A tad late, but this provides notice of the changes to child support assignment of pre-assistance arrears resulting from the implementation of the Federal Deficit Reduction Act (FDRA) of 2005. The Department of Child Support Services (DCSS) issued policy letter CSS 09-14 on September 23, 2009 regarding the requirement to assign support as a condition of eligibility for CalWORKs cash aid. An aided family is no longer required to assign their pre-assistance child support arrears as a condition of eligibility for public assistance. Effective October 1, 2009, the FDRA limited the assignment to the amount of support that accrued during the period that a family receives aid, not to exceed the cumulative amount of the “unreimbursed assistance pool (UAP).” To address the fact that families may have had their cases handled incorrectly for almost 2 years, the state “strongly encourage CWDs to notify applicants and recipients that they may begin to receive Child Support payments in excess of the child support $50 disregard, and that they need to report this income, if it exceeds the Income Reporting Threshold (IRT). Also includes information on unticking the months on aid. [Download]
Summaries of select CalWORKs, CalFresh, Health and Housing Regulations