Legislative Update The deadline to pass bills out of the second house appropriations committee was August 27. Bills that passed out of the appropriations committee now move to the floor and then to the Governor's desk. The last day for a bill to pass out of the Legislature is September 9. The Governor will then have 30 days to sign or veto a bill. Click here for our latest summary of health legislation and click here for our human services legislative summary, with bill status and Western Center positions.

Western Center Sponsored Legislation Western Center sponsored two health and six human services bills this year. Below are the six bills that are moving forward through the final days of this year's legislative session: • AB 922 (Monning) would expand the duties of the Office of the Patient Advocate to help all types of health consumers and would allow the Office to contract with community-based organizations to provide some of the services. Passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 26. It will be voted on the floor of the Senate in September. • AB 1296 (Bonilla) would develop the Eligibility, Enrollment and Retention System for Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, the Exchange and county health coverage programs. Passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 26. It will be voted on the floor of the Senate in September. • AB 402 (Skinner) would authorize a school district and a county superintendent of schools to enter into an agreement allowing families to begin a CalFresh application via their school meal application. AB 402 passed both houses and was sent to the Governor for his signature on August 29th. Support letters are needed. • AB 828 (Swanson) would end the CalFresh lifetime ban for all people with prior drug-related offences. AB 828 was voted off of the Assembly Floor but held in the Senate Appropriations Suspense File. Western Center is committed to finding the next possible opportunity to pass this important policy change. • SB 43 (Liu) would remove mandatory requirements in the CalFresh Employment and Training (E&T) Program when the state or a sub-region is federally determined to have high unemployment. This bill was passed with unanimous support from the Senate and the Assembly Human Services committees. It will be voted on the floor of the Senate in September. • AB 1388 (Wieckowski) would prevent income from being garnished as a result of medical debt under certain circumstances. It was passed off the Senate floor last week and is heading to the Governor's desk.

Other Important Legislation Supported by Western Center  • AB 6 (Fuentes) adopts simplified, semi-annual reporting for CalWORKs and CalFresh, eliminates finger-imaging for CalFresh, and adopts the CalFresh 'Heat & Eat' Federal option to simplify and expand use of the standard utility allowance in the CalFresh program.  It was passed off the Senate floor last week and is heading to the Governor's desk. • AB 138 (Beall) would require the California Department of Aging to report data from the Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index), for each service area included in the state plan. It was passed off the Senate floor last week and is heading to the Governor's desk.  • AB 581 (Pérez) would create the California Healthy Food Financing Initiative for the purpose of expanding access to healthy foods in underserved communities and, to the extent practicable, to leverage other funding, as specified. • AB 959 (Jones) would align reporting requirements for the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program with the Medi-Cal and CalFresh programs by allowing for re-instatement of aid if a report or required verification is submitted within 30 days of the due date. Will be heard on the Senate Floor this week. • AB 1182 (Hernández) would exclude the value of a licensed motor vehicle from consideration when determining or re-determining eligibility for the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program. Will be heard on the Senate Floor this week.