Bill Text: CA AB56 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

---

Bill Title: Benefits: outgoing mail: claim processing: reporting.

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Passed) 2021-10-05 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 510, Statutes of 2021. [AB56 Detail]

Download: California-2021-AB56-Amended.html

---

Amended  IN  Assembly  March 26, 2021

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 56

---

Introduced by Assembly Member Salas
(Principal coauthor: Senator Laird)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Chiu, Maienschein, Petrie-Norris, Robert Rivas, and Villapudua)
(Coauthor: Senator Min)

December 07, 2020

---

An act to amend Section 11019.7 of the Government Code, to amend Section 11105.9 of the Penal Code, and to amend Section 2614 of, and to add Sections 1253.93, 1326.1, 1326.7, 1326.8, 2701.1, and 3657 to 320.4 and 1326.8 to, the Unemployment Insurance Code, relating to benefits.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 56, as amended, Salas. Benefits: outgoing mail, identity verification, and direct deposit. mail: claim processing: reporting.

(1) Existing law prohibits a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail, as defined, to an individual that contains personal information about that individual, including, but not limited to, the individual’s social security number, unless that personal information is contained within sealed correspondence and cannot be viewed from the outside of that sealed correspondence. Existing law also prohibits, commencing on or before January 1, 2023, a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains the individual’s social security number, except as provided. Existing law requires state agencies that are unable to comply with this prohibition to submit an annual corrective action plan to the Legislature until it is in compliance. Existing law makes the corrective action plan and related correspondence confidential and prohibits their public disclosure.

This bill would prohibit, commencing on or before December 1, 2022, the Employment Development Department (department) from sending any outgoing United States mail, as defined, to an individual containing the individual’s full social security number, except as provided. The bill would require the department to submit require an annual corrective action plan containing to contain specified information and to be submitted to the Legislature every December 15 if the department fails to comply. 15. If the department Employment Development Department fails to comply by January 1, 2023, the bill would require, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the department to provide access to and pay for identity theft monitoring for any individual who receives outgoing United States mail from the department that contains full social security numbers in violation of the bill’s provisions.

(2)Existing law requires the Department of Justice to maintain state summary criminal history information, including the identification and criminal history of a person, including name, date of birth, social security number, physical description, fingerprints, photographs, dates of arrests, arresting agencies and booking numbers, charges, dispositions, sentencing information, and similar data about the person. Existing law requires the Attorney General to furnish this information to specified persons, agencies, or organizations, including the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, if needed in the course of their duties. Existing law makes it a crime for any person authorized by law to receive state summary criminal history information to knowingly furnish the information to a person who is not authorized by law to receive it.

Existing law authorizes the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide the social security numbers of current or former inmates to the department, the California Workforce Development Board, or the California Workforce Development Board’s designee for specified purposes relating to tracking the labor market and other workforce development outcomes.

This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide the social security numbers of current or former inmates to the department for purposes of verifying whether an individual is currently incarcerated and ineligible for unemployment compensation, disability, or extended duration benefits. The bill would require the department to keep the social security numbers confidential and use them only to verify eligibility for these benefits. The bill would prohibit the department from disseminating social security numbers received from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for purposes of verifying eligibility for these benefits. By expanding the group of persons who can be convicted for knowingly furnishing state summary criminal history information to unauthorized persons, it would expand the scope of an existing crime and therefore impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

(3)Existing law authorizes the department to administer the state unemployment insurance and the disability compensation programs and to distribute those benefits.

This bill would require the department to distribute these benefits through direct deposit without the use of an EDD debit card upon request of an eligible claimant.

(4)Existing law sets forth requirements for eligibility and disqualification from the unemployment compensation benefit program. Existing law disqualifies an individual for unemployment compensation benefits if the individual willfully, for the purpose of obtaining unemployment compensation benefits, either made a false statement or representation, including, but not limited to, using a false social security number or other false identification, with actual knowledge of the falsity thereof, or withheld a material fact in order to obtain unemployment compensation benefits. Pursuant to existing law, department regulations require individuals to verify certain information, including social security numbers, in specified scenarios.

This bill would provide that an unemployed individual is not disqualified for eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits for, among other things, refusing to verify the individual’s social security number as being the one issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration, even if the information available to the department indicates the number is not valid or was never issued by the Social Security Administration, or indicates that the wages shown in the base period of the claim may belong to another individual. The bill would also prohibit the department, including the director, from requesting a claimant to verify the individual’s social security number as being the one issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration, from submitting verification of the individual’s social security number or a copy of the individual’s annual statement issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration, or from providing the individual’s driver’s license number or identification card number.

(2) Existing law establishes the department within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and sets forth its powers and duties, including administration of the unemployment and disability insurance programs for California. Existing law requires the department to pay unemployment compensation benefits to unemployed individuals meeting specified requirements, to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility for and the amount of benefits in the unemployment insurance program, and to report to the Legislature, as specified. Under existing law, unemployment compensation benefits are paid from the Unemployment Fund, and the expenses for administering these provisions are paid from the Unemployment Administration Fund, which is continuously appropriated for these purposes.

This bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to comply with various reporting and review processes. The bill would set forth a timeline for the department to follow in implementing these tasks. In this regard, the bill would require the department, among other things, to report specified information regarding overpayments at least once every 6 months on its internet website, to immediately perform a risk assessment of its deferred workloads, and to develop a workload plan that prioritizes its deferred workloads based on that risk assessment. The bill would require the department to immediately begin modeling workload projections that account for possible scenarios that would cause a spike in unemployment insurance claims, as provided.

This bill would require the department to revise its public dashboards with regard to the number of backlogged claims, as specified. The bill would require the department to determine the reasons that claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification, as specified, and to identify the elements of the Benefit System Modernization that can assist the department in making timely payments. The bill would require the department to implement a formal policy that establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why unemployment insurance claimants call for assistance and to regularly analyze this data, as specified, to improve its call center.

This bill would require the department to convene 2 working groups, including one to assess the lessons learned from claim surges, to identify the processes that the department can still improve, and to issue a report by January 1, 2023, as specified. The bill would also require the department, by March 1, 2022, to designate a unit as responsible for coordinating all fraud prevention and detection, as specified.

Existing law requires the Director of Employment Development to report to various committees of the Legislature by June 30 of each year on the department’s fraud deterrence and detection activities.

This bill would require that report to include an assessment of the effectiveness of the department’s system of cross matching claims against information about incarcerated individuals and an assessment about the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection tools, as specified. The bill would also remove an obsolete reference to a predecessor committee and would instead refer to the Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement.

This bill would also require the department to request any personal identification information required from the claimant in accordance with the most recent federal National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-63 standards, as specified.

(5)This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to penalize the department for failing to provide eligible unemployment insurance claimants with their benefits in a timely manner.

Digest Key

Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: YESNO  

---

Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 Section 11019.7 of the Government Code is amended to read:

11019.7.

 (a) A state agency shall not send any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains personal information about that individual, including, but not limited to, the individual’s social security number, telephone number, driver’s license number, or credit card account number, unless that personal information is contained within sealed correspondence and cannot be viewed from the outside of that sealed correspondence.

(b) (1) Notwithstanding any other law, and except as provided in paragraph (2), commencing on or before January 1, 2023, a state agency shall not send any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains the individual’s social security number unless the number is truncated to its last four digits, except in the following circumstances:

(A) Federal law requires inclusion of the social security number.

(B) The documents are mailed to a current or prospective state employee.

(C) An individual erroneously mailed a document containing a social security number to a state agency, and the state agency is returning the original document by certified or registered United States mail.

(D) The Controller is returning documents to an individual previously submitted by the individual pursuant to Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 1500) of Title 10 of Part 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

(E) The document is sent in response to a valid request for access to personal information, pursuant to Section 1798.34 of the Civil Code.

(2)Commencing on December 1, 2022, the Employment Development Department shall not send any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains the individual’s social security number unless the number is truncated to its last four digits, except in the circumstances described in subparagraphs (A) to (E), inclusive, of paragraph (1).

(3)

(2) (A) On or before September 1, 2021, each state agency that mails an individual’s full or truncated part of a social security number to that individual, other than as permitted by paragraph (1), shall report to the Legislature regarding when and why it does so.

(B) A state agency that, in its own estimation, that is unable to comply with the requirements of paragraph (1) of this subdivision shall submit an annual corrective action plan to the Legislature by December 15 of each year until it is in compliance with that paragraph. The annual corrective action plan shall include, at a minimum, all of the following:

(C)An annual corrective action plan submitted by the Employment Development Department shall be submitted every December 15 and shall also include all of the following:

(i) The steps the department agency has taken to stop including full social security numbers on outgoing United States mail.

(ii) The number of documents sent as outgoing United States mail from which the department agency has successfully removed full social security numbers and the approximate mailing volume corresponding with those documents.

(iii) The remaining steps that the department agency plans to take to remove or replace full social security numbers it includes on documents sent as outgoing United States mail.

(iv) The number of documents and approximate mailing volume associated with those documents that the department agency has yet to address.

(v) The expected date by which the department agency will stop sending documents that contain full social security numbers as outgoing United States mail to individuals.

(D)

(C) A report required by subparagraph (A) of this paragraph or corrective action plan required by subparagraph (B) or (C) of this paragraph and communications made in connection with these documents that bear on what mailings do and do not contain an individual’s social security number, are confidential and shall not be disclosed to the public pursuant to any state law, including, but not limited to, the California Public Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7 of Title 1 of the Government Code).

(3) (A) The requirement for submitting a report imposed under subparagraph (A) of paragraph (3) (2) is inoperative on January 1, 2024, pursuant to Section 10231.5 of the Government Code.

(B) A report to be submitted pursuant to subparagraph (A), (B), or (C) (A) or (B) of paragraph (3) (2) shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.

(c) Upon appropriation by the Legislature, if the Employment Development Department fails to comply with paragraph (2) (1) of subdivision (b) by January 1, 2023, the department shall provide access to and pay for identity theft monitoring for any individual who receives outgoing United States mail from the department that contains the individual’s social security number in violation of paragraph (2) (1) of subdivision (b).

(d) “Outgoing United States mail” for the purposes of this section includes correspondence sent via a common carrier, including, but not limited to, a package express service and a courier service.

(e) Notwithstanding subdivision (a) of Section 11000, “state agency” includes the California State University.

SEC. 2.Section 11105.9 of the Penal Code is amended to read:

11105.9.

(a)Notwithstanding subdivision (g) of Section 11105 and subdivision (a) of Section 13305, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation may provide the social security numbers of current or former inmates to the Employment Development Department, the California Workforce Development Board, or the California Workforce Development Board’s designee for the purposes set forth in subdivision (i) of Section 14013 of the Unemployment Insurance Code. The Employment Development Department, the California Workforce Development Board, and any board designee shall keep the social security numbers confidential and use them only to track the labor market and other employment outcomes of program participants, as described in subdivision (i) of Section 14013 of the Unemployment Insurance Code.

(b)Notwithstanding any other law, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shall provide the social security numbers of current or former inmates to the Employment Development Department for purposes of verifying whether an individual is currently incarcerated and ineligible for unemployment compensation, disability, or extended duration benefits pursuant to Part 1 (commencing with Section 100), Part 2 (commencing with Section 2601), or Part 3 (commencing with Section 3501) of Division 1 of the Unemployment Insurance Code, respectively. The Employment Development Department shall keep the social security numbers confidential and use them only to verify eligibility for these unemployment compensation, disability, or extended duration benefits.

(c)(1)The Employment Development Department, the California Workforce Development Board, and any board designee shall not disseminate social security numbers obtained pursuant to subdivision (a) to an individual or public entity not identified in this section.

(2)The Employment Development Department shall not disseminate social security numbers obtained pursuant to subdivision (b).

SEC. 3.Section 1253.93 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

1253.93.

An unemployed individual shall not be disqualified for eligibility for unemployment compensation benefits for any of the following reasons:

(a)Refusing to verify the individual’s social security number as being the one issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration, even if the information available to the department indicates the number is not valid or was never issued by the Social Security Administration, or indicates that the wages shown in the base period of the claim may belong to another individual.

(b)Refusing to submit verification of the individual’s social security number or a copy of the individual’s annual statement issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration.

(c)Refusing to provide the individual’s driver’s license number or identification card number.

SEC. 4.Section 1326.1 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

1326.1.

Notwithstanding any other law, the department shall distribute unemployment compensation benefits through direct deposit by electronic fund transfer into an eligible claimant’s account at the financial institution of the eligible claimant’s choice without the use of an EDD debit card upon the request of an eligible claimant in the form and manner prescribed by the department.

SEC. 5.Section 1326.7 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

1326.7.

The department, including the director, shall not request a claimant to do any of the following to be eligible for unemployment compensation benefits under this chapter:

(a)Verify the individual’s social security number as being the one issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration, even if the information available to the department indicates the number is not valid or was never issued by the Social Security Administration, or indicates that the wages shown in the base period of the claim may belong to another individual.

(b)Submit verification of the individual’s social security number or a copy of the individual’s annual statement issued to the individual by the Social Security Administration.

(c)Provide the individual’s driver’s license number or identification card number.

SEC. 2.

 Section 320.4 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

320.4.

 (a) Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the department shall do all of the following:

(1) (A) Report at least once every six months on its internet website all of the following information:

(i) The amount of benefit payments for which it must assess potential overpayments.

(ii) The amount for which it has issued overpayment notices.

(iii) The amount of overpayments waived.

(iv) The amount repaid related to those overpayment notices.

(B) The reports shall encompass benefit payments made by the department from March 1, 2020, until the time when it resumes all eligibility determinations.

(C) The department shall publish the information required under this paragraph until the repayment period for all the notices has elapsed.

(2) (A) Immediately perform a risk assessment of its deferred workloads, including deferred eligibility determinations and retroactive certifications.

(B) The department’s risk assessment performed under subparagraph (A) shall take into account the relative likelihood that it issued payments to ineligible claimants by considering historic overpayment trends, as well as the new or altered eligibility requirements the federal government adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. If necessary, the department shall either partner with another state agency or contract for assistance in performing the analysis in support of this assessment.

(3) (A) Develop a workload plan that prioritizes its deferred workloads based on the risk assessment performed pursuant to paragraph (2) and determine the staffing and information technology resources needed to accomplish the work within expected time frames.

(B) Hire and train staff as necessary in order to carry out the workload plan. Using the workload plan, the department shall process the deferred work in alignment with all of the following:

(i) The need to pay timely benefits to new or continued claimants.

(ii) Federal expectations about the urgency of the deferred work.

(iii) Any deadlines by which the department may no longer be allowed to recoup inappropriately paid benefits.

(4) Immediately begin modeling workload projections that account for possible scenarios that would cause a spike in unemployment insurance claims. The department shall plan its staffing around the likelihood of those scenarios, including having a contingency plan for less likely scenarios that would have a significant impact on its workload.

(5) By March 1, 2022, revise its public dashboards with regard to the number of backlogged claims in order to clearly describe the difference between those waiting for payment and those that are not, and to clearly indicate the number of claims that have waited longer than 21 days for payment because the department has not yet resolved pending work on the claim.

(6) By June 1, 2022, determine how many of its temporary automation measures for claims processing it can retain and by September 1, 2022, make those a permanent feature of its claims processing.

(7) By June 1, 2022, determine the reasons that claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification through secure identity verification networked, including ID.me, and work with department vendors to resolve identified problems. The department shall thereafter regularly monitor the rate of successful identity verifications to ensure that it consistently minimizes unnecessary staff intervention.

(8) By June 1, 2022, identify the elements of the department’s Benefit Systems Modernization process that can assist the department in making timely payments and that it can implement incrementally. The department shall then prioritize implementing the elements most likely to benefit Californians.

(9) Implement a formal policy by May 1, 2022, that establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why unemployment insurance claimants call for assistance. By October 1, 2021, and every six months thereafter, the department shall analyze this data to improve its call center by doing the following:

(A) Identifying and resolving weaknesses or problems with the ways in which it provides assistance to unemployment insurance claimants through self-service and noncall center options.

(B) Developing specialized training modules to quickly train its call center staff on the most commonly requested items on which callers want assistance.

(10) (A) By May 1, 2022, implement a policy for tracking and monitoring its rate of first-call resolution. The department shall review first-call resolution data at least monthly to evaluate whether it is providing effective assistance to callers.

(B) To maximize the number of calls that department staff are able to answer, as soon as possible, the department shall add prerecorded message functionality to its phone system to advise claimants of their rights and responsibilities after they file their claim with an agent.

(C) To provide a more convenient customer service experience, as soon as possible, the department shall implement features of its phone system that allow callers to request a callback from an agent instead of waiting on hold for assistance.

(11) (A) The department shall regularly cross match unemployment benefit claims against information about individuals incarcerated in state prisons and county jails to ensure that it does not issue payments to people who are ineligible for benefits. The department shall perform the cross matches as quickly as possible after individuals file claims and with as little disruption of legal and eligible claims as possible.

(B) The department shall report on the effectiveness of its cross matching system in accordance with Section 2614.

(12) To prepare to respond to victims of identity theft who receive incorrect tax forms, the department shall, by February 15, 2022, provide information on its internet website and set up a separate email box for those individuals to contact the department and receive prompt resolution.

(13) (A) To the extent consistent with federal law, the department shall immediately obtain from any federally chartered financial institution or other financial institution used by the department to make benefit payments a comprehensive list of claimants’ accounts that are frozen. The department shall immediately thereafter evaluate the list, including considering using ID.me to verify claimants’ identities, to identify accounts that should be unfrozen. By March 1, 2022, the department shall direct the institution to take action to freeze or unfreeze accounts as appropriate to ensure that it provides legitimate claimants with benefits but does not pay benefits related to fraudulent claims.

(B) To ensure that the department reviews each account that an institution reports to it as suspicious or potentially fraudulent, by February 2022, the department shall establish a centralized tracking tool that allows it to review and stop payment on claims, as appropriate. The department shall use this tool to monitor its own internal decisions and track whether the claimant responds to its requests for identity information and should, therefore, have their account unfrozen.

(b) Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the department shall convene both of the following working groups by March 1, 2022:

(1) A working group to assess the lessons learned from claim surges and identify the processes that the department can still improve. The working group shall do both of the following:

(A) Include representatives from the department’s unemployment insurance branch, information technology branch, and executive management, as well as representatives from the 2020 Employment Development Department strike team.

(B) Issue a report on the lessons learned from the claim surge by January 1, 2023. The report shall identify any recommended improvements for the department and include a review of the department’s implementation of the 2020 Employment Development Department strike team recommendations.

(2) A working group to coordinate the work needed to resolve each complaint of identity theft, make decisions about staffing levels necessary, and add staffing to accomplish the work in order to ensure that the department provides appropriate assistance to victims of identity theft who report fraud through the department’s online fraud reporting portal.

(c) (1) Upon appropriation by the Legislature, by March 1, 2022, the department shall designate a unit as responsible for coordinating all fraud prevention and detection. The department shall assign that unit sufficient authority to carry out its responsibilities and align the unit’s duties with the Government Operations Agency’s framework for fraud prevention.

(2) By May 2022, the department shall develop a plan for how it will assess the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection tools.

SEC. 6.SEC. 3.

 Section 1326.8 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

1326.8.

 The department shall request any personal identification information required from the claimant under this part in accordance with the most recent federal National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-63 standards, relating to technical requirements for implementing digital identity services, and as those standards may be amended or updated from time to time.

SEC. 4.

 Section 2614 of the Unemployment Insurance Code is amended to read:

2614.

 (a) The director shall report to the Assembly Committee on Insurance, Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment, and the Senate Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations Labor, Public Employment and Retirement by June 30 of each year on the department’s fraud deterrence and detection activities.

(b) The department shall assess the effectiveness of the department’s system of cross matching claims against information about incarcerated individuals pursuant to Section 320.4. The assessment shall include how regularly the department performs the cross matches, how successful the cross matches are in detecting and preventing fraud, and whether the cross matches negatively affect eligible claimants attempting to legally obtain benefits. The department shall include this assessment in its annual report on fraud deterrence and detection activities.

(c) (1) By January 1, 2023, and biannually thereafter, the department shall assess the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection tools and determine the degree to which those tools overlap or duplicate one another without providing any additional benefit. The department shall then eliminate any fraud prevention and detection approach for which it lacks clear evidence of effectiveness. The department shall include this assessment in its annual report on fraud deterrence and detection activities.

(2) By July 2022, the department shall provide the Legislature with an update on its progress in performing this analysis.

SEC. 7.Section 2701.1 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

2701.1.

Notwithstanding any other law, the department shall distribute disability benefits through direct deposit by electronic fund transfer into an eligible claimant’s account at the financial institution of the eligible claimant’s choice without the use of an EDD debit card upon the request of an eligible claimant in the form and manner prescribed by the department.

SEC. 8.Section 3657 is added to the Unemployment Insurance Code, to read:

3657.

Notwithstanding any other law, the department shall distribute extended duration benefits through direct deposit by electronic fund transfer into an eligible claimant’s account at the financial institution of the eligible claimant’s choice without the use of an EDD debit card upon the request of an eligible claimant in the form and manner prescribed by the department.

SEC. 9.

It is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to penalize the Employment Development Department for failing to provide eligible unemployment insurance claimants with their benefits in a timely manner.

SEC. 10.

No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.