The 2024-25 California Spending Plan

Human Services

Department of Child Support Services

The child support program is a federal-state program that establishes, collects, and distributes child support payments to participating parents with children. These tasks include: locating difficult to find parents; certifying paternity; establishing, enforcing, and modifying child support orders; and collecting and distributing payments. In California, the child support program is administered by 47 county and regional local child support agencies (LCSAs), in partnership with local courts. Local program operations are overseen by the state Department of Child Support Services (DCSS).

The spending plan includes $373.9 million General Fund ($1.183 billion total funds) for DCSS in 2024-25, a decrease of less than $1 million General Fund (around $3 million total funds) relative to revised estimates for 2023-24. In this post, we discuss the budget actions resulting in the minor funding decrease and other budget changes.

Budget Solution Reduces Administrative Funding for LCSAs. The spending plan decreases funding for LCSAs by $6 million General Fund in 2023-24, 2024-25, and 2025-26. Since 2019-20, LCSAs have received a few augmentations based on the standardized funding methodology. In total, these augmentations have resulted in increased funding of $51.4 million General Fund ($152.2 million total funds) for LCSA administration. However, for a variety of reasons, LCSAs have not fully expended these additional funds. To help address the state’s budget problem, the 2024-25 spending plan temporarily reduces this funding. (For more background on funding for LCSAs, refer to our prior post.)

Implementation of Passthrough Policy Shifts Collections Payments to Former CalWORKs Families. As shown Figure 1 below, the 2024-25 spending plan estimates a significant shift of child support collections from government recoupment to payments for former California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) families. Specifically, collections distributed to former CalWORKs families are estimated to increase by $139.5 million (nearly 130 percent) in 2024-25 relative to 2023-24. This shift primarily reflects the implementation of the state’s passthrough policy to families who formerly received CalWORKs assistance. Implementation began in May 2024, meaning 2024-25 is the first full year of implementation. (For more background on the state’s passthrough policy, refer to our prior post.)

Supplemental Reporting Language Requires Administration to Provide Data Related to Potential Future Passthrough to Current CalWORKs Families. In addition to passing through child support payments to families who formerly received CalWORKs assistance, the Legislature has expressed an interest in enacting a similar policy change for families currently participating in the CalWORKs program. In order to help assess the impact of this intended reform, the Legislature adopted supplemental reporting language requiring DCSS to issue a report to the Legislature on continued efforts to research and make necessary technological changes that will facilitate full passthrough of child support payments to families currently receiving CalWORKs assistance. The required report, which is due by January 10, 2026, will include a summary of available data about families currently participating in CalWORKs from whom DCSS is collecting or seeking to collect child support payments—such as the average child support order amount for these families—along with a number of other reporting areas.

Budget Language Allows Transfer to Child Support Trust Fund. Language included in the 2024-25 budget bill (Chapter 22 of 2024 [AB 107, Gabriel]) allows DCSS to take certain actions to help ensure the Child Support Payment Trust Fund—essentially the state’s checking account for child support payments—maintains sufficient funds. Specifically, budget language allows the department to transfer up to $500,000 annually of unspent departmental administrative funding to the Trust Fund to help address unrecoverable overpayments.