Perinatal care: The Nurse-Family Partnership.

Existing law establishes the Nurse-Family Partnership program to provide grants for voluntary nurse home visiting programs for expectant first-time mothers, their children, and their families, as specified. Existing law prohibits the use of grant moneys to match other grants administered by the State Department of Public Health. This bill would allow the use of Nurse-Family Partnership program grant moneys as a match for other grants administered by the department. Existing law establishes the California Families and Children Account in the State Treasury to accept private donations to pay for the program. The account is continuously appropriated to the department for this purpose. Existing law only allows grants to be distributed if the Director of Finance determines that there are sufficient funds from private donations available in the account. Additionally, under existing law, if there are not sufficient funds on deposit in the account by January 1, 2009, the account shall cease to exist. This bill would delete the continuous appropriation and would, instead, make those funds available for the program upon appropriation by the Legislature, and would permit the department to accept federal grants for purposes of the program. This bill would revise existing law to require the program to be implemented if the Director of the Department of Finance determines that at least $500,000 is available in the account. If this determination is not made by a specified date, it would require that the account cease to exist and funds in the account immediately be distributed to each contributor. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.