AB 85 (Rodriguez) will not move forward this year after being
held in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on July 11. This
means it will not meet the July 14 deadline to be passed by
relevant policy committees.
CSAC, along with the County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA),
Urban Counties of California (UCC), and Rural County
Representatives of California (RCRC), recently moved to an oppose
position on this bill. AB 85 would have required counties to
alter their locally-established General Assistance (GA) or
General Relief (GR) eligibility levels to provide additional
county-funded assistance to veterans. AB 85 presented a
significant infringement on counties’ statutory GA authority by
imposing a statewide mandate for a specific population without
identifying a source of funding for the requirement.
We recommended that the bill be amended to create a structure
that offers counties funding to opt into a new Extended GA/GR for
Veterans program, but our requests were not accepted. For more
details, read our most recent
joint opposition letter.
At the hearing, Senators raised concerns about the lack of data
on how many veterans would be served by this bill and passing a
mandate with unknown costs on to counties. CSAC is pleased to see
this bill held in committee because of the mandate on counties,
but does remain committed to working with the author and sponsor
on an appropriate approach to this issue.
