Health and Human Services Publications

The 2021-22 Budget: CalAIM: The Overarching Issues

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February 9, 2021 - The California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) proposal is a set of reforms to expand, transform, and streamline Medi-Cal service delivery and financing. This post—the first in a series assessing different aspects of the Governor’s proposal—provides a brief overview of CalAIM, summarizes key changes from last year’s withdrawn proposal, and analyzes overarching issues related to CalAIM.

The 2021-22 Budget: California Department of Technology

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February 8, 2021 - This post discusses 2021-22 Governor’s Budget proposals for the California Department of Technology to use General Fund to pay the costs of some existing information security programs and services, and to create new programs and services that are intended to improve the delivery of critical state services using information technology (IT) systems and the stability of the state’s legacy IT infrastructure.

The 2021-22 Budget: California Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 Response

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February 8, 2021 - Presented to: Assembly Budget Subcommittee No.1 On Health and Human Services Hon. Dr. Joaquin Arambula, Chair

The 2021-22 Budget: California Department of Public Health's COVID‑19 Response

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February 5, 2021 - This publication describes how coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spending is reflected in the California Department of Public Health’s budget. It offers options for how the Legislature can express its COVID-19-related goals and priorities in light of the administration’s reliance on midyear budget adjustments, provides an evaluative framework for assessing the administration’s proposals, and recommends an after-action review of the state’s public health response.

The 2021-22 Budget: Nutrition Access Programs

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February 4, 2021 - This handout highlights California's major nutrition access programs, related federal and state actions in response to COVID-19, and the Governor's CalFresh-related proposals in the 2021-22 budget.

The 2021-22 Budget: Analysis of the Governor’s CalWORKs Proposals

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February 3, 2021 - In this post, we provide important background on California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs), updates on how caseload has been affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and analyze the Governor’s proposed CalWORKs budget. In short, caseload has declined precipitously in the most recent data, reaching a new all-time low in November 2020 (the most recent month for which there are data). This runs contrary to both the Governor’s budget (which assumes a fairly rapid rate of caseload growth from 2020 through 2022) and the historic relationship between caseload and economic data (which suggests caseload should increase following increased unemployment). In line with other efforts the administration is proposing to support low-income individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic, we suggest the Legislature work with the administration to understand the factors leading to the lower than expected caseload and explore options for ensuring CalWORKs assistance reaches eligible families.

Estimating the CalWORKs Take-Up Rate

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February 2, 2021 - This is the first in a series of several posts estimating the percentage of California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs)-eligible individuals who actually enroll in the program—otherwise known as the CalWORKs take-up rate. In this post, we introduce our methodology for estimating the number of families eligible for CalWORKs since 2005 and compare this to the number who actually enrolled. In future posts, we plan to examine how this take-up rate varies between different regions in the state, as well as possible reasons why it varies regionally and has changed over time.

The 2021-22 Budget: California State Payroll System IT Project

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February 2, 2021 - This post discusses 2021-22 Governor’s Budget proposals for the State Controller’s Office and the California Department of Human Resources to continue planning a replacement for the state’s current payroll system—the proposed California State Payroll System information technology project.

The 2021-22 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

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January 10, 2021 - This report provides a brief summary and initial assessment of the proposed 2021-22 Governor’s Budget.

Correction 1/11/21: Totals for immediate and early action proposals have been corrected.

The 2021-22 Budget: CalWORKs Fiscal Outlook

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December 8, 2020 - In this post, we describe our most recent forecast for California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program costs and discuss recent caseload trends. With this post we intend to provide information but do not include any explicit recommendations to the Legislature. This post is part of our 2021-2022 Fiscal Outlook series of publications.

The 2021-22 Budget: Medi-Cal Fiscal Outlook

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November 18, 2020 - Medi‑Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, provides health care coverage to about 13 million of the state’s low‑income residents. Medi‑Cal costs generally are shared between the federal and state governments. In a typical year, the General Fund covers a little more than 20 percent of total Medi‑Cal costs, with federal funds and other state and local funds respectively covering the remaining 65 percent and 15 percent of total costs. In this web post, we describe the major factors that we expect to drive changes in General Fund spending in Medi‑Cal over the near term—in 2020‑21 and 2021‑22—and over the longer term through 2024‑25. We also describe a number of key assumptions that we made in our spending projections.

Overview of Recent Changes to Major Nutrition Access Programs

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November 17, 2020 - Senate Committee on Human Services

Update on COVID-19 Spending in California

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November 5, 2020 - This post provides a high-level summary of state and federal funds provided to date to respond to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this post we discuss: (1) the authorities, at both the state and federal levels, for COVID-19 spending; (2) the state, federal, and other funding sources for COVID-19 spending; and (3) the amounts of COVID-19 spending authorized so far, organized by different purposes and program areas.

Updated 11/12/20: State and federal government spending on certain activities to control the spread of COVID-19 revised upward to $8.6 billion.

The 2020-21 Spending Plan: Human Services

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October 23, 2020 - This post summarizes the state’s 2020-21 spending package for major human services programs. It is part of our Spending Plan series, which contains posts focused on each major sector of the state budget.

California Fiscal Impact of Overturning the ACA

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October 21, 2020 - Senate Health Committee

Updated 11/13/2020.