This special joint meeting of the Public Purpose and Health Committee focused on the impacts of the federal HR1 legislation on CalFresh and Medi-Cal programs in Alameda County. Staff from the Social Services Agency (SSA) and Alameda County Health (AC Health) presented detailed data on policy changes, implementation timelines, projected coverage losses, and fiscal implications. No public comments were received on the informational items.
Okay. Okay, that goes. All right. Good afternoon. And welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors special joint meeting of the public purpose and health committee meeting for Monday, February the 9th, 2026. We are formed to talk about HR one. So may I have roll call, please? Supervisor Miley. Present. Supervisor reports on the past. Present. We have a form. Thank you. Do you want to go through instructions? Sure. Public participation is allowed in person online via the for all participants. Please state your name for the record prior to your comment. If you wish to speak on a matter not on the agenda, please wait until supervisors. Supervisor Tab calls for public and put a non-agenda item. Only matters within the committee's jurisdiction may be addressed. Do you know where the clerk that you wish to speak? So in person for the speaker card at the front of the room and have it to the clerk. The clerk will call your name and allow you to speak. For online participants, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of the screen. The clerk call your name and allow you to unmute when it is your turn. You raise and lower your hand. Thank you. Today we are going to present on some of the updates related to the CalPresh program on HR one. So to begin, we're going to talk about all of the provisions in HR one that pertain to Cal Fresh. The first that we'll talk about is the limiting of the uh state utility allowance subsidies. We also call that as SUAS. This policy went into effect last year, October 31st, 2005. What the SUAS is, it is a $20.10 cash benefit payment that's loaded onto a household's EBT cards, and it allows households to qualify for the largest utility allowance. There are three of them. There's the standard utility allowance, which is the highest, the limited utility allowance, which is the one below, and then lastly the telephone utility allowance. What the standard utility allowance does is because it is the highest utility allowance, it will generally lead to a greater CalFresh benefit issuance for eligible households. What HR1 has done now is added an additional requirement to qualify for SUAS. So beginning October 31st of last year, only households that have a elderly, which is 60 or older, or a disabled member will now qualify for SUAS. At each household's next recertification on or after October 31st, we will reevaluate to see if that household comprises an elderly or disabled individual. And if it does not, that household will lose the standard utility allowance, the SUA, which is again the highest utility allowance, and they'll be bracketed down to either the limited utility allowance or the telephone utility allowance, or if they don't meet any of those utility allowances, they won't get a utility allowance at all. What this does is the negative impact is that we will likely see the individuals that lose access to the SUS payment and to SUA, they will have a lower CalFresh benefit allotment. And in some very rare cases, the household could also lose access to CalFresh entirely, can be no longer eligible. The next uh impact is the reevaluation of the thrifty food plan. This again is uh, oh sorry, uh what this does is it limits how frequently and how much the CalFresh benefit allowances the issuances can be. Every year at the beginning of federal fiscal year, which is from October 1st through September 30th of the following year, uh USDA food and nutrition services, FNS, they calculate a cost of living adjustment. And so the reevaluation of the Thrifty Food Plan uh has made it so that the cost of food increases over time or any changes to the dietary guidelines from the federal government will not be taken into consideration, and as a result, uh what we will likely see is the CalFresh benefit uh maximum benefit amounts will likely uh increase very low, very small each federal fiscal year or not at all. Uh one other provision of this is that uh CalFresh benefits. Currently there is no cap, but under HR1 household sizes of 18 or greater will be capped. There'll be a maximum benefit that they can receive, even though they may be uh potentially entitled to more, they're just gonna be capped at 18. In Alameda County, we do not have any households that are of this size, but there could be in the future.