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: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 18, 2026 - We examine how these cost drivers have changed alongside policy changes in the program and the state overall. Taken together, these cost drivers account for much of the overall growth in the program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5166

The 2026-27 Budget: Child Welfare

Mar 3, 2026 - To what extent and how have DSS and program partners been able to address these issues? Is further Legislative guidance (or anything else) needed to address any remaining barriers? For programs that received one-time funding or augmentations, how sustainable are program gains?
https://lao.ca.gov/publications/report/5147

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: 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

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 2024-25 Budget: Overview of the Federal Fiscal Responsibility Act's Impacts on CalWORKs

Mar 5, 2024 - In California, the caseload reduction credit for 2008 was larger than the 2007 credit and was therefore used. b Some CalWORKs cases without a work ‑eligible adult were moved out from the CalWORKs WPR calculation and WINS cases were added to the calculation in FFY 2014 ‑15. c WINS two ‑parent cases were removed from the two ‑parent WPR calculation starting with FFY 2017 ‑18.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4877

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: CalWORKs

Feb 18, 2026 - It is unclear how the legal questions around the federal funding freeze will be resolved. Should the freeze be implemented, the state could be faced with losing access to federal TANF funding for weeks or longer.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5122

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

Feb 21, 2025 - Additionally, California does not dictate how many hours an individual must spend on core activities. Therefore, some CalWORKs participants have historically met their participation requirements through mostly noncore activities, such as barrier removal or education.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4978