(a) The department, in consultation and coordination with the County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), shall update existing regulations and establish new regulations where lacking for the identification, determination, tracking, notification, and collection of foster care and adoption assistance overpayments by county agencies to foster care providers or adoption assistance recipients, and shall specify the required actions of county agencies, as appropriate, to recoup overpayments. In addition, the department, in consultation with the CWDA, shall develop specific processes to implement collection and repayment of overpaid federal AFDC-FC funds, including the development of a Notice of Action (NOA), due process procedures, voluntary repayment procedures, involuntary repayment procedures, and the accrual of interest. It is the intent of the Legislature that the recovery of unauthorized funds is done in a manner that does not jeopardize overall availability of placements for foster or adoptive children or the best interests of the foster or adoptive child.
(b) (1) No later than October 1, 2007, the department shall implement a process to obtain all necessary state approvals of advanced planning documents for counties to implement automated solutions designed to minimize overpayments, and to submit the documents to the appropriate federal authority within 30 days of original submission by the county to the state. The process shall include a template to be used by counties for expedited state and federal approval of advanced planning documents designed to minimize overpayments.
(2) No later than December 31, 2007, the department shall implement a process for counties to obtain, at no charge, all necessary data from the Child Welfare Services Case Management System (CWS/CMS) to implement automated solutions designed to minimize overpayments, such as the system used by Alameda County, or a similar solution. The department shall notify the budget committees of the Legislature and the CWDA by October 1, 2007, if the department believes that the extract of this data could jeopardize the structural and data integrity of the information within the CWS/CMS. The department shall work with CWDA to mitigate these risks, if found.
(c) (1) The department shall modify existing regulations and adopt new regulations to implement this section by December 31, 2008. Notwithstanding Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code, the department, in consultation with the CWDA, may adopt emergency regulations to implement this section.
(2) The adoption of emergency regulations pursuant to paragraph (1) shall be deemed to be an emergency and necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety, or general welfare. The emergency regulations authorized by this section shall be submitted to the Office of Administrative Law for filing with the Secretary of State and shall remain in effect for no more than 180 days, by which time final regulations shall be adopted.
(Added by Stats. 2007, Ch. 177, Sec. 33. Effective August 24, 2007.)