County’s procedure for approving homeless assistance is multi-leveled. If a homeless family walks into the welfare department at 1 pm and is seen by the worker at 4 pm- homeless assistance generally will not be approved that day. Following the worker’s interview with the family, the worker must have the homeless assistance application reviewed and approved by both the supervisor and deputy director. The poor worker who decides to help a homeless family, now has track down the supervisor and the deputy who are often in meetings. WHAT SHOULD DPSS DO TO HELP HOMELESS FAMILIES? If a county really wants to make sure people get homeless assistance, the policy should be that only deni- als of homeless assistance must be approved by the supervi- sor and the deputy. Continuing Misdeeds in LA County – LRS Victim KD #B0F9549 applied for emergency aid (CalWORKs Immediate Need & CalFresh Expedited Service) for her and her child on 9\/1\/16 and was told she had to wait 5 days for emergency aid for her and her child. After her advocate explained to the worker that she MUST get aid within one working day if approved, she was granted a CalWORKs Immediate Need payment. However, her Expedited Service Cal-Fresh payment was not to be posted on her EBT card until 9\/9\/16, based on the last digit of her case number, a full 8 days after the aid was approved. She was given a $12 CalFresh payment to last her and her child one week. That’s $1.50 per day for her and her child. When advocates con- tacted the worker’s supervisor, she explained that because of the switch over of computer systems, though they have tried, they couldn’t override the decision to apply the Cal- Fresh aid 8 days after the emergency aid was granted. KD was forced to spend her emergency cash aid on food though she had no money for food and was in dire need of the cash aid to pay rent. August 22, 1996 was the day that the AFDC pro- gram died as a result of Bill Clinton’s signature. Although he vetoed similar bills previously, he signed this one to get reelected on the backs of poor families. While the bill imposed time limits on poor families, Bill Clinton receives his welfare benefit every month until he dies regardless of his millionaire status. The same is true for every Democrat or Republican who voted for this ill- conceived legislation. To date, many of them have left Congress some voted out yet continue to receive their monthly welfare benefits for being members of Congress for more than six years. Before 1996, 70% of the Aid Families with Depen- dent Children (AFDC) funds were used for pay- ment to families. Today, only 30% of the TANF and matching funds are used for payments to families in dire need. 70% goes to support administrative costs and other programs. In California, the State Legislature named the new program CalWORKs implying that this is a work program . Historical data from the CalWORKs pro- gram reveal that the program is not about work – it is all about reducing the number of CalWORKs recipients benefits by any means, including sanctions and reaching the maximum time limits. Simple logic dictates that before starting a statewide work pro- gram the government evaluates the types of jobs that exist and the skill sets that are needed for those jobs. Senator Wellstone on TANF … the evidence is irrefutable and irreducible: This legisla- tion, once enacted into law, will create more poverty and hunger among children in America. That is not reform. con’t on page 2 LOS ANGELES COUNTY ERECTS MAJOR BARRIERS FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES IN NEED OF HOMELESS ASSISTANCE 20 Years of TANF; 20 Years of Holy Hell for the Poor Children & Families; and 20 Years of State-Fleecing of Federal TANF Funds CCWRO Welfare News September 13, 2016 # 2016-07- page 2 CHART #2 20 Years, cont’d from pg. 1 Had California done this, the results would have been far more qualified, trained workers in the state. Instead, CalWorks recipients were given little training and sup- port. This did not deter the architects of the CalWORKs program to go forward with this ill-conceived program. The architects compounded the problem by assigning the welfare departments to act as the jobs office, instead of the Employment Development Department, creating a segregated work program for Cal- WORKs families in Califor- nia. Table #1 demonstrates the result of this segregat- ed program operated by the welfare departments acting as job offices.’ There are a host of employ- ment prorgams designed for unemployed Americans that very few welfare recipients are allowed to participate in. Year TANF Client Sanctions TANF Clients Getting Jobs 2000 18% 4% 2001 16% 4% 2002 19% 3% 2003 30% 4% 2004 38% 4% 2005 37% 3% 2006 32% 3% 2007 27% 3% 2008 25% 2% 2009 25% 2% 2010 25% 2% 2011 24% 2% 2012 28% 3% 2013 31% 3% 2014 38% 2% 2015 33% 3% 2016 36% 4% TABLE # 1 – Unduplicat- ed Participants Leaving CalWORKs after Get- ting a Joib CalWORKs Barrier to Employment – Transportation Several years ago, about 20 employment specialists met to identify the major barriers to employment for Cal- WORKs recipients. They all agreed that lack of trans- portation was, and still is, a major barrier to employment since fewer than 25% of CalWORKs recipients have a car. Public transportation is not work-friendly in Califor- nia unless you live in San Francisco. Their solution– Job Club and Job Search. Since Welfare-to-Work (WtW) is not a work program but a sanction program as evidenced by Table #1, the counties often don’t pay for transporta- tion and other supportive services. One welfare director said paying for transportation would mean money com- ing out of the county single allocation used to pay for the welfare bureaucracy. The Rampant Fleecing of the CalWORKs Program Each year California fleeces the CalWORKs program by transfering millions of CalWORKs dollars from the mouths impoverished children to the State’s General Fund. Meanwhile, CalWORKs families live on the same amount of money that they received in 1988 some 26 years ago, which 31% of the federal poverty level. Historical data of the transfer is contained in Table #2 on page three (3). The California 2016-2017 State Budget Facts The 2016-2017 CalWORKs budget of $7.1 bil- lion is composed of $3.7 billion from the federal government, $3 billion state matching funds and another .4 billion carry-over from last year. How- ever, only $5.3 billion was allocated to cash grants. CalWORKs Program Funding 2016-2017 (in millions) The Administration labels the remainder as Cal- WORKs contribution to the General Fund. The money fleeced from the CalWORKs program is redistributed to the State Budget as a way for the Governor and the State Legislature to build a state budget that is more voter-friendly . Major Fleecers of the CalWORKs Funds in 2016-2017 (in millions) cont’d on pg. 3 Cash Assistance to CalWORKs Eligible Families $3,108 Employment Services $1,347 County Welfare Administration $413 Program Fleecing the CalWORKs Families DollarsFleeced CalGrant $926 Regional Centers $77 CDE Child Care Programs not for CalWORKs Families $472 Transfer to Title XX $365 Other About $100 CCWRO Welfare News September 13 , 2016 # 2016-07 – TABLE #2 State Fiscal Year Recipient Involuntary Contribution to the General Fund FY 98-99 $708,502,000 FY 99-00 $745,249,000 FY 00-01 $1,021,913,000 FY 01-02 $1,126,647,000 FY 02-03 $1,088,940,000 FY 03-04 $1,163,238,000 FY 04-05 $1,087,321,000 FY 05-06 $1,299,448,000 FY 06-07 $1,184,134,000 FY 07-08 $1,745,291,000 FY 08-09 $1,268,997,000 FY 09-10 $1,262,291,000 FY 10-11 $1,262,046,000 FY 11-12 $1,234,159,000 FY 12-13 $1,896,060,000 FY 13-14 $1,586,755,000 FY 14-15 $ 1,528,424,000 FY 15-16 $ 1,489,480,000 FY 16-17 $ 2 billion Senator Moynihan on TANF. As I have stated on this floor many times, this legislation does not reform aid to families with dependent children; it simply abolishes it. It terminates the basic Federal commit- ment of support for dependent children in hopes of altering the behavior of their mothers. We are putting those children at risk with absolutely no evidence that this radical idea has even the slightest chance of suc- cess. In our haste to enact this bill\u2014any bill\u2014before the November elections, we have chosen to ignore what little we do know about the subject of poverty. Just 2 days ago, on July 30, 11 of the Nation’s leading researchers in this field issued a statement urging us not to do this. Real welfare reform would not impose deep food stamp cuts on poor families with children, the working poor, the elderly, the disabled, and the unemployed. It would not eliminate the safety net for most poor legal immigrants, including the very old and the infirm. It would not place at risk poor chil- dren whose parents are willing to work but are unable to find unsubsidized employment. 8-1-1996. Washington-based Center on Budget Policy & Priorities (CBPP) supports spending more money on segregated employment programs for welfare recipients. Welfare recipients under TANF are forced into employ- ment programs operated by the welfare department and not a state jobs department, like the Workforce Innova- tion and Opportunity Act (WIOA). This is clear segre- gation for welfare recipients. CBPP, represented by Donna Pavetti, testified in Con- gress that she wants 70% of TANF funding not to be used for payments to families of America who live in deep poverty. She wants the state to be able to use any amount of that 70% for the provision of segregated employment programs designed primarly to punish poor famlies for being poor by imposing full family sanctions on families with children. These families are being sanc- tioned because the state refuses to insure that families have child care and transportation services before be- ing forced to participate in this segregated employment program. ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org September 23, 2016 Issue #2016-08 In Brief After counties establish a CalWORKs overpayment in a two par- ent assistance unit, the counties demand that each parent repay the full amount of the overpayment. This happens even if the parents are together or separated. What happens if both parents pay the full amount? CCWRO received information that in many cases the county just keeps the money from both parents and does not admit the double payment. CDSS CalFresh Division has a secret Yahoo listserve, now it is a google group listserve for DSS and county staff. For some reason DSS CalFresh division has excluded CalFresh advocates from this listserve. California received a $6.4 million bonus for California’s partici- pation improvements for various projects. CDSS will use some of that money for eICT county training. Why not use some of that money to get food to CalWORKs families who live on fixed incomes equal to 31% of the federal poverty level, who endure severe poverty and food insecurity, especially the last week of each month? In 2014-2015 counties failed to spend $129 million allocated for CalFresh County Administration. Since July of 2015, there have been no WtW 25 reports posted on the DSS webpage. DSS has revised the WtW 25 reports and the new version will be used effective July 2017. So does that mean that counties are not submitting a WtW 25 and 25A each month? If yes where are the reports? According to the CWDA Medical Care Committee, Per U.S.C. 42 1396(w) and W&IC 14013.5, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) must implement an Asset Verification Program (AVP) for Aged, Blind and Disabled Medi-Cal individuals. The AVP would be an electronic service that would verify individuals’ opened and closed liquid accounts for the last 5 years at all finan- cial institutions, not just the ones that the individual claims. AVP would be used at application, renewal, and reported changes. DHCS is looking to do a pilot program of 3,000 cases for the entire state from October-December, 2016. Counties may volun- teer to participate in the pilot program. DHCS is hoping for a late 2017\/early 2018 for full implementation of this program. DHCS will be initiating a pilot program, but counties will be responsible for AVP once the program is fully implemented. Each individual will need to authorize this and DHCS is looking at whether a separate authorization is needed or the application alone is sufficient. California recently signed a new contract with Fi- delity Information Systems (FIS), to put CalWORKs and food stamps (also known as SNAP\/CalFresh) on EBT cards held by beneficiaries of these programs. The Office of System Integration (OSI) informed counties (no advocate involvement) that counties would be involved in the program in the following ways: 1. Administrative application design and testing; 2. Call center script and navigation development; 3. Client training video development; 4. Establishing workgroups with counties to organize and monitor the transition effort; The transition from Xerox (current EBT vendor) to FIS (new EBT vendor will have in four (4) stages: Stage One (1) counties Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, Sacramento, San Diego and San Joaquin Counties. Stage Two (2) counties Alameda, Contra Costa, Fresno, Kern, Monterey, Orange, Plumas, San Ber- nardino, San Francisco, Stanislaus and Ventura. Stage Three (3) counties- Butte, El Dorado, Hum- boldt, Imperial, Kings, Lake, Madera, Mendocino, Placer, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Solano, Sonoma, Tulare, Yolo and Yuba. Stage Four (4) All remaining counties. EBT Update CCWRO Welfare News September 23, 2016 # 2016-08- page 2 CHART #2 IEVS Counties Caused Overpayments- Recipients end up in jail for welfare fraud Electronic IEVS According to CWDA publication, CDSS provided an update on the automation process that will re- place the paper and will be able to provide response electronically. It is anticipated the number of reports to process will triple when electronic reports and reports from the National Directory of New Hires are sent to counties. Each month counties receive 353,252 hits from the IEVS system. Each month coun- ties process about 283,955. That is 69,297 that are not processed causing a backlog of IEVS hits that, in some cases, means an overpayment caused by the refusal of the DSS and counties to do their jobs – pre- vent overpayments. As of the end of June of 2016, there were 725, 826 cases waiting for county reviews. So just imagine what happens when the number of IEVS and New Hire abstracts start coming in at over one million a month and the counties are only able to process about 283, 955 a month. The current back- log of 725,826 cases can become over 2.2 million and more. How many State and County officials would be charged with a felony for causing millions of dolalrs of overpayment? None. How many public benefits beneficiaries will be charged and possibly get jail time for overpayments caused by the state and the county? Many. California Department of Social Services Adult Programs Division. CASH ASSISTANCE PROGRAM FOR IMMI- GRANTS (CAPI) Quarterly Statewide CAPI Meeting August 22, 2016 10:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. Facilitator: K\u00e4ren Dickerson, Chief, CDSS CalWORKs Employment and Eligibility Branch AGENDA 10:00 10:30 Welcome and Introductions Kim Rutledge, Chief, CDSS Adult Programs, Policy and Quality Assurance Branch 10:30 11:00 SAWS2 Revision Workgroup Update Shawn Dorris, Program Policy Manager, CDSS CalWORKs Eligibility Bureau 11:00 11:30 County Language Access Requirements Marcella Ruiz, Chief. CDSS Immigration and Civil Rights Branch, Welfare to Work Division 11:30-12:30 Revised CAPI Indigence Exception Determina- tion Form (SOC 813), Aron Smith, Cash Programs Manager CDSS Adult Programs Division 12:30-1:30 Lunch 1:30-2:00 Food Assistance Programs Available to Im- migrants Alexis Fern\u00e1ndez, Policy Section Chief, CDSS CalFresh Branch 2:00-2:30 CalWORKs Eligibility in Households with a CAPI Recipient, Shawn Dorris, Program Policy Manager, CDSS CalWORKs Eligibility Bureau 2:30-3:00 CAPI Disability Determinations Carol Morgan, Chief, Training, Quality and Special Projects Section, CDSS Disability Determination Service Division 3:00-4:00 Sharing of County Best Practices and Concerns Mendocino: Mary Zigler Merced: Michele Hernandez Nevada: Jane Leedy Napa: Diane Garcia, Deirdre Wright, Melissa Guerrero, Violeta Gonz\u00e1lez de Brise\u00f1o Orange: Heather Doan, Silviu Ardeleanu Riverside: Eva Krottmayer San Benito: Susan Petree San Bernardino: Cassaundra Gonzalez San Diego: David Hopkins San Francisco: Yelena Bilyak San Luis Obispo: Kat Lauterback Santa Clara: Columba Atienza Solano: Gary Roche Stanislaus: Margaret McKain Tehama: Melissa Hefley Tulare: Arselia Mena Ventura: Leticia Ortega Caroline Bui, CalWIN – WCDS Business Systems Analyst Lorrie Smith, HPE C4: Dennis Kong, North State CAPI Consortium\/Sacramento County: Elvia Leyva, Program Special- ist CAPI and Tribal TANF Fern James, Eligibility Supervi- sor Alameda: Robert Garcia Contra Costa: Magdalene Gabel El Dorado: Darla Ray, Timal- ynn Jaynes Fresno: Tammie Allison, Brandi Reid, Pam Adanalian Humboldt: Angela Saveliff Kern: Angela Garcia Kings: John Aldous Los Angeles: Alma Calvelo Marin: Jannet Mercado Mariposa: Ruth Poole County CAPI Administrators Meet 8-22-16 CAPI DSS meeting attendees 2 CCWRO Welfare News September 23 , 2016 # 2016-08 – Page 3 3 DSS Adults Services Divsion is in the process of de- veloping a redetermination process that would termi- nate CAPI benefits from the aged, disabled and blind non-citizens of California in violation of DSS State Regulation MPP 49-070.5. DSS is proposing a policy whereby the county would mail a request for sponsor verification directly to the sponsor and if the county does not get a response from the sponsor, CAPI will be stopped. In fact, it appears that most counties are already using this policy even as DSS is asking coun- ties if this policy is what they are doing today? MPP 49-070.5 states that the CAPI beneficiary is the one responsible for obtaining documents from his or her sponsor for the county. MPP 49-070.5 Verification of Sponsor Information .51. The non-citizen is responsible for obtaining the sponsor’s cooperation in developing and documenting the information needed to determine the sponsor’s in- come and resources, the information needed to make an indigence exception determination, or any other in- formation from the sponsor needed to apply the deem- ing rules described in this sub-chapter. Email from Aron Smith, Staff Services Manager I, Cash Assistance and Special Project Unit, Program Integrity &Cash Assistance Bureau, Policy & Quality Assurance Branch, Adult Programs Division, Califior- nia Departmemnt of Social Services to Francisco Ja- vier Wong, Jr., LA county GR & CAPI Section, Los Angeles County DPSS. We are working on developing a formal policy re- garding sending of Form SOC 860 (Sponsor’s State- ment of Facts and Resources) to CAPI sponsors as part of the annual redetermination process. Tentatively, we propose the following: Two months prior to the due date for the redetermi- nation (i.e., ten months from the previous determina- tion), send the following by regular U.S. Mail: To the CAPI recipient: Redetermination packet, in- cluding the SOC 860. To the sponsor (at most current address on record): SOC 860 with a form letter (to be created by the state). By regulation, the client is responsible for obtaining necessary information from the immigrant. However, by the county also sending the SOC 860 directly to the sponsor, the process is not delayed by the client’s in- ability to contact the sponsor. Also, the sponsor may find the communication to be more official when received from the county. If the county does not receive the completed SOC 860 from the sponsor within 15 days and the letter is not returned to the county by the Post Office: Send a second request to the sponsor. Wait another 15 days. If completed SOC 860 is not returned to the county, terminate CAPI eligibility (send NOA). If the letter is returned by the Post Office with a for- warding address, send the letter out to the new address and give the sponsor 15 days to respond. If no response, send a second request to the sponsor. If 15 days elapse and still no response, terminate CAPI eligibility (send NOA). If the letter is returned by the Post Office as undeliv- erable, complete Form G-845 and forward to USCIS. When USCIS provides the county with the sponsor’s correct address: Resend SOC 860 to sponsor’s correct address. If no response after 15 days, send a second request to the sponsor. If 15 more days elapse and no response, terminate CAPI eligibility (send NOA). In the very rare situation in which a letter sent to the sponsor’s address provided by USCIS is returned from the post office as undeliverable, and the CAPI recipient has no information regarding the sponsor’s whereabouts, followinstructions listed in MPP 49-037.462(b). My question to you are: Is this fairly close to the pro- cedure you are following now? Do you anticipate any difficulties following this procedure? Any concerns? Please let me know as soon as possible as we are hoping to release an ACIN on this subject next month. The lawful policy would be to give the CAPI beneficiary an opportunity to secure the sponsor information, after the county is unable to get it, before terminating CAPI benefits. DSS Wants to Promulgate an Underground Rule to Unlawfully Stop CAPI Benefits for Non-Citizens ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org October 27, 2016 Issue #2016-09 In Brief 4On June 3, 2016, Monica Kline from Santa Cruz County asked DSS whether a previous child support non-cooperation penalty of a CalWORKs applicant months or years ago, still stands. Santa Cruz county correctly pointed out that it is our understanding the penalty is nullified when the case is discontin- ued. However, DSS’s response was that if the custodial parent (CP) (the CalWORKs applicant) did not cooperate while he or she was not receiving CalWORKs for months or years, then the penalty continues until the CP cooperates What if the absent parent is dead? Who cares? Imposing penalties is the primary mission of the CalWORKs program. This is an underground rule as there is no statute that allows for a penalty on an applicant for something that happened months or years ago. 4 Patty Carson of San Bernardino County asked DSS if Cal- WORKs recipients did a property sale agreement by transferring a house worth $35,000 and in return agreed to accept a monthly payment of $600 a month, is the $600 treated as income or prop- erty? DSS responded that according to MPP 44-113.1(c), the monthly $600 payments represent the conversion of property from real to personal and should be treated as a resource, not income. (PI#15-47) 4 Paul Lau of Contra Costa County asked DSS if DSS would reimburse the county for buying guns and training that costs $8,000 per Contra Costa County welfare fraud employee. Neil Stahl of DSS correctly answered that DSS does not reimburse the county for training and buying gun expenses. Those costs are covered by the block grant that the county gets from the State to operate their CalWORKs and CalFresh program. 4 San Mateo County is considering doing CalWORKs annual redeterminations by telephone as they do for CalFresh. They con- tacted DSS to find out if they could do it. Tim Lawless of DSS stated that Napa County and San Bernardino are already doing CalWORKs annual redeterminations by telephone per a 2009 DSS policy interpretation. The Welfare and Institution Code only required a face-to-face interview for the application and not the CalWORKs annual redetermination. Effective January 1, 2017, SB 947 would allow counties to do telephonic application inter- views. The Average CalWORKs Family Lives In Deep Poverty The California Legislative Analyst office published their annual analysis of the 2016-2017 enacted State budget. The report states that the monthly Cal- WORKs benefit for a family of three is $704 and that they get $502 in food stamps. The report does not reveal that this only applies to less than 50% of the cases. In the real world, the average CalWORKs grant is actually $501 a month, not $704 a month. The average CalFresh household actually only re- ceives $303 a month in food stamps, not $502 a month. It is important not to mislead the public into thinking that CalWORKs families are receiving $502 a month in food stamps when no CalWORKs family of 3 will ever get $502 in food stamps be- cause that is the maximum that is allowed for a household\/family of three who has zero income. So you can’t have it both ways. Table #1 below reveals the actual monthly benefit received by CalWORKs families based on average amounts received by Cal- WORKs and CalFresh recipients in the 2016-2017 Governor’s budget documents. TABLE # 1 – Monthly Maximum CalWORKs and CalFresh Benefits v. Average Monthly Benefits CalWORKs (CW) Grant CalFresh (CF) Grant TOTAL CW Grant as percent of Federal Financial Poverty Level CW & CF Grant as percent of Federal Financial Poverty Level Maximum Monthly Benefit $704 $502 $1,206 42% 72% Difference $190 $200 $389 11% 30% Average Monthly Benefit $514 $303 $817 31% 42% 2015-2016 http:\/\/www.lao.ca.gov\/Publications\/Report\/3487\/12 CCWRO Welfare News October 27, 2016 # 2016-09- page 2 CHART #2 CURRENT PROCESS 1. Currently, States refer SNAP recipient debts to TOP when they are a minimum of 180 days de- linquent. Delinquency is calculated from the date in the demand letter (initial debt notice). The debt becomes delinquent, based on State requirements, 1-30 days past the due date in the demand letter 2. Debtors are advised to contact the State agency to pay in full or enter into a repayment agreement within the 10-30 day timeframe established by the State. Simultaneously, debtors have 90 days from the date of the demand letter to request a fair hearing. If the State receives a fair hearing re- quest from the debtor, the clock stops until a post hearing decision has been reached. A new due date for repayment is assigned following hearing. 3. Once a debt is a least 90 days delinquent, the State submits an address request for the SNAP recipient’s debtors to FNS. Once a month, FNS requests and receives addresses from the Trea- sury or the FNS data broker of these debtors identified and returns the addresses to the State. It takes FNS approximately three weeks to send and receive addresses from Treasury and the data broker. FNS uses the data broker for debtor addresses that Treasury cannot provide. 4. If a debtor does not repay the debt, enter into a repayment agreement or request a hearing, the State sends out a TOP notice to the debtor when the debt is a least 150 days delinquent. 5. The debtor has 60 days from the date of the TOP notice to: inspect and request a copy of their records related to their debt, enter into a repayment agreement, or request a State re- view of the intended TOP collection action. 6. If a debtor does not repay the debt, en- ter into a repayment agreement or request a hearing, the State prepares and sends files to FNS with debts to be referred to TOP when they are at least 180 days delinquent. 7. Once a debt is at least 180 days delinquent, FNS performs edit checks on the files sent by States to FNS and then consolidates the State files into FNS files to send to Treasury on a weekly basis. NEW STATE PROCESS TO BE IMPLEMENTED BY STATES NO LATER THAN NOVEMBER 30, 2016 1. The new practice will require States to refer SNAP recipient debts to TOP when they are a minimum of 120 days delinquent. As is the cur- rent practice, the State sends out demand let- ter (initial debt notice) at 0-1 days delinquent. 2. In the demand letter, debtors are advised to contact the State agency to pay in full or enter into a repayment agreement, with the 10-30 day time frame established by the State. Simultane- ously, debtors have 90 days from the date of the demand letter to request a fair hearing. If the State receives a fair hearing request from the debtor, the repayment is assigned following the hearing. 3. After the demand notice has been sent and 30 days has passed, the State shall request the address for all delinquent debts as early as one day delinquent, (ideally, the 31st day from the date in the demand letter). If the debtor has en- tered into a repayment agreement, paid the debt in full or requested a hearing then their debt would be ineligible for TOP referral at 120 days. 4. The State sends out TOP notices to debtors who did not repay the debt, enter into a repayment agreement, or request a hearing. To allow the debtor to have the required 60 days’ notice before their debt is submitted to the Treasury Depart- ment it is recommended to send out the TOP no- tice-between the 31st and 45th day of delinquency. 5. If a debtor does not repay the debt, en- ter into a repayment agreement or request a hearing the State prepares and sends files to FNS with debts to be referred to TOP when they are at least 110 days delinquent. 6. Once a debt is at least 120 days delinquent FNS performs edit checks on the files sent by States to FNS and then consolidates the State files into FNS file to send to Treasury on a weekly basis. To move forward effectively and efficiently in submitting debts to TOP under the new regulations, States must im- plement these changes no later than November 30, 2016. SOURCE: DSS and CWDA Treasury Offset Program (TOP) for CalFresh to be changed CCWRO Welfare News October 27 , 2016 # 2016-09 – Page 3 Over 26 counties REFUSE to pay transporation to CalWORKs recipients who are required to participate in a Welfare-to-Work activity are not getting transportation while living on an average fixed income that is less than 34% of the federal poverty level. We finally have data from the State Department of Social Services regarding WtW participation. Since April of 2015, Los Angeles and Solano counties have not been reporting data to DSS. DSS has not agreed to release data without Los Angeles and Solano County. We know that Los Angeles County is having multiple problems now that they have moved from LEADER to LEADER Replacement System (LRS). We do not know what the problem is with Solano County, a CalWIN county, since all CalWIN counites except for Solano are reporting. The table #2 below reveals that counties continue to fleece CalWORKs WtW participants by not paying them for transporation supportive services based on the revised WtW 25 reports. Counties Continue to Fleece CalWORKs Families Living in Deep Poverty TABLE # 2 – Source: August, 2016 WtW 25 Report Lake 163 17 90% Inyo 24 4 83% Santa Barbara 689 153 78% Ventura 1,247 298 76% Mendocino 206 51 75% El Dorado 173 43 75% Fresno 9,394 2,541 73% Orange 4,756 1,314 72% Modoc 14 4 71% Merced 999 292 71% San Mateo 420 133 68% Contra Costa 1,953 666 66% Trinity 34 12 65% Shasta 409 147 64% Siskiyou 94 34 64% Butte 501 183 63% Tulare 3,275 1,211 63% Glenn 27 10 63% Tehama 195 80 59% Yolo 552 227 59% Stanislaus 2,009 909 55% San Joaquin 1,594 727 55% Placer 413 190 54% Tuolumne 64 30 53% San Benito 51 24 53% San Diego 8,910 4,205 53% CCWRO FACT What was taken from the CalWORKs program in the October, 2016 state budget? Over $158 million CCWRO FACT In October, 2016 1.3 million SSI recipients lost $124 million in food stamps. Annually, there’s a $1.5 billion loss of federal money for California’s food insecure SSI recipients. Counties Unduplicated Participants Participants Getting Transportation Percentage of Participants NOT Getting Transportation http:\/\/www.cdss.ca.gov\/research\/PG291.htm CCWRO Welfare News October 27 , 2016 # 2016-09- Page 4 SB 947 Pan (D) Chapter 798 – On September 29, 2016, Governor Brown signed, SB 947 into law. SB 947 would give the counties the option to do electronic (also telephonic interview for CalWORKs just like they have been doing for CalFresh for several years. The bill is effective January 1, 2017. Many CalWORKs applicants in rural and urban areas face major financial challenges to get transportation and child care to go through the face-to-face interview required by current law. SB 947 would give the counties the option to do these interviews by phone to reduce the crowding of the local welfare offices. We are grateful that Senator Pan who agreed to author SB 946 sponsored by CCWRO, Jessica Bar- tholow of WCL&P and Catherine Senderling-McDonald of California Welfare Directors Association (CWDA) who also sponsored this bill in concert with CCWRO. We also want to thank Darin Walsh of Senator Pan’s of- fice who was instrumental in the enactment of SB 947. SB 1339 Monning (D) – Chapter 801 – On September 29, 2016, Governor Brown signed, SB 1339 into law. AB 1339 would (1) require counties to start the intercounty transfer (ICT) process no matter which county it is re- ported to and, (2) would delete the face-to-face interview requirement for CalWORKs. The bill is effective June 1, 2017. Current law requires that a person moving from County A to County B report the change only to county A . Current law also requires that the county do a face-to-face interview for the CalWORKs program, but not for CalFresh or Medi-Cal program. We are grateful to Senator Monning (D) who agreed to author SB 1339, sponsored by United Way of California, Western Center on Law and Poverty and CCWRO. We also want to men- tion the hard work of Ryan Guillen from Senator Mon- ning’s office and Elizabeth Landsberg of WCL&P. AB 1797 Lacker (R) & Weber (D) Chapter 402 – On September 21, 2016, Governor Brown signed, AB 1979 into law. AB 1797 would require counties to provide the aged, disabled and blind, needing in home care, who ap- ply for IHSS telephonically, be provided with a confir- mation number of the application. The bill is effective January 1, 2017. Most, if not all, counties only accept IHSS applications by phone. Legal services field pro- gram staff expressed concern that some of their clients applied telephonically, yet the county denied that the telephonic application took place. In response to these concerns from field programs, in concert with them, this issue was raised with DSS requesting that they ask coun- ties to give applicants a confirmation number. This was not done. We are grateful that Assembly Members Tom Lackey (R) and Shirley Weber (D) agreed to author AB 1797 sponsored by CCWRO. We are also grateful to Tim Townsend, Sara Couch and Antoine Hage of Assembly member Tom Lackey’s office for staffing AB 1797 and helping IHSS recipients of California being a consumer with dignity. AB 2062 Martha Lope\u00e9z (D) Chapter 795 – On September 21, 2016, Governor Brown signed AB 2062 which provides that CalWORKs recipients shall not be charged an overpayment or experience a reduction in benefits in the following month if the county was unable to provide a 10 day-notice of termination or reduction of benefits before the first of the following month, just as CalFresh recipients do. The bill is effective July 1, 2017. One of the main benefits of getting on CalWORKs is to help members of a family find employment and be able to support their family for the long run. The purpose of services like this is to create an environment where recipients are allowed the opportunity to become self- sufficient, whereas, currently they are being reprimanded for trying to improving their current conditions. AB 2062 would align the overpayment policies of the CalFresh and CalWORKs programs. Moreover, the cost of establishing a one-month overpayment by far exceeds the amount of the overpayment. We are grateful to Assembly Member Patty Lopez (D) who agreed to author AB 2062 sponsored by CCWRO. We want especially thank her Legislative Director Kristi Lopez for all of the work she did to enact AB 2062. AB 2346 Baker (R) Chapter 522 – On September 23, 2016, Governor Brown signed, AB 2346 into law. AB 2346 would allow counties to make position statements for administrative hearings available for pick up at the county welfare office two (2) days before the hearing, or electronically, if requested by the claimant for all types of state hearings. The bill is effective January 1, 2017. Cur- rent law does not provide electronic transmission of the county position statement (CPS). Current law also does not require State Department of Health Care Services and the State Department of Public Health hearing CPS be available two (2) days before the administrative hearing. We are grateful to Assembly Member Catherine Baker (R) for authoring AB 2346 sponsored by CCWRO. We also are grateful to Faith Lane and her staff who helped us navigate this bill through the rough legislative waters. CCWRO 2016 Legislative Report https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB947 https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1339 https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB2062 https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB1797 https:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov\/faces\/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB2346 ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org November 21, 2016 Issue #2016-10 CalFresh\/SNAP Administrative Costs During the Brown I administration, DSS had a cost-con- trol plan that gave the state some control on how the coun- ties spent the money. See ACL 79-40, 75-221 and 76-37, 76-33. Today, it is a block grant giving the federal and state funders hardly any say on how counties spend the federal and state money. With 21st century technology CDSS should be able to develop a methodology to con- trol costs that would be far superior to what the Depart- ment was able to do during the Brown I administration. The 2016 FNS Inspector General’s report reveals that California violates 7 C.F.R. 277.11(c)(4) by not sub- mitting quarterly expenditure reports 30 days after the end of the quarter. Yet, DSS requires that CalWORKs and CalFresh recipients submit a semi-annual re- port 30 days from the date of the report month date. Consequences of DSS not complying with 7 C.F.R. 277.11(c)(4)? None. Failure to file a complete form by the specified filing date? DSS is allowed to sub- mit an estimated report and then amend it 60 or 90 days down the line and still receive federal funding Consequences of CalFresh recipients not complying with 7 C.F.R. 277.12(a)(4)(iii)? If a household fails to file a complete report by the specified filing date, the State agency will send a notice to the household advis- ing it of the missing or incomplete report no later than 10 days from the date the report should have been submit- ted. If the household does not respond to the notice, the CCWRO FACT In November, 2016,1.3 million SSI recipients lost $124 million in food stamps. Annually, there’s a $1.5 billion loss of federal money for California’s food insecure SSI recipients. Thousands of SSI recipients will endure food insecurity this Thanksgiving while those who could have made food stamps available to them will throw food way. A recent report from the FNS Office of the Inspec- tor General (OIG) reaffirmed the 2008 FNS report finding that California has the highest administra- tive costs in the nation. The 2008 report found that in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, South Carolina spent $169 a year per SNAP case, while California spent $1,169 a year. The national average was $469. California spent more than 249% of the average national cost. FNS found that during FY 2014 the annual California SNAP administrative cost was $408 per case. Ohio, which is also a county-administered state, annually spent $120 per case. County costs also vary in Califor- nia. Los Angeles County spent $324 per case while San Francisco spent $864. FNS states that the high cost for San Francisco simply reflect the high cost of living. It is fascinating that the SNAP benefits are the same in all 58 counties of California, while the administrative costs vary based on the cost of living of the county. Are SNAP\/ CalFresh recipients immune to the high cost of living? The report points out that the Bureau of Labor Sta- tistics shows that New York City has an average an- nual wage of $61,300 while San Francisco is at $66,900. On the other hand, the average monthly SNAP administrative per case cost in New York City is $23 while in San Francisco it is $72.61 a month. The report correctly points out that the administra- tive costs are all decided at the county level. The State gives the county a single allocation block grant that is 35% state money, 50% federal and 15% county. A block grant means the State and FNS gives 85% to the counties to spend however they want. CCWRO FACT The average CalWORKs grant is equal to 33% of the federal poverty level which is deep poverty. How much did CalWORKs children involuntarily contribute to the State General Fund this November, 2016? Over $158 million California Department of Social Services (CDSS) Violates Federal Law California CalFresh\/SNAP Admin Costs Critized in a Recent USDA Inspector General’s Report https:\/\/www.usda.gov\/oig\/webdocs\/27601-0003-22.pdf http:\/\/www.fns.usda.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/sae.pdf https:\/\/www.usda.gov\/oig\/webdocs\/27601-0003-22.pdf CCWRO Welfare News November 21, 2016 # 2016-10- page 2 household’s participation shall be terminated. The State agency may combine the notice of a missing or incomplete report with the adequate notice of termi- nation described in paragraph (a)(4)(v) of this section. There is no reason why DSS cannot submit a timely report. Counties do submit reports to DSS which are then transmitted to FNS. DSS could easily require counties to submit the re- port within 15 days which would give DSS an- other 15 days to submit the state claim to FNS. If a CalFresh recipient submits a report for the wrong period, benefits for the entire household are immediate- ly terminated with a 10-day advance notice of action. Previous reports of FY 1993, 2003 and 2013 by the FNS Office of the Inspector General have found states submitting claims in violation of the federal law. For example, Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) submitted a claim in 2014 for expenses incurred during FY 2013. Yet, Los Angeles County DPSS terminates thousands of households for not submitting a timely report. For over twelve (12) months DSS had not published CalFresh data in violation of Welfare and Institu- tions Code Section 18913. Recently, DSS published the revised CF 296 and 296x. Revisions to the forms were done through a workgroup composed of coun- ties and DSS staff. Advocates were expressly ex- cluded. When the revised report was final, advocates made several suggestions that were politely rejected. The 296x for the quarter at April through June, 2016, which is the CalFresh expedited service re- port, reveals that during the period the counties screened 291,430 applications for expedited service. CalFresh Applica- tions Processed for Expedited Services During the Period CalFresh Applica- tions Received During the Period CalFresh Applica- tions On Hand During the Period 291,430 301,509 481,074 CHART # 1 CDSS & Other States Submits Claims for the Wrong Year CDSS CF 296 & CF 296X Data Does not Add Up State law (W&IC18914 see below) requires that all applications be screened for expedited service Cal- Fresh, which is the Food Stamp Emergency Assis- tance program. We then looked at how many applica- tions were received during April, May and June, 2016 and how many were on hand during April, May and June, 2016. There were 481,074 applications on hand. Chart #1 below reveals the outcome of our review. Welfare & Institutions Code Section 18914. (a) In accordance with, and to the extent provided by, federal law, the county human services agency shall provide CalFresh benefits on an expedited basis as provided in subdivision (b) to households deter- mined to be in immediate need of food assistance. (b) Pursuant to the federal requirements of Section 273.2(i)(2) of Title 7 of the Code of Federal Regu- lations, the county human services agency shall screen all CalFresh applications for entitlement to expedited service. Applicants who meet the federal criteria for expedited service as defined in Section 273.2(i)(1) of Title 7 of the Code of Federal Regula- tions shall receive either a manual authorization to participate or automated card or the immediate is- suance of CalFresh benefits no later than the third day following the date the application was filed. To the maximum extent permitted by federal law, the amount of income to be received from any source shall be deemed to be uncertain and exempt from consideration in the determination of entitlement for expedited service. For purposes of this subdivision, a weekend shall be considered one calendar day. (c) The State Department of Social Services shall develop and implement for expedited issuance a uniform procedure for verifying information re- quired of an applicant. (Our emphasis added.) http:\/\/www.dss.cahwnet.gov\/research\/PG349.htm CCWRO Welfare News November 21 , 2016 # 2016-10 – Page 3 Due Process Compliant Notices of Action Means QC Errors About 30% of CalFresh applicants have earned in- come. However, that earned income in itself does not mean these households are not eligible for CF-ES, which is the food stamp emergency assistance pro- gram. If their housing and standard utility costs ex- ceed their income, then they are entitled to CF-ES). TABLE # 1 below reveals that over half of the ap- plicants are denied CF-ES. When the CF296X was revised, advocates requested that the report include reasons for the denial of CF-ES for food insecure households. The new CF 296X contains no information as to why over 50% of applicants are denied CF-ES. Advocates believe that 70-80% of applicants should be eligible for emergency food assistance (CF-ES). When advocates met with counties and asked why they deny CF-ES, counties could not tell us why CF-ES was denied. Reports shown to us showed multiple reasons for the same case, such as (1) fail- ure to complete the application, (2) failure to show, (3) failure to provide verification, (4) failure to sign the application for the same application. So which one of these reasons is the real reason? No one knows, CDSS refuses to ask, and no one seems to care and food insecurity in California continues. TABLE #1 County April 1 through June 31, 2016 Total ap- plications processed under ES Found not entitled to ES % CF Applicants Found not entitled to ES Sonoma 4,058 2,901 71% Alameda 12,727 8,386 66% Santa Clara 5,372 3,429 64% San Diego 21,810 13,731 63% Sacramento 25,992 15,655 60% Contra Costa 4,622 2,777 60% Orange 14,880 8,703 58% Fresno 9,828 5,431 55% Stanislaus 9,653 5,196 54% San Francisco 5,090 2,725 54% Riverside 33,237 17,666 53% Marin 1,594 832 52% Often SNAP\/CalFresh notices of action subject DSS to SNAP Quality Control (QC) error rates. For ex- ample, a notice that states your income exceeds the program requirements may or may not be an QC error. If QC looks at this notice and determined that yes $3000 was more than $2000, then it is not an error. On the other hand, if QC looks at the case finds out that the income was actually $2010 and not $3,000, then that is an error. By not recording $3,000 or $2,010, the State and County do not face an error. Similarly, showing a budget on the NOA can lead to an error. If the county merely states the con- clusion for the action but not the basis, although it is a denial of due process, the QC review- ers will be able to determine if there was error. The reason that this is important is that errors in the SNAP\/CalFresh program, unlike many other programs in the public benefits world, lead to ac- tual monetary penalties to the state and counties. Most applicants for CalFresh are reluctant to apply and endure the hassle of going through the county welfare department process. Access remains a major barrier in California as there are 58 counties with 58 different processes that the food insecure have to nav- igate to get CalFresh benefits. The first major barrier is being denied CalFresh expedited service (CF-ES). Federal law provides that an applicant is entitled to CF-ES if they have $150 or less in monthly gross income and $100 or less in liquid assets (cash and money in the bank), or have shelter costs, that in- cludes the value of the standard utility allowance or SUA, higher than the combined gross month- ly income and cash and savings, or are a migrant household with $100 or less in cash and savings. Food Insecurity Continues to Ravage California’s Needy ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org December 12, 2016 Issue #2016-11 CalFresh\/SNAP Administrative Costs In 2014 the California Legislature enacted SB 1041 into law. The purpose of SB 1041 was to give CalWORKs participants a choice of activities that would include core or noncore activities. Non exempt CalWORKs recipients with children were required to participate in an employment activity. A single parent with child under 6 had to participate in WtW for 20 hours a week; a single parent with a child over 6 had to participate in WtW for 30 hours a week and two-parent families had to participate in WtW for 35 hours a week. The 20-30- 35 hours are federally required hours. The employ- ment activities that meet the federal definition of work activity are known core activities. Activi- ties authorized by state law, but not by federal law are known non-core activities. Core activities include one year of vocational education; 21-day job search and then unlimited work experience, which means a parent works for no pay to get their cash aid benefits. Non-core activities are mental health and substance abuse treatment sessions and vocational education, past the first twelve months. During the SB 1041 implementation workgroup meetings advocates were concerned that counties would not allow CalWORKs recipients to choose their own WtW activity a envisioned by SB 1041. CCWRO suggested that participants be given a list of activities that they can select, take that list home and mail it back to the county. Both DSS and counties objected to allowing CalWORKs recipient to make a choice and said that workers are indeed offering CalWORKs recipients choices. During this same time, fewer WtW participants were enrolling in college. The RAND study reveals that advocates continued assertion that counties are not affording WtW par- ticipants choices of choosing noncore activities in the first 24-months was not an illusion, but a reality, according to the report: CDSS statistical reports regularly show that less than 50% of CalWORKs recipients participating in Welfare to Work activities receive payments for travel expenses. Counties regularly violate Welfare and Institutions Code 11323.2(a)(2) by not paying transportation costs. Recipients use up to $100 from their average $511 monthly benefit for a family of three (3) to subsidize their Welfare to Work (WtW) activities. The counties do not provide information to recipients about the availability of transportation reimbursements or a method for reimbursing trans- portation expenses. Meanwhile, CDSS IHSS Training Academy sched- uled trainings in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Riverside and Monterey. As part of the registration process, county IHSS workers attending a training are pro- vided a travel claim form on line to complete and submit 15-days in advance. Most IHSS workers re- ceive a salary that is more than 500% more than the average CalWORKs monthly benefit. The RAND Study released November of 2016 reveals that 35% of counties operating the SB 74 Expanded Subsidized Employment Program pre- vented WtW participants from volunteering for this program. There is no statutory or state guidance allowing the counties to deny CalWORKs recipients requests to volunteer for ESE slot. The report also reveals that 71% of the counties cited lack of jobs as a major barrier and 79% of counties said that explaining the complex SB 1041 process to participants was a major hindrance to implementing the provisions of SB 1041. RAND REPORT Counties Are Not Allowing WtW Participants to Exercise SB 1041 for Flexibility Some WtW Participants Not Allowed to Volunteer to Work for Pay Travel Reimbursements: WtW Participant v. County IHSS Worker CCWRO Welfare News December 12, 2016 # 2016-11- page 2 Philosophical Differences: WPR-Work-First v. SB 1041-Job Ready (cont’d from pg1) Administrators and caseworkers in half of the focal counties suggested that SB 1041, vis-\u00e0-vis partici- pant choice, disincentives engagement in federally approved activities. Caseworkers reported being discouraged in some instances from counseling par- ticipants to choose noncore activities because it was detrimental to meeting the CalWORKs federal WPR. Caseworkers in one county said, We are being held accountable for their [participants’] choices . . so [we] try to encourage them to do things that meet WPR. Given the cost of participant flexibility, some counties feel compelled to limit participants’ free- doms for the sake of the CalWORKs federal WPR. RAND report pp. 119-120. During the site visits by RAND researchers, county administrative and caseworker staff in five out of the six counties expressed serious concerns over the possibility of state and county-level sanctions for not meeting the CalWORKs federal WPR. However, trepidation over the potential negative impact of not meeting WPR extends beyond state and county-level penalties. Administrators and caseworkers in the six counties felt that they were subject to consequences for falling short on the CalWORKs federal work re- quirements. One focus group shared that, in addition to the county sanctions, caseworkers are penalized in the form of Corrective Action Plans when their cases don’t meet WPR. Caseworkers in another county dis- cussed indirect effects of county noncompliance with WPR, including possible job loss if the county was sanctioned. Embarrassment for not meeting WPR during audits was another negative outcome cited by caseworkers in one of the counties. Another county’s caseworkers affirmed this sentiment by noting that caseworkers feel like they are failing if they do not meet their performance standards. Administrators in another county commented that two consequences experienced by caseworkers include increased work- load to assist participants with meeting WPR require- ments, and poor performance reviews if they fail to do so. One of the most common concerns voiced by county staff was the tension they felt between supporting cli- ents’ participation in SB 1041 while feeling pressure to meet the WPR. Administrators in five of the six counties felt that the incentives or rules of SB 1041 conflicted with the goal of meeting WPR and that SB 1041 directly contributed to a low WPR. One county administrator commented that SB 1041 takes them further away from meeting WPR. When asked about the impact of this legislation on WPR, one county caseworker responded, It’s a detriment to state and federal WPR numbers. Administrators, caseworkers, and service providers in the counties cited an apparent conflict between the WPR require- ments and SB 1041 (WtW) requirements. All staff across the focal counties argued that WPR and SB 1041 differ in terms of philosophy, types of approved activities or exemptions, and the level of flexibility offered to participants. In addition, admin- istrators and caseworkers in all six counties stated that incongruence between the CalWORKs federal and SB 1041 policies contribute to staff confusion and high workload. The primary recommendation offered by most of the counties was alignment of the CalWORKs federal and SB 1041 requirements. Administrators in one county asked, When is the state going to go back to the table and see if they can align [SB 1041 requirements] with the Feds? An administrator in another county said, If I had one wish, I wish everything was synced up . . . Caseworkers in the same county said, We should mirror what the federal does [to meet the WPR]. In sum, while many counties recognize the benefits that SB 1041 affords CalWORKs participants, fear of not meeting WPR appears to outweigh the perceived advantages of SB 1041. The WPR requirements are heavily work focused with limited opportunity for participants to engage in nonwork-related activities. Conversely, SB 1041 emphasizes the importance of mitigating the impact of potential barriers to employment through a variety of supportive services and options to participate in non job-related activities. Administrators and caseworkers reported challenges reconciling these work-first versus work-ready phi- losophies. Some characterize the work-first approach as doing what is best to meet WPR, while the work- ready strategy as doing what is best for participants. Caseworkers in one county highlighted this point by saying, you either help the participant or take the hit Counties Are Concerned with Consequences of Not Meeting the Federal Work Participation Rates Counties View SB 1041 Being a Major Impediment to County’s Ability to Meet the WPR Philosophical Differences: WPR-Work-First v. SB 1041-Job Ready CCWRO Welfare News December 12 , 2016 # 2016-11 – Page 3 Philosophical Differences: WPR-Work-First v. SB 1041-Job Ready The Rand Study states that ten percent of the WtW participants are sanctioned. The RAND Study may be right for a given month, but when you look at the sanction statistics cumulatively, it is a whole different picture. Rand noted that Yearly snapshots since SB 1041 show that, in a given month, fewer than one out of ten participants were currently sanctioned. The percentage of WtW participants who receive at least one sanction during their first two years in the program remained steady at about 14 percent from the 2007 to 2013, according to the RAND report. The RAND calculation uses all CalWORKs families and not just families who were actually participating in a WtW activity. Under State Law counties can only sanction CalWORKs recipients who fail or refuse to participate in a WtW activity. Thus, only undupli- cated participants are sanctioned. In reality, between 20% and 27% have been sanc- tioned according to the CDSS WtW 25 reports, look- ing at the number of unduplicated participants who were sanctioned. The RAND report ignores the total number of CalWORKs families enduring deep pover- ty that ravages families of California each and every month in the real world. January Unduplicated Participants Sanctioned Sanctioned 2000 190,502 33,571 15% 2001 181,473 28,410 14% 2002 184,134 35,891 16% 2003 149,723 44,847 23% 2004 121,807 46,030 27% 2005 110,504 42,046 28% 2006 104,170 38,504 27% 2007 111,022 35,107 24% 2008 120,685 32,461 21% 2009 138,240 34,315 20% 2010 141,806 35,273 20% 2011 138,960 33,834 20% 2012 119,810 33,148 22% 2013 116,010 36,124 24% 2014 117,845 41,225 26% 2015 119,396 43,609 27% 2016 111,930 40,537 27% [on their performance for not meeting WPR]. Out of concern for the WPR, caseworkers in three fo- cal counties indicated that they strongly encourage CalWORKs participants to engage in activities that meet the CalWORKs federal requirements. How- ever, five out of six focal counties suggest that the work-ready activities offered under SB 1041 (e.g., education) may offer better opportunities for achiev- ing self-sufficiency; thus are in the best interest of the participants. Balancing the competing values of WPR and SB 1041 is an ongoing struggle for the counties. RAND Alleges 10% of WtW Participants are Sanctioned Do Segregated Mandatory Welfare Employment Programs Work? Manpower Demonstration Research Center (MDRC) has published pro-workfare studies since 1974. On October 2016, MDRC published a report en- titled Job Search or Basic Education Participation First . This report published the findings of three groups of Riverside County CalWORKs recipients: (1) those who receive no WtW services; (2) job club and job search mandatory participants; and (3) mandatory participation in basic education instead of job club and job search. The results show that after 15 years of spending up to $30 billion on employment services, there was no significant earning differences between the groups of participants. See Table # 1. TABLE # 1 Average Annual Earnings in Riverside County No WtW participation requirements Mandatory job club and job search Mandatory participation in basic education $8,949 $8,864 $9,268 The study’s findings support that education results in higher wages than job club\/job given the fact that 65% of the CalWORKs recipients do not have a GED. Moreover, does spending over $2 billion a year on California’s segregated Welfare-to-Work program to yield an additional $119 a month make sense? ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org December 29, 2016 Issue #2016-12 In Brief CalFresh\/SNAP Administrative Costs 2016 was a mixed year. The heroic unparalleled leadership of Senator Holly Mitchell to repeal the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule was finally achieved. This three-year effort lead by Jessica Bartholow of Western Center on Law & Poverty and with the support of countless organizations, including the County Welfare Directors Association. A lot of credit goes to Ed Barnes, formerly of East Bay Community Law Center, who started the march towards repealing the MFG rule, and Luan Hyhnh, also formerly of East Bay Community Law Center and joined the staff of Senator Mitchell in 2016. The budget also repealed the senseless once-in-a-life- time rule for homeless assistance and gave SSI recipi- ents a small COLA for their SSP portion of the grant. There were about 10 welfare bills that were suc- cessfully guided through the legislative process by welfare advocates that were signed into law. On the downside, about 1.3 million SSI recipients are still not getting CalFresh. Over 1 million of them are living on a fixed income which is less than 90% of the federal pov- erty level and not getting CalFresh. Why? Because 60,000 SSI disabled kids and their families (who live on a fixed income of over 100%), or 5% of the SSI caseload, would become ineligible or receive reduced CalFresh benefits just as in the other 49 states. We have no idea how long this un- just treatment of the 95% of the SSI caseload will continue. Finally, 25% of the country voted for a billionaire who may decimate the safety net for America’s needy and instead , build a large safety net for the country’s greedy. The ve- hicle for this decimation is Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan to block grant most means-tested programs, like the TANF program, where 70% of the funds go the bureaucracy and a meager 30% goes to families and childern in need. This does not mean we should all crawl in a hole and dis- appear. This is the time to unite and fight back together. 4 IHSS Q&A from DSS: Question. Recipi- ent is legally married. The spouse moves out of the house, yet continues to be the IHSS provider. Do the able and available spouse regulations apply to this case? Answer. No. Per MPP 30- 763.4 the able and available spouse regulations under MPP 30-763.41 only apply in a shared- living situation where spouses live together. 4 On October 21, 2016, FNS notified DSS that FNS had approved the sum of $2,100 for one DSS staffer to attend the FNS sponsored Na- tional and State EBT Directors meeting with pri- vate industry sponsored EFTA-EBT Next Genera- tion Conference to be held in Clearwater, Florida on November 6-9, 2016 and State and FNS EBT Coordinators’ Meeting on November 9, 2016. 4 On 9-6-16, LRS trouble ticket # 317893 re- vealed that the DPSS would not let the work- er end the sponsorship deeming date for the LPR case effective 5-1-16. It took 4 months to take corrective action and even that failed. 4 On 9-6-16, LRS trouble ticket # 317922 reports that the worker was not able to input the name of a child in need of child care. This confirms the reports that child care referrals have been on the decline with LRS going live. 4 On 9-7-16, LRS trouble ticket #320526 Nazeli Adamian reported that in a two-parent family, adding a newborn is failing Mandatory\/Optional Rules for father and no deprivation for newborn . LRS response to Ms. Adamian was, This is a training is- sue: when both parents are in the home child should have unemployment deprivation to CalWORKs ac- tive. Otherwise the program will discontinue. LRS has incorrectly been programmed to limit 2-par- ent families to only unemployment when this is not true. There is also the disability deprivation. 2016 Review from the Perspective of CalWORKs Beneficiaries CCWRO Welfare News December 29, 2016 # 2016-12- page 2 CalWORKs\/CalFresh Inter-County Transfer Improvements a Cash Cow for SAWS? Last year, the Legislature enacted SB 1339 which made changes to the CalWORKs inter-county transfer (ICT) process. DSS asked the SAWS consortias how much it would cost to implement the provisions of SB 1339. CalWIN responded with $1.5 million while Leader Replacement Sys- tem (LRS) would like $500,000. Why the $1 million difference? Who knows. DSS does not request justification for a dif- ference in the costs from each consortia. Could it be the bonuses or the profit margins from each of these profit making entities? What major changes does SB 1339 provide? (1) It simplifies the process by aligning the face-to-face interview with the process of the CalFresh program no face-to-face in- terview; (2) requires the initiation of the ICT process no matter which county discov- ers that the CalWORKS assistance unit has moved. So if Mr. Brown moves from San- ta Clara County to San Mateo County and San Mateo finds out about it, they must tell Santa Clara County to start the ICT process. Today if Mr. Brown told San Mateo County that he just moved from Santa Clara County, San Mateo County would tell Mr. Brown to tell his worker in Santa Clara County that he moved to San Mateo County. SB 1339 re- quires the San Mateo worker to email Santa Clara County that Mr. Brown is now living in San Mateo County. How much will it cost to do this? CalWIN $1.5 million and LRS $.5 million. What’s the cost of an email? CalWIN admits that their estimate includes changes to their system to support the elec- tronic exchange of domestic abuse informa- tion and …streamline the ITC process as rec- ommended by a county workgroup focused on improving the eICT process . This is fine, but this cost should not be attributed to SB 1339. 4In 2016, California like 48 other states, did not meet the 2-parent WPR, which is set at 90% partici- pation. The penalty is supposed to be small. DSS is working on the county share of the penalties. State law requires that counties pay 50% of the penalties. How- ever, counties can claim good cause and not pay any penalty. That is nice. How does good cause work for CalWORKs recipients who lack child care and are be- ing sanctioned for allegedly not participating in a Wel- fare-to-Work (WtW) activity? In many counties lack of child care is not good cause to avoid a WtW penalty for CalWORKs parents. The county response is we would have paid for child care. – sanction imposed – grant reduced from $560 to $333 for a family of two. 4Ms. H.S. regularly runs out of food at the end of the month. She recently told us that she believes that the assigned district office has a systemic problem that adversely affects CalFresh recipients. The West Valley district in Chatsworth has a reputation as being the worst district in LA County. She believes this to be true based by how they have treated her case. Her benefits are delayed every time there’s a SAR 7 or Recertification due and the office forgets to send notifications regarding the case, refuses to take complaints about the case worker’s negligence on the case, and enters false case comments in the case file. Ms. H.S. must take time off from work to go to the office and after waiting for more than 6 hours to speak with someone about her case, nothing gets resolved. She has asked to speak with a supervisor regarding the case worker’s failure to call her on the 2 scheduled intake appointments, and failure to process the SAR 7 timely but the supervisors refuse to come out and speak with her. County Client Abuse Report CCWRO Welfare News December 29, 2016 # 2016-12- Page 3 income, for we all know once a person has a source of income, it never stops for folks getting CalFresh. It just continues forever. This victim was terminated. Most likely the victim reapplied and said that this was a Christmas gig reported to the county. DSS calls this churning . We call this abuse and demeaning. 4Alameda County CalFresh beneficiary RN# 505001 provided a SAR 7 for the month of April 2016 on 5-5-16. The county found that the SAR 7 was incomplete. The report filed by DSS is also incomplete in that it failed to say what was incomplete . Was it that the ‘t’ was not crossed? Or the ‘i’ was not dotted? In any event, DSS CalFresh Operations Bureau program consultant found that Alameda County terminated the case without issuing a notice of action and that the NOA was suspended in the print queue on the date it was supposed to be issued, 5\/5\/16. Alameda County submitted a so-called corrective action plan . The County met with staff to discuss invalid actions taken and provided instructions on corrective action needed. The report does not include a copy of the alleged instructions on corrective action most likely because there was nothing issued. The report also states that the County has discussed with Management creating different reminders for staff to stay focus on the task at hand. 4Los Angeles County resident M.Y. was referred to the DPSS webpage by the FNS web page http:\/\/ keepyourhomecalifornia.org\/. The DPSS web page then lead her to phone number 800-221-5689. M.Y. tried to get information from DPSS, but the person answering the call was evasive saying repeatedly I don’t know. I never applied for food stamps before . The call was made on 9-26-16 at 12:23 and the Call Center hung up on her at 12:26. M.Y. filed a complaint with FNS Office of the Inspector General. The workers claim that they haven’t received any documents but she has a certified mail receipt showing that the missing documents were mailed and received by them. The workers are rude and have threatened not to assist her in receiving benefits, and have even hung up on her over the telephone prior to explaining what is needed to cure her case. The 866 number is equally as bad; they schedule appointments that the EW misses because it’s her lunch hour and can’t be disturbed. The telephone operator she spoke with also hung up when she asked to speak with his supervisor to get an email sent to the worker’s supervisor regarding the case. When Ms. H.S. followed up with the civil complaints telephone hotline, they informed her that the telephone operator didn’t enter any case comments in the system so no official complaint can be registered. Although Ms. H.S. speaks limited English, the office does not provide her with an interpreter. Ms. H.S.’s issues have yet to be resolved. 4 Fresno County CalFresh beneficiary Review Number (RN) 506006 submitted a timely SAR 7. During the last redetermination, six months ago, the beneficiary reported self-employment income for the month of December of 2015. The SAR 7 for May of 2016 showed no income. Fresno County took a negative action to terminate benefits for not reporting income in May 2016 like RN 506006 did in December of 2015 but did not issue a NA960X just closed the case. Maybe this person did some work during the holidays? The DSS Quality Control reviewer found nothing wrong with discontinuing aid for the entire household when there was no evidence from the work number of an IEVS report that the household was still getting income and failed to report. The negative action was appropriate, according to DSS and Fresno County, because RN 506006 submitted a SAR 7 that is incomplete, failed to provide previously reported information, and did not turn in self-employment income. So according to DSS and Fresno County if a household reported income six (6) months ago and the same source income is not reported six (6) months later, the CalFresh recipient is lying and not reporting CCWRO Welfare News December 29 , 2016 # 2016-12- Page 4 The California State Department of Social Services released the 2015-2016 Child Care allocation and expen- ditures. The State allocated $409 million and counties did not spent over $75 million. Madera county only used 16% of its child care alloca- tion. The reason is that child care is allocated to counties not based on how many people actually need child care to participate, but how many people may, theoritically, participate. Madera County, during the month of March of 2016, had 543 enrolles. 385 of them were exemepted for various reasons. 247 of them were sanctioned. 96 people actually participated and 65 received child care. Thus, Madera received a child care allocation for 543 persons and only 65 people received child care. No wonder they did not use their allocation. In Stanislaus County there are 1,135 participants who are sanctioned while 1,457 are participating. Only 233 of the 1,457 unduplicated partifcipants are getting child care. Thus, Stanislaus county received $6,478,523 and only used $3,730,252. CalWORKs applications must be processed within 45 days. The Department of Social Servic- es (DSS) require counties to report the number of applications they have at the end of the month, the number they processed during the month and how many were carried over to the next month. The September 2016 CW 237 report reveals that Alameda County had 9,055 cases to process dur- ing September 2016. They only processed 938 cases. At the end of September Alameda County still had not processed 8,117 cases. Assuming Alameda County processes 1,000 a month, they would need an additional 8 months, or May 2017, to finalize the September applications. Ventura and San- ta Cruz counties have similar problems, but not as egregious as Alameda County. See TABLE # 1 below. TABLE #1. Counties that have large backlogs of CalWORKs cases – Source: CDSS CW 237 Caseload Movement Report CalWORKs Applicants Experience Long Delays in Alameda, Ventura and Santa Cruz Counties Counties September-2016 Total App. on Hand Application Acted Upon Pending at the End of the Month Percentage of Ap- plications Acted Upon During the Month Months Catch Need to Catch Up Alameda 9,055 938 8,117 10% 8.7 Ventura 4,656 672 3,984 14% 5.9 Santa Cruz 532 114 418 21% 3.7 County Percentage of Child Care Allocation Used Percentage of Unduplicated Participants Recieving Child Care in 3-16 TRINITY 6.68% 4% TUOLUMNE 8.49% 22% MARIPOSA 12.94% 13% MADERA 15.84% 68% TEHAMA 25.79% 31% LAKE 26.41% 24% EL DORADO 28.00% 27% NEVADA 29.76% 37% HUMBOLDT 30.99% 30% SISKIYOU 37.96% 24% CALAVERAS 39.54% 31% STANISLAUS 42.42% 16% MENDOCINO 43.49% 27% NAPA 43.88% 42% YUBA 45.35% 32% Source: CW 115 & DSS County Single Allocation and Expenditure Report Counties Do not Use $75 million of their Child Care Allocation for Fiscal Year2015-2016 ”

” Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations, Inc. 1111 Howe Ave., Suite 150 Sacramento, CA 95825-8551 Telephone (916) 736-0616 Cell (916) 712-0071 Fax (916) 736-2645 CCWRO Welfare News CCWRO is an IOLTA funded support center serving IOLTA legal services programs in California. Types of Services Offered: Litigation, Co-Counseling, Fair Hearing, Representation, Consultation, Informational Services, Research Services, In-Depth Consultation and Welfare Training. Programs Covered: CalWORKs, Welfare to Work (WtW), Food Stamps, Media Cal, General Assistance & Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. Refugee\/Immigrant Eligibility. All Rights Reserved. Contributors:Kevin Aslanian, Grace Galligher and Diane Aslanian http:\/\/www.ccwro.org December 29, 2016 Issue #2016-12 In Brief CalFresh\/SNAP Administrative Costs 2016 was a mixed year. The heroic unparalleled leadership of Senator Holly Mitchell to repeal the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) rule was finally achieved. This three-year effort lead by Jessica Bartholow of Western Center on Law & Poverty and with the support of countless organizations, including the County Welfare Directors Association. A lot of credit goes to Ed Barnes, formerly of East Bay Community Law Center, who started the march towards repealing the MFG rule, and Luan Hyhnh, also formerly of East Bay Community Law Center and joined the staff of Senator Mitchell in 2016. The budget also repealed the senseless once-in-a-life- time rule for homeless assistance and gave SSI recipi- ents a small COLA for their SSP portion of the grant. There were about 10 welfare bills that were suc- cessfully guided through the legislative process by welfare advocates that were signed into law. On the downside, about 1.3 million SSI recipients are still not getting CalFresh. Over 1 million of them are living on a fixed income which is less than 90% of the federal pov- erty level and not getting CalFresh. Why? Because 60,000 SSI disabled kids and their families (who live on a fixed income of over 100%), or 5% of the SSI caseload, would become ineligible or receive reduced CalFresh benefits just as in the other 49 states. We have no idea how long this un- just treatment of the 95% of the SSI caseload will continue. Finally, 25% of the country voted for a billionaire who may decimate the safety net for America’s needy and instead , build a large safety net for the country’s greedy. The ve- hicle for this decimation is Speaker Paul Ryan’s plan to block grant most means-tested programs, like the TANF program, where 70% of the funds go the bureaucracy and a meager 30% goes to families and childern in need. This does not mean we should all crawl in a hole and dis- appear. This is the time to unite and fight back together. 4 IHSS Q&A from DSS: Question. Recipi- ent is legally married. The spouse moves out of the house, yet continues to be the IHSS provider. Do the able and available spouse regulations apply to this case? Answer. No. Per MPP 30- 763.4 the able and available spouse regulations under MPP 30-763.41 only apply in a shared- living situation where spouses live together. 4 On October 21, 2016, FNS notified DSS that FNS had approved the sum of $2,100 for one DSS staffer to attend the FNS sponsored Na- tional and State EBT Directors meeting with pri- vate industry sponsored EFTA-EBT Next Genera- tion Conference to be held in Clearwater, Florida on November 6-9, 2016 and State and FNS EBT Coordinators’ Meeting on November 9, 2016. 4 On 9-6-16, LRS trouble ticket # 317893 re- vealed that the DPSS would not let the work- er end the sponsorship deeming date for the LPR case effective 5-1-16. It took 4 months to take corrective action and even that failed. 4 On 9-6-16, LRS trouble ticket # 317922 reports that the worker was not able to input the name of a child in need of child care. This confirms the reports that child care referrals have been on the decline with LRS going live. 4 On 9-7-16, LRS trouble ticket #320526 Nazeli Adamian reported that in a two-parent family, adding a newborn is failing Mandatory\/Optional Rules for father and no deprivation for newborn . LRS response to Ms. Adamian was, This is a training is- sue: when both parents are in the home child should have unemployment deprivation to CalWORKs ac- tive. Otherwise the program will discontinue. LRS has incorrectly been programmed to limit 2-par- ent families to only unemployment when this is not true. There is also the disability deprivation. 2016 Review from the Perspective of CalWORKs Beneficiaries CCWRO Welfare News December 29, 2016 # 2016-12- page 2 CalWORKs\/CalFresh Inter-County Transfer Improvements a Cash Cow for SAWS? Last year, the Legislature enacted SB 1339 which made changes to the CalWORKs inter-county transfer (ICT) process. DSS asked the SAWS consortias how much it would cost to implement the provisions of SB 1339. CalWIN responded with $1.5 million while Leader Replacement Sys- tem (LRS) would like $500,000. Why the $1 million difference? Who knows. DSS does not request justification for a dif- ference in the costs from each consortia. Could it be the bonuses or the profit margins from each of these profit making entities? What major changes does SB 1339 provide? (1) It simplifies the process by aligning the face-to-face interview with the process of the CalFresh program no face-to-face in- terview; (2) requires the initiation of the ICT process no matter which county discov- ers that the CalWORKS assistance unit has moved. So if Mr. Brown moves from San- ta Clara County to San Mateo County and San Mateo finds out about it, they must tell Santa Clara County to start the ICT process. Today if Mr. Brown told San Mateo County that he just moved from Santa Clara County, San Mateo County would tell Mr. Brown to tell his worker in Santa Clara County that he moved to San Mateo County. SB 1339 re- quires the San Mateo worker to email Santa Clara County that Mr. Brown is now living in San Mateo County. How much will it cost to do this? CalWIN $1.5 million and LRS $.5 million. What’s the cost of an email? CalWIN admits that their estimate includes changes to their system to support the elec- tronic exchange of domestic abuse informa- tion and …streamline the ITC process as rec- ommended by a county workgroup focused on improving the eICT process . This is fine, but this cost should not be attributed to SB 1339. 4In 2016, California like 48 other states, did not meet the 2-parent WPR, which is set at 90% partici- pation. The penalty is supposed to be small. DSS is working on the county share of the penalties. State law requires that counties pay 50% of the penalties. How- ever, counties can claim good cause and not pay any penalty. That is nice. How does good cause work for CalWORKs recipients who lack child care and are be- ing sanctioned for allegedly not participating in a Wel- fare-to-Work (WtW) activity? In many counties lack of child care is not good cause to avoid a WtW penalty for CalWORKs parents. The county response is we would have paid for child care. – sanction imposed – grant reduced from $560 to $333 for a family of two. 4Ms. H.S. regularly runs out of food at the end of the month. She recently told us that she believes that the assigned district office has a systemic problem that adversely affects CalFresh recipients. The West Valley district in Chatsworth has a reputation as being the worst district in LA County. She believes this to be true based by how they have treated her case. Her benefits are delayed every time there’s a SAR 7 or Recertification due and the office forgets to send notifications regarding the case, refuses to take complaints about the case worker’s negligence on the case, and enters false case comments in the case file. Ms. H.S. must take time off from work to go to the office and after waiting for more than 6 hours to speak with someone about her case, nothing gets resolved. She has asked to speak with a supervisor regarding the case worker’s failure to call her on the 2 scheduled intake appointments, and failure to process the SAR 7 timely but the supervisors refuse to come out and speak with her. County Client Abuse Report CCWRO Welfare News December 29, 2016 # 2016-12- Page 3 income, for we all know once a person has a source of income, it never stops for folks getting CalFresh. It just continues forever. This victim was terminated. Most likely the victim reapplied and said that this was a Christmas gig reported to the county. DSS calls this churning . We call this abuse and demeaning. 4Alameda County CalFresh beneficiary RN# 505001 provided a SAR 7 for the month of April 2016 on 5-5-16. The county found that the SAR 7 was incomplete. The report filed by DSS is also incomplete in that it failed to say what was incomplete . Was it that the ‘t’ was not crossed? Or the ‘i’ was not dotted? In any event, DSS CalFresh Operations Bureau program consultant found that Alameda County terminated the case without issuing a notice of action and that the NOA was suspended in the print queue on the date it was supposed to be issued, 5\/5\/16. Alameda County submitted a so-called corrective action plan . The County met with staff to discuss invalid actions taken and provided instructions on corrective action needed. The report does not include a copy of the alleged instructions on corrective action most likely because there was nothing issued. The report also states that the County has discussed with Management creating different reminders for staff to stay focus on the task at hand. 4Los Angeles County resident M.Y. was referred to the DPSS webpage by the FNS web page http:\/\/ keepyourhomecalifornia.org\/. The DPSS web page then lead her to phone number 800-221-5689. M.Y. tried to get information from DPSS, but the person answering the call was evasive saying repeatedly I don’t know. I never applied for food stamps before . The call was made on 9-26-16 at 12:23 and the Call Center hung up on her at 12:26. M.Y. filed a complaint with FNS Office of the Inspector General. The workers claim that they haven’t received any documents but she has a certified mail receipt showing that the missing documents were mailed and received by them. The workers are rude and have threatened not to assist her in receiving benefits, and have even hung up on her over the telephone prior to explaining what is needed to cure her case. The 866 number is equally as bad; they schedule appointments that the EW misses because it’s her lunch hour and can’t be disturbed. The telephone operator she spoke with also hung up when she asked to speak with his supervisor to get an email sent to the worker’s supervisor regarding the case. When Ms. H.S. followed up with the civil complaints telephone hotline, they informed her that the telephone operator didn’t enter any case comments in the system so no official complaint can be registered. Although Ms. H.S. speaks limited English, the office does not provide her with an interpreter. Ms. H.S.’s issues have yet to be resolved. 4 Fresno County CalFresh beneficiary Review Number (RN) 506006 submitted a timely SAR 7. During the last redetermination, six months ago, the beneficiary reported self-employment income for the month of December of 2015. The SAR 7 for May of 2016 showed no income. Fresno County took a negative action to terminate benefits for not reporting income in May 2016 like RN 506006 did in December of 2015 but did not issue a NA960X just closed the case. Maybe this person did some work during the holidays? The DSS Quality Control reviewer found nothing wrong with discontinuing aid for the entire household when there was no evidence from the work number of an IEVS report that the household was still getting income and failed to report. The negative action was appropriate, according to DSS and Fresno County, because RN 506006 submitted a SAR 7 that is incomplete, failed to provide previously reported information, and did not turn in self-employment income. So according to DSS and Fresno County if a household reported income six (6) months ago and the same source income is not reported six (6) months later, the CalFresh recipient is lying and not reporting CCWRO Welfare News December 29 , 2016 # 2016-12- Page 4 The California State Department of Social Services released the 2015-2016 Child Care allocation and expen- ditures. The State allocated $409 million and counties did not spent over $75 million. Madera county only used 16% of its child care alloca- tion. The reason is that child care is allocated to counties not based on how many people actually need child care to participate, but how many people may, theoritically, participate. Madera County, during the month of March of 2016, had 543 enrolles. 385 of them were exemepted for various reasons. 247 of them were sanctioned. 96 people actually participated and 65 received child care. Thus, Madera received a child care allocation for 543 persons and only 65 people received child care. No wonder they did not use their allocation. In Stanislaus County there are 1,135 participants who are sanctioned while 1,457 are participating. Only 233 of the 1,457 unduplicated partifcipants are getting child care. Thus, Stanislaus county received $6,478,523 and only used $3,730,252. CalWORKs applications must be processed within 45 days. The Department of Social Servic- es (DSS) require counties to report the number of applications they have at the end of the month, the number they processed during the month and how many were carried over to the next month. The September 2016 CW 237 report reveals that Alameda County had 9,055 cases to process dur- ing September 2016. They only processed 938 cases. At the end of September Alameda County still had not processed 8,117 cases. Assuming Alameda County processes 1,000 a month, they would need an additional 8 months, or May 2017, to finalize the September applications. Ventura and San- ta Cruz counties have similar problems, but not as egregious as Alameda County. See TABLE # 1 below. TABLE #1. Counties that have large backlogs of CalWORKs cases – Source: CDSS CW 237 Caseload Movement Report CalWORKs Applicants Experience Long Delays in Alameda, Ventura and Santa Cruz Counties Counties September-2016 Total App. on Hand Application Acted Upon Pending at the End of the Month Percentage of Ap- plications Acted Upon During the Month Months Catch Need to Catch Up Alameda 9,055 938 8,117 10% 8.7 Ventura 4,656 672 3,984 14% 5.9 Santa Cruz 532 114 418 21% 3.7 County Percentage of Child Care Allocation Used Percentage of Unduplicated Participants Recieving Child Care in 3-16 TRINITY 6.68% 4% TUOLUMNE 8.49% 22% MARIPOSA 12.94% 13% MADERA 15.84% 68% TEHAMA 25.79% 31% LAKE 26.41% 24% EL DORADO 28.00% 27% NEVADA 29.76% 37% HUMBOLDT 30.99% 30% SISKIYOU 37.96% 24% CALAVERAS 39.54% 31% STANISLAUS 42.42% 16% MENDOCINO 43.49% 27% NAPA 43.88% 42% YUBA 45.35% 32% Source: CW 115 & DSS County Single Allocation and Expenditure Report Counties Do not Use $75 million of their Child Care Allocation for Fiscal Year2015-2016 ”