CWDA Fiscal Minutes - March 2006
Info for chairs & staff:
Jim Hunt – Sacramento – 916-875-6091
Cathi Grams – Butte – 530-538-7891
Graham Knaus CWDA – 916-443-1749
Housekeeping Items
The February 2006 minutes were reviewed and approved.
Report from Board of Directors:
The Board of Directors is looking at work participation rates and proposals that would increase work participation in CalWORKs. We need to decrease under spending of the CalWORKs allocation. There will be a white paper coming out relating to these issues. There is a “no cost of doing business increase” in the trailer bill language received from the Department of Finance; however, the Department of Finance does not have the authority to deny any claim from the current administration (for instance, a Child Care cut in the current year). The issue of the cut to Child Care has been put on the table for the remainder of the year barring any emergency e-mail. The question has been raised if there is any interest in pursuing a mid-year re-distribution from CalWORKs. We are not quite as well off based on 2nd quarter expenditures as we would like to be. There was a hearing of the Foster Care committee in the assembly a couple of weeks ago. Issues raised are the Foster Care package in the current year’s SB 2030 implementation and a clothing allowance and specialized care increment in the Kin-Gap program. There is an issue of availability of funding to make improvements.
Subcommittee/Workgroup Reports
FAADs has adopted a new structure. Terri Concellos is the new chair. The Vice chair is Maile Kinsella. Cindy Larca is the secretary. The training and assessment piece that is linked to the old FAADS general session is an ongoing issue.
The results of the survey for the CWS Hotline time study code are 75% TANF/25% Title IV-E. CDSS is trying to pinpoint actual shift to make sure there is sufficient funding in the budget. The presumption was that the shift would be 50% TANF/50% IV-E. To the extent that a county is above the 50% threshold there is a clear budget problem in the current year. The intent of CDSS is to ensure that each county has the appropriate distribution of their costs between IV-E and TANF and that the estimate is updated in the May revise. At this point, the Administration has not ruled out the use of State general fund. CDSS has committed to rebasing each county’s EA-TANF allocation by the amount of the hotline shift. Is this a close-out issue or is this a revised allocation issue? There could be a revised allocation with enough set aside to allow for a “settle-up” in close-out. From a timing perspective, we first need to find out what the number is and then get it in the budget. Leo Levenson suggested using the third quarter claim. The intent is for the state to hold counties harmless for impacts to EA TANF based on the shift—not to make counties whole for all of their EA TANF expenditures.
Direct expenditures are going down. Justified/hold harmless FTEs are staying flat. FAADS recommends continuing to use justified/hold harmless FTEs to build the allocation.
Eligibility is overspending and employment services is under spending. FAADS has decided to dig into the CalWORKs allocation and see what they can learn about it as part of their work plan. They are going to do some comparison to PCAB days. FAADS will be doing an analysis of what counties receive for eligibility versus employment services. They will also be looking at the premises such as the countyMOE adjustments and Medi-Cal services eligibility cost transfer. They would like to understand why the Medi-Cal services shift occurs as a premise and the food stamp shift occurs later.
FAADS will develop a working list of premises that don’t have much justification and also look at issues within the allocation and the estimate methodology where there is not a fit between the assumptions made and the reality. It is important to have this information particularly as we are going into TANF reauthorization. FAADS will also be taking another look at the statistical reports and data sources. Since the stat reports are used to build estimates, it is important that they be accurate.
There has been a delay in sending out the March adjustment expenditure report, and CDSS reports that it will be coming out by the end of the month.
A CFL will be coming out on the CWS/CMS SACWIS process—there will be additional training because even dedicated counties will need to go through this process in addition to their MAC process. There will be more information required than was required in the past.
The allocation matrixwas discussed. Counties responded that they found it useful.
There was budget trailer bill language last year that requires an annual update of where we are in SB 2030 (Child Welfare Services caseload standards) implementation. The final report is not yet available. It should be available from CDSS by next week’s hearing. There is a question about the number of case carrying versus non-case carrying staff as a percentage of total CWS workers.
The Governor’s proposed “no cost of doing business increase” trailer bill language is on the agenda for today’s hearing and is likely to be rejected by the Senate. It is important to reframe what countyadmin is and have an understanding of what counties actually do, in other words, “debunking what countyadmin is.”
The EDP workgroup is looking at whether case counts are really reflective of generic costs? Case counting methodologies are difficult due to Food Stamps using case counts and Medi-Cal using eligible counts. The group is evaluating what we are minimally required to do federally in comparison to what is contained in Division 28. It appears the state is not in compliance with federal rules.
State Reports
State representative discussed where we are on the shadow allocation. 37 counties sent in requests for the funds. Of those, 14 were initially recommended for approval. The requests for those 14 counties are being sent to the state control agencies for approval. Even for those 14 counties, the Department of Finance may have additional questions. The remaining 23 counties will be receiving phone calls from the analyst to determine if there is more information than what was initially sent. The state is looking for a statement that demonstrates how QR/PB savings affects their ability to run their program—clarify that it is the QR/PB savings that has impacted the county’s ability to run the program. (For instance, how has it impacted workers in employment services?) The purpose of the due date is to move the process along, but the state is still willing to continue to have discussions with individual counties. Counties may request an extension of the Friday deadline to put together the requested QR/PB information.
Since there is not time to do a full workload analysis, a suggestion from Jim was to look at the number of FTEs you would have had to reduce to get those savings and why that was not reasonable. The state is looking for a link to QR/PB. Did you shift staff away from other activities? Counties are unclear how to break out explanation of why overspending overall versus direct connection to QR/PB. In counties that may not necessarily lay off staff if allocations are reduced, it is reasonable to say that county funds would need to be used to cover the over-spending.
Terry Quinn reported that fifty counties have submitted their Medi-Cal worksheets. The mid-year Medi-Cal growth was released, and the letters went out. As of the 2nd quarter, counties reflected a 48% expenditure of the allocation. For counties that overspend Medi-Cal this year, they can count on receiving at least the 50% federal share at close-out. Statute (welfare and institutions code 14154) provides a guarantee that counties will receive the full FFP amount.
Other Items:
The 20 small counties are currently going through their mid-year CalWORKS redistribution process. For the other counties, to what extent should there be a redistribution of the CalWORKs allocation in the current year? After the first quarter, surveys from counties indicated that some might have funds to redistribute. Now we are in March, how quickly could we turn this around and identify counties that have money that they are confident they won’t spend and volunteer to redistribute to those counties who are overspending? The resolution of the Child Care issue will have an impact on what counties are willing to volunteer.
There will likely be a different process for the child care reserve this year. Requests may be funneled through Graham who would work with CDSS rather than a letter coming from CDSS to all counties (a more cumbersome process). The criteria would be counties who projected to overspend the child care allocation in addition to overspending the entire single allocation. Graham will send something out asking counties for feedback.
The Department of Finance has submitted trailer bill language about the take-back for Child Care. It will come before the legislature sometime in late April/early May. If rejected, it kills the issue completely. Without the legislature accepting this trailer bill, there is no authority to take back funds. It is Graham’s sense that counties are safe for this year.
There was discussion about the budget proposal to reduce the CalWORKS single allocation for counties that have unspent performance incentives. The presumption is that it would be a county’s choice whether to use performance incentive to backfill the reduction to the Single allocation or whether to just absorb the reduction.
Jim Hunt reviewed the CWDA Fiscal Committee work plan. He would like to establish training as a number one priority for 2006 and determine how local Social Services departments could receive additional support. Graham is going to lead a small work group to look at this. One possibility is to keep the room used for fiscal committee meetings in the afternoon to be used for county training. Obviously, there are a lot of activities various county representatives are involved in, so a number of recommendations will need to come forward for discussion to work out scheduling conflicts. This will be on the agenda for next month so we can move forward in putting something together.
A concern was expressed about the lack of progress in the transition of IHSS cases from residual. This process may not be complete this fiscal year due to delays in recomputing the Share of Cost on these cases. It is important for fiscal to know what to expect as they move into their year end and accrual processes. A request was made for the Adult branch come to the Fiscal Committee with additional information.
The fiscal committee gave Don Cruz their best wishes on his retirement and their thanks for his many years of service (he has been with Social Services since 1969).
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