SB 1

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) The Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act requires the State Department of Developmental Services to contract with regional centers to provide services and supports to individuals with developmental disabilities. Under existing law, the regional centers purchase needed services for individuals with developmental disabilities through approved service providers or arrange for those services through other publicly funded agencies. The annual Budget Act also appropriates funds to the department to fund regional center operations. This bill would require the department, subject to an appropriation by the Legislature for these purposes, to increase the funding paid to a regional center for the regional center's operating budget by 10%, and to increase funding to enable the regional center and the regional center's purchase-of-service vendors to fund certain costs related to minimum wage requirements. The bill would also require the department to develop a 10-year financial sustainability plan to ensure that the state's community-based developmental services system effectively serves all individuals with developmental disabilities. (2) Existing law establishes specified rates to be paid to certain service providers and the rates to be paid for certain developmental services. Existing law requires that rates to be paid to other developmental service providers either be set by the department or negotiated between the regional center and the service provider. This bill would increase the rates established by existing law by 10%, as specified, and would require a 10% increase to the rates set by the department and the rates negotiated between regional centers and service providers, as specified. (3) Existing law requires an entity that receives payments between $250,000 and $500,000 per year from one or more regional centers to obtain either an independent audit or independent review report of its financial statements and requires an entity that receives payments that are equal to or more than $500,000 per year to obtain an independent audit. Existing law exempts payments made using usual and customary rates for services provided by regional centers from these requirements. This bill would instead require an entity to obtain only an independent review report of its financial statements relating to payments made by regional centers if it receives payments between $250,000 and $2,000,000 from one or more regional centers and would authorize these entities to apply for, and require the regional center to grant, a 2-year exemption from this requirement if the regional center does not find issues in the prior year's independent review report that have an impact on regional center services. The bill would also require an entity to obtain an independent audit of its financial statements relating to payments made by regional centers if it receives payments that are equal to or more than $2,000,000 and would authorize these entities to apply for, and require the regional center to grant, a 2-year exemption from the audit requirement if the prior year's audit resulted in an unmodified opinion, an unmodified opinion with additional communication, or a qualified opinion with issues that are not material and pervasive. The bill would require a regional center to notify the department of any exemption it grants to an entity that receives a qualified opinion report. The bill would also exempt social security benefit payments from these requirements.