(a) The state shall reinvest adoption and guardianship incentive payments received through the implementation of the federal Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-351) and the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (Public Law 113-183) into the child welfare system, in order to provide legal permanency outcomes for older children, including, but not limited to, adoption, guardianship, and reunification of children whose reunification services were previously terminated.
(b) The incentive payments received pursuant to subdivision (a), upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or another statute, shall be allocated by the State Department of Social Services to the counties, and the department for a county in which the department serves as an adoption agency, based on documented increases in legal permanency outcomes for older children achieved by each county, as determined by the department, in consultation with counties, for the purposes specified in this section.
(c) A county, or the department when it acts as the adoption agency for a county, shall use adoption and guardianship incentive payment funds to improve or sustain legal permanency outcomes for older children.
(d) Nothing in this section shall be construed to supplant funds currently being spent on programs to provide legal permanency outcomes.
(Amended by Stats. 2015, Ch. 425, Sec. 26. (SB 794) Effective January 1, 2016.)