The 2026-27 Budget: Child Welfare

Mar 3, 2026 - The Tiered Rate Structure will rely on data collected via the state ’s functional assessment tool —the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment —to determine a youth ’s needed level of care and corresponding rate, which will not depend on placement types.
https://lao.ca.gov/publications/report/5147

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

Implementing California’s Child Welfare Prevention Services Program

Jan 28, 2026 - For any determined measures that DSS/counties do not currently report on, the Legislature could direct any necessary additional data collection now to ensure impacts may be measured over time. Regardless of any new data collection the Legislature may wish to add, the state will collect the federally required data elements once the new child welfare data system (CWS ‑CARES) comes online.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5106

The 2026-27 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 18, 2026 - We note that these growth components are our best estimates based on the data we have available at this time. Moreover, costs to administer the program also make up a small component of the growth listed above.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5166

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 2025-26 Budget: CWS-CARES

Mar 5, 2025 - New required data fields could be added to county social worker reporting forms, but the new fields would need to be automated in CWS-CARES. Also, aggregated data on county social worker use of structured decision-making (SDM) tools could help identify certain decision points at which some groups are disproportionately impacted, but SDM tools are also scheduled for integration into CWS-CARES.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5006

The 2026-27 Budget: CalWORKs

Feb 18, 2026 - We find this projection reasonable but will revisit the administration ’s projections at the May Revision when more data are available. Automatic Grant Increases Realignment Revenues Projected to Be Insufficient for Automatic Grant Increase in 2026.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5122

The 2022-23 Budget: California Department of Technology

Feb 22, 2022 - Other services might be added to complement private vendor service offerings, rather than the State Data Center continuing to offer  similar services to private vendors. At the end of the process, the administration might recommend some services be shifted from cost recovery to the General Fund.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4552

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Human Services

Nov 21, 2025 - The state operations funding is to support staff that will share student eligibility data and provide technical assistance to schools. Other Food Assistance Funding and Programmatic Changes Includes About $2.7  Million for CalFresh and SUN Bucks Workload Changes in 2025-26.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5086/3

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