Department of Social Services Works to Expand Safety Net

The Department of Social Services (DSS) has 4,200 employees throughout 51 offices, 58 welfare departments and offices, and a multitude of community-based organizations. The DSS has a yearly budget of more than $15 billion, with more than $536 million allocated to IT.

For fiscal year 2017-18, the Department of Social Services will be involved in the delivery of more than $28.5 billion total funds (including $7.9 billion from the General Fund) in program services and benefits for more than 6.8 million Californians. The programs administered by DSS are managed and funded through a partnership of federal, state and county governments.

The DSS has stated that its mission is to serve, aid and protect needy and vulnerable children and adults in ways that strengthen and preserve families, encourage personal responsibility and foster independence.

At the same time, the department strives to strengthen and encourage individual responsibility and independence for families.

The current strategic priorities of the DSS are:

• Ensuring efficient, accurate and equitable delivery of payments and benefits.
• Providing services that foster self-sufficiency and dignity.
• Providing social services to the elderly, blind, disabled, and other children and adults.
• Licensing and regulating foster homes, group homes, residential care facilities, day-care facilities and preschools.
• Evaluating eligibility of applicants for federal and state programs.

The California Department of Social Services announced in 2016 the selection of a new vendor, Fidelity National Information Services Inc., for the state’s “EBT 3” project. This project is an effort to increase access to benefits and to reduce ATM fees for over 2.5 million EBT clients. FIS’ winning bid includes free unlimited, in-network cash withdrawals and balance inquiries, significantly expands the number of surcharge-free ATM locations in the California EBT network, and doubles the overall size of the surcharge-free EBT network.

The project will take seven years to complete and cost $168 million. The agreement also includes enhancements to improve network functionality and flexibility with the development of a downloadable mobile device application and expanded website services to assist EBT clients in finding EBT retailers and surcharge-free ATM locations. Additionally EBT 3 provides an expanded data warehouse application to augment the use of predictive analytics, improving services and program integrity efforts.

DSS currently has no open RFPs.

Director of Department of Social Services:

Will Lightbourne was appointed as director of the Department of Social Services in April 2011. Before moving to this department, Lightbourne was a valued employee of Santa Clara County. There has been some controversy regarding his pay package as he continues to be paid by Santa Clara County and by the state, which lands his total salary and benefits around $340,000 per year, which is more than the governor makes by a landslide — nearly double.

            Contact Info:  will.lightbourne@dss.ca.gov

                                    916-657-2598

Assistant Director for Horizontal Integration:

Adam Dondro was appointed to this position in April 2013. He was previously an assistant secretary for external affairs at the California Technology Agency since 2011 and was acting deputy director of external affairs since 2010. He was a budget committee consultant for the Assembly Committee on Budget at the California State Assembly from 2006 to 2010.

Contact Info:   adam.dondro@dss.ca.gov

                                    916-657-2268

Head of IT (CIO):

Karen Cagle recently retired and a new CIO hasn’t been appointed yet. For any inquiries in this field, contact Lana Johnson, the executive assistant for the Information Systems Division.

Contact Info:  lana.johnson@dss.ca.gov

                                    916-654-1039