The 2026-27 Budget: Child Welfare

Mar 3, 2026 - As part of implementing CCR, the state developed a new foster care maintenance payment rate structure to replace the previous age-based and group home rate structure. Under CCR, foster care rates must be based on the assessed level of need of individual youth ( “level of care, ” or LOC), with youth requiring higher levels of behavioral health supports and other more therapeutic and intensive services receiving higher rates.
https://lao.ca.gov/publications/report/5147

Implementing California’s Child Welfare Prevention Services Program

Jan 28, 2026 - Namely, for any new services added to the plan that are rated as supported or promising, DSS would need to ensure that at least 50  percent of Title IV ‑E dollars are claimed for well ‑supported services.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5106

The 2026-27 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 18, 2026 - H.R. 1 disqualifies certain noncitizen groups from being eligible for CalFresh assistance, including asylees, refugees, parolees, battered noncitizens, and trafficking victims, among others. This change was effective upon enactment of H.R. 1 but is yet to be implemented in California.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5126

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Human Services

Nov 21, 2025 - As part of a special legislative session held in January 2025, the Legislature added Control Section 5.26 to the 2024-25 Budget Act, providing an additional one-time allocation of $10  million to support immigration related services, including removal defense.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5086/8

The 2026-27 Budget: County Administration and H.R. 1 Implementation

Mar 5, 2026 - Additionally, in taking this task on, the administration will be adding to the many competing priorities that are underway. This means that temporary funding may need to be in place until ongoing methodologies can be  established.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5149

Trends in CalWORKs: Participant Characteristics

Jun 16, 2025 - In this report, we describe these groups as disproportionately overrepresented in CalWORKs. Other groups are disproportionately underrepresented in CalWORKs, meaning the group ’s CalWORKs participation rate is lower than the group ’s share of Californians in poverty.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5057

The 2026-27 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 18, 2026 - Added to the MOE were any county costs associated with local IHSS wage increases. The state General Fund assumed the remaining nonfederal IHSS costs. Over the five years in which the 2012 IHSS MOE was in effect (2012 ‑13 to 2016 ‑17), growth in the county IHSS MOE was  less than  the growth in total IHSS costs, resulting in counties paying for a smaller share of the nonfederal
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5166

California’s Child Welfare System: Addressing Disproportionalities and Disparities

Apr 24, 2024 - This individualized decision‑making in many ways represents a strength of the system, while simultaneously adding complexity in terms of understanding the drivers of disproportionalities at the system level.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4897

The 2025-26 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 6, 2025 - Utilization rates for the most recent expansion groups —the 26-49 and 50 and above age groups (currently, there is no readily available utilization rate data for the age 18 and under or age 19-25 expansion groups) —have lagged behind these historical utilization rates.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5009

The 2025-26 Budget: Child Welfare

Feb 13, 2025 - In addition to restructuring foster care maintenance payments, the 2024-25 statutory changes also added two new foster care programs and corresponding rate components: (1)  Strengths Building and Child and Family Determination Program, and (2)  Immediate Needs Program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4962