CalWORKs: maximum grant amount.

(1) Existing law requires each county to provide cash assistance and other social services to needy families through the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program using federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program, state, and county funds. Existing law requires the amount of cash aid paid each month to CalWORKs recipients to be determined by deducting the family's income, as specified, from specified sums, as adjusted for cost-of-living increases. Existing law prohibits the amount of cash aid paid each month from exceeding those sums, as adjusted for cost-of-living increases, plus any allowance for recurring special needs, as specified. This bill would incrementally increase over 3 years the sums from which the family's income is to be deducted to determine the amount of cash aid paid each month, as specified, and would prohibit the amount of cash aid from being more than those specified sums. (2) Existing law provides an annual cost-of-living adjustment to maximum aid payments provided to families under the CalWORKs program, but suspends the adjustment for certain periods, including for the 2010–11 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter. This bill would reinstate the annual cost-of-living adjustment beginning in the 2019–20 fiscal year, as specified. (3) Existing law continuously appropriates moneys from the General Fund to defray a portion of county costs under the CalWORKs program, and requires a county share of cost to be subtracted from that General Fund appropriation. This bill would provide that the continuous appropriation would not be made for purposes of implementing the bill, and would exempt counties from being required to contribute a share of cost to cover the incremental increases to maximum aid payments described in paragraph (1) . (4) The bill would be operative only to the extent that funding is provided, by express reference, in the annual Budget Act for the purposes of the bill.