The federal budget has a significant and important impact on California's Child Support Program. While CSDA does not advocate or lobby on federal child support budget issues, CSDA does provide education on the impact that federal budget proposals may have on the program.
HR 1 Restoration of Matching Funds on Federal Incentives -- On January 27, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1 “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009”
click here by a vote of 244-188. Included in the bill is a provision that was brought over from H.R. 598
click here that would temporarily reverse the provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) of 2005 that prohibited states from drawing federal matching funds on earned incentives. The Senate has not acted on its version of the bill. For
California, this would mean an additional $30 million of State General Fund dollars that would be eligible to draw down federal incentives. However, what is likely to happen is that
California will reduce its General Fund commitment by a corresponding amount. This would be consistent as
California increased its General Fund commitment to the Child Support Program by $30 million in order to hold the program harmless from the provisions originally contained in DRA.
For more information on The American Recovery and Investment Act of 2009 and its various provisions, you may want to look at the following documents:
Analysis from the National Association of Counties (NACo)
click here
Analysis from the U.S. House of Representatives
click here
Analysis from the American Public Human Services Association
click here
The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) published a Fact Sheet entitled Child Support Funding Stimulates and Economic Recovery
click here CLASP published this Fact Sheet in support of the Child Support Provisions contained in H.R. 1