Existing law provides for the county-administered In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, under which qualified aged, blind, and disabled persons are provided with services to permit them to remain in their own homes and avoid institutionalization. Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to implement, under specified circumstances, a 20% reduction in authorized hours of service to each IHSS recipient, beginning January 1, 2012, except as specified.
This bill would delete those provisions.
Existing law requires the department, until July 1, 2013, to implement a 3.6% reduction in authorized hours of service to each IHSS recipient, as specified.
This bill would require the department, from July 1, 2013, to June 30, 2014, inclusive, to
implement an 8% reduction in authorized hours of service to each IHSS recipient, as specified. The bill would authorize a county to administratively deny a request for reassessment based only on that reduction. The bill would require a specified notice to be mailed to the recipient at least 10 days before the reduction goes into effect. The bill would also require the department, beginning July 1, 2014, to implement a 7% reduction in authorized hours of service to each IHSS recipient, as specified. The bill would require a specified notice to be mailed to the recipient at least 20 days before the reduction goes into effect.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to authorize an assessment on home care services, including, but not limited to, home health care and in-home supportive services. This bill would require the Director of Finance, within 30 days after receipt of specified certification from the State Department of Health Care Services, to, among
other things, estimate the total amount of additional funding that would be derived from that assessment for the next fiscal year and calculate, as a percentage, the amount by which the 7% reduction in authorized hours of service for each IHSS recipient is offset by General Fund savings from that assessment. The bill would require the department to perform these activities for the fiscal year that the certification is received and the following fiscal year, and on or before May 14, prior to the 3rd fiscal year after the certification is received. This The bill would require the 7% reduction in authorized hours of services to be mitigated by the percentage offset determined by the Director of Finance, as specified. The bill would provide for these provisions to become operative only upon certification by the State
Department of Health Care Services that any necessary federal approvals have been obtained.
This bill would create the In-Home Supportive Services Reinvestment Fund, a continuously appropriated fund, to receive moneys to the extent that the assessment is implemented retroactively, and use those moneys to provide goods or services for one-time direct reinvestments benefiting IHSS recipients, as prescribed. This bill would require the Legislature to approve the initial allocation of moneys from the fund in the annual Budget Act or other legislation. This bill would authorize, under certain circumstances, the amount available for expenditure for this purpose if specified notice is provided to the Legislature. The bill
would require the Director of Finance to consult with specified plaintiffs to develop a plan to reinvest those funds, and require that plan to be submitted to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature. The bill would require the Director of Finance to provide specified notice to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee at least 30 days prior to allocating any of those funds, as prescribed. The bill would, subject to specified conditions, continuously appropriate the moneys in the fund to the department for these purposes.
Existing law authorizes a county board of supervisors to elect to contract with a nonprofit consortium to provide for the delivery of IHSS or to establish a public authority to provide for the delivery of IHSS. Under existing law, the state is required to pay 65%, and the county 35%, of the nonfederal share of wage and benefit increases negotiated by a public authority or nonprofit
consortium, as specified. Existing law, operative July 1, 2009, requires the state to participate in those wage and benefit increases in a total cost of wages up to $9.50 per hour and in individual health benefits up to $0.60 per hour. Existing law provides that those provisions establishing those rates of participation shall not be implemented until July 1, 2012, and shall only be implemented if specified conditions are met.
This bill would delete those latter provisions.
Under existing law, the department is required to develop a uniform needs assessment tool to assure that IHSS are delivered in all counties in a uniform manner. Existing law requires the uniform needs assessment tool to evaluate the recipient’s functioning in activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living and quantifies the recipient’s functioning ranks using a general 5-point scale for ranking each function, as specified. Under
existing law, beginning September 1, 2009, only individuals who are ranked at a 4 or 5 in the activity of daily living relating to a domestic or related service are eligible for that service, except as specified.
This bill would delete those latter provisions.
Under existing law, beginning September 1, 2009, eligibility for IHSS shall also include functional index scores, which are assigned to a recipient as a weighted average based on his or her individual functional index rankings. Existing law, except as specified, provides that individuals with certain functional index scores are not eligible for IHSS.
This bill would delete those provisions.
The bill would appropriate $1,000 from the General Fund to the State Department of Social Services for its administrative costs during the 2013–14 fiscal year.
The bill would require the State Department of Social Services and the State Department of Health Care Services to adopt emergency regulations to implement the bill’s provisions, as specified.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.