Existing law establishes and requires the State Department of Social Services to administer the CalFood Program to provide food and funding to food banks whose primary function is to facilitate the distribution of food to low-income households, as specified. This bill would require the department to provide a food assistance benefit to low-income California residents, regardless of immigration status, by contracting with nonprofit entities, as defined, to issue the food assistance benefit in the form of prepaid cards. The bill would require the department to procure the prepaid cards to administer the food assistance benefit and to ensure the availability of those prepaid cards to nonprofit entities, as specified. The bill would require participating nonprofit entities to maintain specified records. The bill would require the department and nonprofit entities to distribute all of the food assistance benefits by July 1, 2023. The bill would authorize the department to implement, interpret, or make specific these provisions without taking regulatory action. The bill would exempt contracts awarded pursuant to these provisions from personal services contracting requirements, the Public Contract Code, and the State Contracting Manual, and the contracts would not be subject to the approval of the Department of General Services. The bill would make these provisions operative upon appropriation. The bill would require the department, in consultation with a workgroup, to author a report to provide recommendations and solutions for a permanent food assistance program for low-income California residents experiencing food insecurity, to complete that report by January 1, 2023, and to submit a copy of that report to the Legislature, as specified. This bill would repeal its provisions on January 1, 2025. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Sponsored bills
This measure would proclaim June 4, 2021, as National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Department of Motor Vehicles to ensure that all eligible inmates released from state prison have valid identification cards. Existing law also establishes requirements for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for persons in state prison who are exonerated, including transitional services and financial support, as specified. Existing law establishes an $8 fee for a replacement identification card issued to an eligible inmate upon release from a state or federal correctional facility or a county jail, as specified. This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to make all reasonable efforts to ensure that all inmates released from state prison are released with a valid California identification card or a duplicate or renewal driver's license, unless an inmate willfully chooses to not obtain a California identification card or driver's license. The bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where a valid California identification card or driver's license is not obtained before release, to provide the inmate with a photo prison identification card. The bill would require, among other things, that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation obtain Department of Motor Vehicles-approved cameras, determine the documentation inmates require for California identification cards and driver's licenses and provide inmates with the opportunity and means to obtain those documents, provide inmates with the opportunity and means to work with the Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain a California identification card or driver's license, and to make licensing examinations available to inmates. The bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to prepare an annual report for the Legislature regarding this program that includes information about the number of inmates assisted, the number of facilities providing services, and impediments to program implementation. This bill would extend the $8 fee to an original or duplicate identification card as well as to an original, duplicate, or renewal driver's license issued to an inmate upon release, as specified. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to the law pertaining to exonerated persons.