2019 State and Federal Advocacy Agenda
Updated as of October 15, 2019
First 5 LA, in partnership with others, strengthens families, communities, and systems of services and supports so all children in Los Angeles County enter kindergarten ready to succeed in school and life. To achieve this mission, First 5 LA advances community-informed policies that coordinate and strengthen systems supporting families with children birth to five, and promotes the strength and stability of First 5 LA as a critical voice for Los Angeles County’s youngest residents.The State and Federal Advocacy Agenda reflects First 5 LA’s state and federal legislative, regulatory, and budget priorities, which are guided by the organization-wide Policy Agenda to support children and families in Los Angeles County.
EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION (ECE)
State Policy
AB125 (McCarty) & Senate Bill 174 (Leyva)
Reimbursement Rates: These bills would enact legislation that would establish a single regionalized state reimbursement rate system for childcare, preschool, and early learning services that would achieve specified objectives.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bills
Child Care Spaces: This bill would appropriate $1 billion to immediately expand access to Alternative Payment (AP) Programs and General Child Care and Development services for infants and toddlers birth to age three to meet the diverse needs of California’s families.
First LA Position: Support
Status: Held in Assembly Appropriations Committee
Workforce: In 2000, AB 212 (Aroner) authorized funds from the California Department of Education (CDE) for child care development staff retention. These funds aim to retain quality staff who have experience working directly with children in state-subsidized, Title 5 child development programs. AB 324 would require CDE to develop guidelines for the use of AB 212 funds. The new guidelines will still allow for local flexibility, but will create a standardized, effective, and measurable funding program. These guidelines will prioritize stipends that recruit, strengthen, and retain a quality, diverse ECE workforce.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bill
Child Care Collective Bargaining: Provides that family childcare providers have the right to form, join, and participate in the activities of a provider organization of their own choosing for the purpose of representing them and bargaining on matters related to the terms and conditions of their employment.
First LA Position: Support
Status: Signed by Governor Newsom
California Child Care Facilities Grant Program: This bill would seek to appropriate funds of between $25,000,000 and $35,000,000 towards grants to develop child care facilities that serve children from birth to age three, with no less than $10,000,000 of which dedicated to Early Head Start facilities.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bill
Local Planning Councils: This bill would restructure the composition of local planning councils (LPCs) to be more representative of the local communities they serve and would appropriate no less than $10,000,000 to LPCs to sufficiently fulfil their primary functions.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bill
Family Daycare Homes: Under existing law, the California Child Day Care Facilities Act, the State Department of Social Services licenses and regulates family daycare homes. Under existing law, a small family daycare home, which may provide care for up to 8 children, is considered a residential use of property for purposes of all local ordinances. Existing law authorizes a city, county, or city and county to either classify a large family daycare home, which may provide care for up to 14 children, as residential use of the property or to provide a process for applying for a permit to use the property as a large family daycare home. This bill would instead require a large family daycare home to be treated as a residential use of property for purposes of all local ordinances.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Signed by Governor Newsom
CalWORKs Child Care: This bill would increase access to child care supportive services for welfare-to-work participants by, among other things, requiring that the child care be full-time unless the participant determines that part-time care better meets the family’s needs, requiring first-stage child care to be authorized for one year, or until the participant is transferred to the 2nd stage of child care, and prohibiting the first stage or the 2nd stage of child care services from being discontinued until confirmation is received from the administrator of the subsequent stage of child care that the family has been enrolled or that the family is ineligible for services in the subsequent stage of child care.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bill
State Budget Proposals – ECE
Child Care Bridge Program
$47 million to support additional vouchers to assist families in paying for emergency, short-term child care for foster children in a home-based family care setting, allowing approximately 19,000 foster children to receive child care for up to six months on an immediate basis.
Budget Appropriation: $10 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Early Learning Infrastructure
$500 million in one-time funding to improve child care infrastructure, including support for professional development and facilities.
Budget Appropriation: $245 million for facilities, and $195 million for professional development.
First 5 LA Position: Support
California State University (CSU) Child Care Infrastructure
CSU system would receive $247 million in one-time funding which could be used to expand child care facilities for students with young children.
Budget Appropriation: $239 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
California State Pre-School
$125 million would provide an additional 180,000 full-day, full-year pre-school spaces in 2019-20, increasing to 200,000 students by 2022.
Budget Appropriation: $31 million appropriated in 19-20, and $125 million in 20-21.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Roadmap for Universal Pre-School and Child Care
$10 million to develop, in partnership with the State Board of Education, Department of Finance, and Department of Social Services, a roadmap toward universal pre-school and quality, affordable subsidized child care in California.
Budget Appropriation: $5 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
CalWORKs Stage-1 Child Care
$54.2 million to stabilize child care for families receiving CalWORKs Stage 1 support, allowing children to remain in care programs for 12 months.
Budget Appropriation: $56.4 million appropriated in 19-20, and $70 million on-going general funding.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Proposition 64 Child Care
$80.5 million in Proposition 64 (Cannabis) prevention fund dollars to expand access to child care.
Budget Appropriation: $80.5 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Emergency Child Care Vouchers
$12.8 million in federal funds to support emergency vouchers for families in crisis requiring temporary care or cash aid to support the cost of care.
Budget Appropriation: No funding appropriated.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Quality Counts Program
$2.2 million in ongoing federal funds to improve child care quality through Quality Counts California, the state’s quality rating and improvement system.
Budget Appropriation: $ 2.2 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
HEALTH
State Policy
Medi-Cal: This bill would create an expedited Medi-Cal enrollment pathway for children and pregnant women, by allowing the data individuals provide when applying to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program to also determine eligibility for Medi-Cal. The state would accomplish this by utilizing Medicaid’s Express Lane Eligibility (ELE) authority. This allows children to concurrently apply for Medi-Cal, as well as pregnant women into Presumptive Eligibility Medi-Cal status, when applying to certain other federal benefits programs. The bill would also fund infrastructure and systems changes needed to enable information sharing between WIC and Medi-Cal.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bill
Developmental Screening Services: This bill is the re-introduction of AB 11 (McCarty), which would require, consistent with federal law, that screening services provided as an EPSDT benefit include developmental screening services for individuals zero to 3 years of age, inclusive. The bill would require the department to ensure a Medi-Cal managed care plan’s ability and readiness to perform these developmental screening services and would require the department to adjust a Medi-Cal managed care plan’s capitation rate, as specified. Until July 1, 2023, the bill would require an external quality review organization entity to annually review, survey, and report on managed care plan reporting and compliance with specified developmental screening tools and schedules.
First 5 LA Position: Sponsor
Status: Signed by Governor Newsom
Federally Qualified Health Clinics (FQHCs): This bill would allow Medi-Cal to reimburse Federally Qualified Health Clinics (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) for two services when a patient receives a medical visit and mental health or dental visit on the same day at the same location.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Two-year bill
Implicit Bias: This bill would mandate hospitals that provide perinatal care, alternative birth centers and primary care clinics to implement implicit bias trainings for all staff providing perinatal care. The bill would also require these programs to identify existing provider biases, create measures that decrease implicit biases and stereotypes, and develop more culturally inclusive and appropriate communications and service delivery strategies.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Signed by Governor Newsom
State Budget Proposals – Health
Developmental Screenings
$60 million in state and federal funding to increase developmental screening rates for young children.
Budget Appropriation: $53.9 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Screenings
$45 million in state and federal funding to ensure all families on Medi-Cal receive ACEs screens.
Budget Appropriation: $40.8 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Black Infant Health
$12 million to further address disparities in infant and maternal mortality for African American women.
Budget Appropriation: $19.5 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Training for Trauma Screenings
$60 million over three years in Proposition 56 funding, starting with $25 million in FY 19-20, to train providers responsible for conducting the trauma screenings proposed in the January budget.
Budget Appropriation: $50 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Cannabis Surveillance and Education
$12 million for the California Department of Public Health to conduct cannabis surveillance and education programs.
Budget Appropriation: $12 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Federal Legislation
Early Childhood is the Right IDEA Act: HR 4107: The Funding for Early Childhood is the Right IDEA Act, would increase federal funding for two programs within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Specifically, it would call on Congress to boost IDEA Part C and Section 619 funding to between approximately $1,700 and $1,900 per child.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor
FAMILIES
State Policy
Public Charge: This bill asks the Legislature to condemn the Trump Administration’s proposal to expand the definition of public charge for immigrants seeking to legally adjust their status. In addition, ACR 1 urges the federal government to reconsider and roll back the proposed regulation. The resolution asserts several declarations regarding the importance of immigrants to the State of California, how the proposal will weaken our economy, and weaken the health, and prosperity of children and families.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Signed by Governor Newsom
State Budget Proposals – Families
Working Families Tax Credit
$1 billion to expand eligibility to an additional 400,000 families, and converting the credit to a monthly benefit to better meet the needs of working families.
Budget Appropriation: $1.2 billion
First 5 LA Position: Support
CalWORKs Grants
$347.6 million to further increase the size of the state’s California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) cash grants, eventually increasing to $455.5M annually. These increases will begin October 1, 2019 and ensure no child in a family receiving cash aid from the state lives in deep poverty.
Budget Appropriation: $331.5 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
CalWORKs Home Visiting Initiative
$89.6 million to expand and make permanent the CalWORKs Home Visiting Initiative (HVI) created in the 2018-19 budget.
Budget Appropriation: $89.6 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
California Home Visiting Program
$45.9 million to double the federally-funded Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program operated by the California Department of Public Health.
Budget Appropriation: $45.9 million
First 5 LA Position: Support
Paid Family Leave
Expanding paid family leave from six to eight weeks per parent or caregiver, allowing for up to an additional month of paid leave for a two-parent household.
Budget Appropriation: Expanded paid family leave from six to eight weeks.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Federal Policy
Public Charge: H.R. 3222, The No Federal Funds for Public Charge Act prohibits the use of federal funds and other fees to implement the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) new regulatory rule to expand the definition of public charge, released on August 12, 2019. Under the legislation, federal funds made available for any fiscal year, may not be used to implement, administer, enforce, or carry out the regulation.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship
Federal Regulation – USCIS-2010-0012: Expansion of the Public Charge
Public Charge: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published in the Federal Register a U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) rule proposal that would expand the definition of a public charge. The proposal expands the definition of a “public charge” for those legal immigrants seeking to adjust their status, obtain a green-card, or enter the country. The rule change would negatively affect how immigrant families in Los Angeles County access essential health, housing, and nutritional services; forcing them to make life altering decisions to either feed, house, or keep healthy their families versus legally adjusting their own status.
First 5 LA Position: Oppose
Status: Pending
Federal Poverty Line (FPL): The Trump Administration is seeking public comment on which of several measures of inflation to include when calculating the federal poverty threshold. Specifically, it is asking for more information on the strengths and weaknesses of several measures of inflation, including: the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W), Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U), Consumer Price Index Research Series (CPI-U-RS), and the experimental Consumer Price Index for Urban Elderly Consumers (CPI-E). First 5 LA strongly opposes the inclusion of any measure that applies a smaller inflation adjustment each year than the current measure. This would lower the nation’s poverty line and reduce both the number of low-income Californians who are eligible for certain supportive services as well as the levels of assistance many children and families can receive.
First 5 LA Position: Oppose
Status: Pending
Housing Subsidies: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published in the Federal Register a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed rule change that would prohibit “ineligible” members in mixed-status families from living in public housing and receiving other housing assistance. Mixed status families are considered households that include both, eligible and ineligible members, based on their immigration status. Ineligible members include those with temporary work or student visas, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, or survivors of serious crimes granted U non-immigrant status. The rule would also impose new documentation requirements for U.S. citizens and residents currently receiving and applying for federal housing assistance.
First 5 LA Position: Oppose
Status: Pending
SNAP Eligibility: The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published in the Federal Register a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed rule that would restrict access to Nutritional Supplemental Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits under “broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE or categorical eligibility),” upon receipt of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs. Categorical eligibility is a current federal law provision that allows most states and the District of Columbia to raise SNAP income or asset eligibility limits. The proposed rule would refine and narrow those categorical eligibility requirements.
First 5 LA Position: Oppose
Status: Pending
COMMUNITIES
State Policy
SB 225 (Durazo)
State and Local Board Participation: Makes any person at least 18 years of age and a resident of California eligible to hold an appointed civil office, regardless of that person’s citizenship and immigration status.
First 5 LA Position: Support
Status: Signed by Governor Newsom
