The 2025-26 Budget: Child Welfare

Feb 13, 2025 - How much funding is proposed in 2025-26 for DSS for each BH-CONNECT component to be implemented by the department (that is, what are the individuals amounts proposed for activity funds, CFT meetings for FM cases, and joint home visits)?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4962

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

Feb 21, 2025 - The administration indicated California would use the CalWORKs take-up rate, alongside administrative data from other safety net programs like CalFresh and Medi-Cal, to identify and test outreach strategies for eligible but not enrolled individuals, including in certain communities with lower rates of participation.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4978

The 2025-26 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 19, 2025 - CalFresh benefits can be used to buy most groceries and some prepared food at participating vendors, which include most grocery and convenience stores. Monthly Benefits Vary. Monthly benefits per household vary based on household size, income, and deductible living expenses —with larger households generally receiving more benefits than smaller households and relatively higher-income households generally receiving fewer benefits than lower-income households.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4971

The 2025-26 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 6, 2025 - In previous years, the administration has noted that they currently do not have a methodology in place to be able to track how many actual IHSS recipients enter the program as a result of this asset limit change.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5009

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

Mar 7, 2025 - The Legislature will need to understand and monitor how DARTs and other change management activities are preparing departments for adoption of a new payroll system. Questions for the Legislature to ask include: How will SCO and CalHR work with DARTs to ensure their department ’s business processes align with the new requirements and technical implementation of CSPS?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5011

The 2025-26 Budget: CWS-CARES

Mar 5, 2025 - (We discuss these data and how they could help address the disproportionalities and disparities in the state’s child welfare system in our April 24, 2024 report— California’s Child Welfare System: Addressing Disproportionalities and Disparities .)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5006

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

Jan 13, 2025 - These include funds for water recycling, wildfire prevention activities at state parks, and dam safety activities. The proposal would then provide a like amount of funding from Proposition  4, the climate bond approved by voters in November 2024.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4951

The 2025-26 Budget: Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) Program

Feb 13, 2025 - The state has full discretion over whether and how to provide increases to the SSP portion of the grant. Until it was ended in 2011, the state had a statutory annual COLA. These COLAs generally reflected whole-grant COLAs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4964

The 2025-26 Budget: CalWORKs

Feb 19, 2025 - Figure  4 shows how CalWORKs caseload has changed since 2019-20. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, CalWORKs caseload began what was a historically anomalous decrease given high unemployment.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4969

The 2025-26 Budget: CWS-CARES [Publication Details]

Mar 5, 2025 - This post provides our analysis of the administration’s 2025-26 proposal for the Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System information technology project.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5006