BILL NUMBER: AB 649 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JANUARY 7, 2004
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 8, 2003
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Wiggins
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Koretz, Montanez, and Mullin)
FEBRUARY 19, 2003
An act to amend Section 103625 of the Health and Safety
Code, and to amend Section 4646.5 of, and to add Chapter 13
(commencing with Section 4850) to Division 4.5 of, the Welfare and
Institutions Code, An act relating to
developmental disabilities.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 649, as amended, Wiggins. Developmental disabilities
workforce service centers services: funding:
maintenance of effort .
Under existing law, the State Department of Developmental Services
allocates funds to private nonprofit regional centers for the
provision of community services and support for persons with
developmental disabilities and their families.
This bill would make findings and declarations regarding the
maintenance-of-effort level of funding to be provided by the state.
The Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act requires the
State Department of Developmental Services to contract with private
nonprofit entities known as regional centers, who are required to
provide, or arrange for the provision of, services and supports for
persons with developmental disabilities.
Existing law requires the development of an individual program
plan for an individual with developmental disabilities eligible for
regional center services. Existing law requires the individual
program plan to include various components and the performance of
specified activities.
This bill would require that the individual program plan also
include the opportunity for persons with developmental disabilities
and their families to select a self-determination mode of service
delivery, as defined.
Under existing law, services are also provided to persons with
developmental disabilities and their families by area boards on
developmental disabilities, which serve specific geographic regions
of the state, and to individuals with disabilities, as defined, under
programs administered by the Department of Rehabilitation, which
provide vocational rehabilitation services.
This bill would create, as local area agencies that are not a part
of the executive branch of the state government, workforce service
centers to serve each of the geographic regions served by area boards
on developmental disabilities. The bill would require that each
workforce service center be governed by a board with a specified
membership.
The bill would require a workforce services center to perform
various functions with respect to personnel providing, or qualified
to provide, services vendorized by regional centers or the Department
of Rehabilitation. These functions would include recruiting,
arranging for the screening of, developing a registry of, and
referring these persons. In addition, the bill would require a
workforce service center to employ personnel from the registry to
provide services that are to be reimbursed by a regional center, the
Department of Rehabilitation, or the State Department of
Developmental Services and be the employer of certain persons in the
registry for purposes of workers' compensation, unemployment
insurance, and labor relations.
The bill would require the State Department of Developmental
Services to establish job classifications for center employees with
education and training requirements for each classification.
The bill would, for purposes of funding first year planning and
organizational startup costs of the bill, authorize a center to seek
and accept grants and donations of funds, space, and supplies and
seek available grants from the federal medicaid program for
improvements of program administration.
The bill would specify various requirements of the California
Health and Human Services Agency with respect to establishing fund
transfer procedures to utilize funds allocated to departments within
the agency for the purposes of the bill, meeting with federal
officials, along with other state entities, to inform the officials
of changes made by the bill and explore ways of securing federal
financial participation, and reporting annually to the appropriate
committees of the Legislature on progress made to improve federal
support.
The Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act requires designated
professionals that have contact with children called mandated
reporters to report known or suspected child abuse or neglect, as
prescribed. In addition, the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil
Protection Act provides that any person who assumes full or
intermittent responsibility for the care or custody of an elder or
dependent adult is a mandated reporter who is required to report
known or suspected abuse of an elder or dependent adult, as
prescribed.
Existing law requires a mandated reporter, with certain
exceptions, prior to commencing employment and as a prerequisite to
that employment, to sign a statement on a form provided by his or her
employer that he or she has knowledge of the reporting requirements
and will comply.
This bill would make each employee of a center a mandated reporter
for purposes of these provisions.
Existing law requires applicants for a certified copy of a birth
certificate to pay a fee.
This bill would require these applicants, with certain exceptions,
to pay an additional $9 fee for a certified copy of a birth
certificate. With the exception of administrative costs retained by
local officials, these fees would be deposited into the Developmental
Disabilities Workforce Development Fund, which the bill would
establish in the State Treasury, to be expended by the department,
upon appropriation by the Legislature, to implement the bill. The
bill would impose a state tax within the meaning of Section 3 of
Article XIII A of the California Constitution, and thus would require
for passage the approval of 2/3 of the membership of each house of
the Legislature.
Because this bill would impose duties on local officials charged
with the collections and transmission of the fees, it would impose a
state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local
agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the
state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this
act for a specified reason.
Vote: 2/3 majority .
Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes
no . State-mandated local program: yes
no .
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Section 103625 of the Health and Safety Code
SECTION 1. (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(1) The system providing services and supports in the community to
Californians with developmental disabilities is chronically
underfunded. Low wages and benefits for direct care workers in this
system result in high turnover rates, which adversely impacts the
quality and stability of services for people with developmental
disabilities.
(2) As the amount of money received from the federal government to
pay for services to persons with developmental disabilities has
increased, the state has decreased the amount of General Fund moneys
used for these services. The decrease in General Fund moneys
allocated for services to persons with developmental disabilities has
been proportionate to the increases in federal funding for these
services.
(3) As a result of the decreases in state money allocated to
services for persons with developmental disabilities, it has been
difficult for the system to provide services and supports to
additional people who need to be served in the community, while
maintaining the level of services and supports for people the system
is already serving in the community.
(b) Should sufficient funds be available, it is the intent of the
Legislature that, at minimum, the amount of state moneys appropriated
to the State Department of Developmental Services for allocation to
regional centers for the provision of services and supports in the
community to persons with developmental disabilities be maintained at
its current level and that state funds be supplemented, and not be
supplanted, by increases in federal money received by the state to
provide services and supports to persons with developmental
disabilities.
(c) In carrying out the purposes of the Lanterman Developmental
Disabilities Services Act (Division 4.5 (commencing with Section
4500) of the Welfare and Institutions Code; hereafter the Lanterman
Act) it is the intent of the Legislature to appropriate at least the
maintenance-of-effort level of funding for each fiscal year.
(d) The Legislature intends to enact legislation to require,
commencing with the 2004-05 fiscal year, and each fiscal year
thereafter, that the State Department of Developmental Services
determine the state's maintenance-of-effort level of funding for
services under the Lanterman Act by determining the total amount of
funding provided in the Budget Act of 2003 for services under the
Lanterman Act plus additional amounts as necessary to cover caseload
increases in subsequent fiscal years.
(e) The Legislature intends to enact legislation to require,
commencing with the 2004-05 fiscal year, that any increase in federal
funding to the state for services under the Lanterman Act be used
only to supplement the state's maintenance-of-effort level of funding
and not to supplant, reimburse, or be used to cost-shift, state
General Fund maintenance-of-effort dollars appropriated for the
purposes of the Lanterman Act, as set forth in this section.
_____________________________________ All matter omitted in this
version of the bill appears in the bill as amended in the
Assembly, April 8, 2003 (JR 11) ____________________________________
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