Fiscal Summary
Increase State Expenditures - $11,900/One-Time
$104,400/Recurring
Other Fiscal Impact - The increased reductions in temporary assistance payments imposed by the bill will result in decreased expenditures that will be used to provide benefits to other recipients of temporary assistance benefits. The amount of the decrease cannot be quantified because DHS has not provided information relative to reductions currently imposed by DHS.
Bill Summary
Under present law, as a condition of eligibility, an applicant for or a recipient of temporary assistance under the Families First Act must agree to a personal responsibility plan. The plan must require participation in personal responsibility activities and must also require the parent or other caretaker relative, regardless of age or disabling status, to enter a plan that requires, but is not limited to, the following:
(1) The children in the family attend school;
(2) The children in the family receive immunizations and health checks; and
(3) The parent or caretaker relative cooperate in the establishment and enforcement of child support, including, but not limited to, the naming of the father of a child for purposes of paternity establishment, unless good cause not to cooperate exists, as defined by the department.
Failure to comply with the personal responsibility plan as required under (1) and (2), without good cause, results in a percentage reduction with regard to the temporary assistance payment in the amount of 20 percent until such time as compliance occurs.
This bill adds to the present law requirements for personal responsibility plans by requiring that the parent or other caretaker relative, regardless of age or disabling status, enter a plan that requires the children in the family to both attend and maintain satisfactory academic progress in school. For purposes of this bill, maintenance of satisfactory academic progress in school will be demonstrated by complying with school attendance requirements and receiving a score of proficient or advanced on required state examinations in the subject areas of mathematics and reading or language arts, demonstrating competency as determined by the state board of education on two end of course examinations, or maintaining a grade point average that is sufficient to ascend to the next grade. A student may attend a summer school course in the subject area in which the student has failed or has scored below proficient or failed to demonstrate competency. The student must receive a passing grade in such summer school course to achieve satisfactory academic progress. The requirements of this bill relative to competency on required state examinations or grade point averages shall not apply to students who have Individualized Educational Placements and who are not academically talented or gifted.
Failure to comply with attendance requirements, or to receive a proficient or advanced score or a grade point average sufficient to ascend to the next grade, will be a failure to comply with the personal responsibility plan required by this bill and will result in a 30 percent reduction with regard to the temporary assistance payment until such time as compliance occurs.
This bill increases the percentage reduction from 20 percent to 25 percent for failure to comply with the immunization and health check requirements of (2) above without good cause.
ON APRIL 11, 2013, THE SENATE ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1 AND RE-REFERRED SENATE BILL 132 TO HEALTH COMMITTEE.
AMENDMENT #1 rewrites the bill. Under present law, as described in the above bill summary, the personal responsibility plan must require that:
(1) The children in the family attend school;
(2) The children in the family receive immunizations and health checks; and
(3) The parent or caretaker relative cooperate in the establishment and enforcement of child support, unless good cause not to cooperate exists.
This amendment additionally requires that the plan require that any child in the family who does not have an IEP or is intellectually gifted also maintain satisfactory academic progress in school. "Satisfactory academic progress" means the child advances to the next grade, in accordance with state board of education requirements.
Under present law, failure to comply with the personal responsibility plan requirements described above in (1) and (2), without good cause, results in a percentage reduction with regard to the temporary assistance payment in the amount of 20 percent until such time as compliance occurs. This amendment rewrites this provision to instead specify that failure to comply with the plan's requirements that the children in the family attend school and, if required, maintain satisfactory academic progress in school, would result in the parent or caretaker relative receiving a child only grant for the parent or caretaker until such time as compliance occurs.
If the temporary assistance payment to a parent or caretaker is reduced due to the child's failure to maintain satisfactory academic progress, the reduction would be restored only to the parent or caretaker's subsequent temporary assistance payments, upon the parent or caretaker providing documentary evidence, in person, to the department of human services that the parent or caretaker has:
(1) Attended two or more parent-teacher conferences and met with as many of the child's teachers as are in attendance at the child's parent-teacher conferences in the past year, or attended two parent-teacher conferences since the child failed a course;
(2) Attended at least eight hours of parenting classes since the time of the reduction;
(3) Enrolled the child in and the child has attended an available and affordable tutoring program for each grade level or subject area that prevented the child from advancing to the next grade or from graduating. The child must attend a minimum of eight hours of such tutoring per semester; or
(4) Enrolled the child in summer school in order that the child may obtain a passing grade in the failed subjects that prevented the child from advancing to the next grade or from graduating. If the child receives a passing grades in the summer school courses that permits the child to advance to the next grade or graduate, then the student will have achieved satisfactory academic progress.
In the case of a home schooled student, the parent or caretaker will only be eligible for restoration of a reduction based on the student's failure to maintain satisfactory academic progress by presenting documentary evidence that the parent or caretaker has met the requirements described above in (2) or (3).
To the extent permitted by federal law, any moneys remaining as a result of reductions in temporary assistance payments based on a child's failure to maintain satisfactory academic progress would be expended for purposes carrying out the department's powers and duties under present law and would not revert to the general fund at the end of the fiscal year.
