The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 13, 2025 - The reason for the reduction is the recent voter approval of Proposition  35 (2024), which requires the state to spend less MCO tax money on offsetting General Fund spending and more money on provider rate increases.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

Trends in CalWORKs: Participant Characteristics

Jun 16, 2025 - About 20  percent of CalWORKs heads of household were Black, compared to about 5  percent of all heads of  household. Some Groups Made up Disproportionate Shares of CalWORKs Participants Compared to Californians in Poverty.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5057

The 2025-26 Budget: CalWORKs

Feb 19, 2025 - This decline continued until September 2021, the month during which a federal bonus for Unemployment Insurance benefits expired. Caseload generally increased month over month (with few exceptions) from September 2021 to September 2024 (the most recent month for which caseload data are available).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4969

The 2025-26 Budget: CWS-CARES

Mar 5, 2025 - Recent bills signed into law seek to address issues in the state ’s child welfare programs, and addressing these issues will require improved data collection and disaggregation. In some cases, additional data collection and disaggregation requires the completion of CWS-CARES V1.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5006

The 2025-26 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 6, 2025 - The 2021-22 budget included $5  million General Fund to create a permanent IHSS backup provider system on January 1, 2022, contingent on a policy framework being adopted in statute. However, a policy framework for the permanent backup provider system was not adopted within the 2021-22 budget period, resulting in the initial $5  million allocation going unspent.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5009

The 2025-26 Budget: Overview of the Federal CalWORKs Pilot

Feb 21, 2025 - Federal financial penalties for failing to meet the WPR requirements can start at 5  percent of a state ’s annual TANF grant and can increase (up to a maximum penalty of 21  percent) each successive year a state fails to meet the requirements.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4978

The 2025-26 Budget: The California State Payroll System IT Project

Mar 7, 2025 - The remaining five roles —the reporting coordinator, scope/capability subject matter experts, sponsor, technical coordinator, and training coordinator —require partial time commitments by one or more staff that vary between several hours per calendar quarter to up to 50  percent of available time.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5011

The 2025-26 Budget: Child Welfare

Feb 13, 2025 - Youth transitioning out of foster care are one target population who may be able to receive up to six months of rental assistance, provided through Medi-Cal managed care plans. This new benefit initially will be optional for managed care plans to provide, beginning July 1, 2025.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4962