The Community Care Licensing (CCL) Division of the Department of Social Services (DSS) develops and enforces regulations designed to protect the health and safety of individuals in 24–hour residential care facilities and day care. The CCL oversees the licensing of about 86,000 facilities, including child care centers, family child care homes, foster family and group homes; adult residential facilities; and residential facilities for the elderly. Counties who have opted to perform their own licensing operations monitor approximately 11,000 of these facilities.
The Governor’s budget proposes total expenditures of $118.2 million ($37.3 million General Fund) for CCL in 2008–09. This is an increase of $1.7 million ($1.3 million General Fund) from the current year. These amounts include state operations and local assistance for the five counties that perform their own licensing operations. Most of the increase is due to the extension of limited–term staff to complete a backlog of facility inspections.
The Governor’s budget proposes to reduce the Community Care Licensing (CCL) random visits from 30 percent to 14 percent of facilities, resulting in estimated General Fund savings of $2.3 million in 2008–09. Under this proposal, the majority of facilities would receive an inspection approximately once every seven years. We provide background information on existing inspection statutes, describe the potential impact of the proposed reduction on CCL’s ability to meet current law, and provide the Legislature with two alternatives.
Current Law. The CCL Division of DSS performs different types of inspection visits to licensed facilities. Facilities with complaints filed against them or those with new applications receive prompt inspections. Those facilities that require close monitoring, due to their compliance history or because they care for developmentally disabled clients, receive annual inspections. Approximately 10 percent of community care facilities require these annual visits.
The remaining 90 percent of community care facilities are subject to a routine unannounced inspection only if selected as part of a 30 percent random sample of facilities. This equates to about 21,300 facilities per year. In practice, this sampling procedure means that most of the licensed facilities in California would receive a routine visit once every three years. In addition to the 30 percent random inspection protocol, there is a separate statutory requirement that a community care facility be visited at least once every five years.
Governor’s Proposal. The Governor’s budget proposes to reduce the current 30 percent random inspection protocol to 14 percent of facilities. This would result in a reduction of 33 positions and an estimated General Fund savings of $2.3 million in 2008–09, increasing to an annualized savings of $4.7 million General Fund and 66 positions in the following year (these amounts include local assistance). Under this proposal, facilities with complaints would continue to receive prompt attention and those 10 percent of facilities that require close monitoring would continue to receive annual inspections. The remaining 90 percent of facilities would receive inspections at a substantially reduced frequency, as part of a 14 percent random sample of facilities. This proposal will require a change in statute, reducing the current random sample of unannounced visits from 30 percent to 14 percent of facilities. The Governor proposes to retain the existing statutory requirement to visit a facility at least once every five years.
Reduced Random Inspections May Impact Compliance With Existing Statute. Based on our review of CCL’s workload and staffing levels, we believe the proposed reduction in random inspections would result in a maximum of 70 percent of facilities receiving a visit at least once every five years. In other words, this proposed staffing level is sufficient to support one facility visit every seven years. Thus, this proposal would be in conflict with the existing statutory requirement to visit every facility at least once every five years.
Alternatives for Legislative Consideration. The proposed reduction to random inspections to community care facilities means that CCL would be unable to comply with the existing statute to visit a facility at least once every five years. To meet the current law standard, CCL would most likely ask for additional resources as it approaches 2013 (five years from now). The Legislature has two options for resolving this issue. First, the Legislature could reduce the current 30 percent random inspection level to 14 percent and amend the existing five–year statute to a minimum requirement of at least one facility visit every seven years. Second, the Legislature could raise the random inspection level from the Governor’s proposed 14 percent to 20 percent, to fund CCL at a level that corresponds with the existing five–year statute. This second alternative would reduce General Fund savings from $2.3 million to approximately $1.4 million.
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2008-09 Budget Analysis
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