The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has released In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) Statewide Collective Bargaining: Report to the Legislature. The Budget Act of 2023 (Chapter 38, Statutes of 2023) required CDSS to prepare an analysis of the costs and benefits of transitioning IHSS collective bargaining from the counties to the state. The required workgroup met throughout 2024 and included representatives from the California State Association of Counties (CSAC), the County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), the California Association of Public Authorities (CAPA), IHSS provider unions, and IHSS consumers. The report was due to the Legislature by January 1, 2025, but is being submitted in April 2025.

Report Findings

The CDSS report does not provide a recommendation on whether IHSS collective bargaining should transition from counties to the state, but rather includes a comprehensive analysis of the various fiscal and policy considerations that would be involved in moving bargaining to the state level. The report examines cost estimates for wage increases, implications on the Realignment structure, impacts on recruitment and retention, and potential funding sources. Some significant takeaways from the report include:

• Based on the most recent caseload growth estimates, a $1 hourly statewide wage increase would have an initial cost of $1.5 billion and a $5 hourly statewide wage increase would have an initial cost of $7.3 billion. Roughly 45 percent of these costs would be the nonfederal share based on the existing federal cost sharing commitment.
• The report acknowledges that further discussion is needed on many topics including the impacts to the county maintenance of effort (MOE) and 1991 Realignment if statewide bargaining were to move forward.
• The report includes the CSAC and CWDA review of the statewide wage increase cost estimates, which details how a county share of those increases would not fit within the structure of Realignment resulting in unfunded caseload growth, less funding for health and mental health programs, and significant investment from county General Fund. It also references the report CDSS commissioned from the UC Berkeley Labor Center that had similar findings about the IHSS collective bargaining impacts to county Realignment funding.
• There was no consensus on what should be included within the scope of bargaining for statewide bargaining with differing opinions on whether there should be a narrow scope focused on simply wages and benefits or a broader scope.
• There was not enough data to draw meaningful conclusions about the impact of statewide bargaining on provider recruitment and retention.

County Input

CSAC, CWDA, and CAPA provided the county perspective on all topics discussed and formally presented on certain items including 1991 Realignment and the county MOE. Counties were represented on the workgroup by Justin Garrett (Senior Legislative Advocate) and Monica Nino (County Administrator, Contra Costa County) for CSAC, Eileen Cubanski (Interim Executive Director) and Randy Morris (Human Services Director, Santa Cruz County) for CWDA, and Kim Rothschild (Executive Director) and Kim Britt (Public Authority Director, Yolo County IHSS Public Authority) for CAPA.

Our associations were committed to engaging on the concept of statewide collective bargaining and did so through the broad framing that if IHSS collective bargaining were to transition to the state level, it must do so in a manner that maintains the consumer-driven foundation of the IHSS program while mitigating for any fiscal, legal, and administrative impacts to counties, and attracting an adequate number of quality providers to sustain the growth of the program. Prior to the release of the report, workgroup members were provided an opportunity to review the final report and submit a comment letter for inclusion in the appendix. CSAC, CWDA, and CAPA collaborated on a comment letter that reinforced our key input and responded to some specific aspects of the report. Our key overall messages throughout the process were:

• The state should be responsible for the full nonfederal share of cost for any negotiated wage and benefit increases agreed to under statewide collective bargaining, as the state would be solely responsible for agreeing to wage and benefit increases and counties would have no ability to manage the associated costs within Realignment funding and county budgets.
• The state should fully fund the costs of any new mandates or increased county and public authority (PA) workload that results from items agreed to in statewide bargaining. This should include costs for workload increases or potential downstream impacts associated with any non-economic proposals that may be agreed to by the state.
• The scope of representation in statewide bargaining should be limited primarily to wages and benefits and should not include functions performed by county social service agencies and PAs, which are not currently bargained at the local level including payroll processing, provider registries, backup providers, and provider orientations. Continued legislative and departmental oversight over these administrative duties, which are currently mandated through state law and/or regulated through CDSS, is appropriate instead of inclusion in the scope of bargaining.

Next Steps

The report serves to provide an analysis of the costs and benefits that policy makers can take into consideration for any potential legislative efforts to transition bargaining to the state level. The IHSS provider unions are sponsoring AB 283 (Haney) that would transition IHSS collective bargaining to the state. AB 283 passed the Assembly Public Employment and Retirement Committee in March and has been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. CSAC, CWDA, and CAPA have a pending position on this legislation and are seeking amendments that reflect the fiscal and programmatic issues we raised throughout the CDSS workgroup process. Our organizations are in ongoing conversations with the sponsors about these potential amendments.

The Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services held a hearing on Wednesday, April 9 that featured the IHSS collective bargaining report with CSAC representing the county perspective on the panel. While AB 283 continues to move forward, it’s important to note that in prior years, all significant changes to IHSS collective bargaining and the county MOE have occurred through budget trailer bills. To the extent that the Administration is open to statewide bargaining, it is likely that this would occur through the state budget and trailer bill process.