Supporting the county's sponsored Senate Bill 462

The State of California created and required all counties to use a single technological system to administer federal and local public benefits, which is referred to as the California Statewide Automated Welfare System (CalSAWS).  In support of the County of Santa Clara’s Social Services Agency’s transition from the prior technological system to CalSAWs, we identified a difference in the legal privacy requirements that apply to the County’s public benefit program, referred to as the General Assistance (GA) program, and legal privacy requirements that apply to federally funded benefit programs such as CalFresh, CalWORKS, Medi-Cal, etc.  Without a change to the law, CalSAWs would not have been able to support the GA program.  Our Office wrote a proposed revision to the law to align the GA program privacy requirements with all other benefit program privacy requirements—this proposed revision formed the basis for Senate Bill (SB) 462.  SB 462 became law on January 1, 2024.  Because of this change in law, GA benefits and federally funded benefit programs can all be administered in CalSAWS in a compliant manner while ensuring client privacy is maintained without impacting client service.