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Case No. 05CS01457, Superior Court for the State of California, Sacramento County, filed October 12, 2005.
The National Center for Youth Law is co-counsel in Nunn v. Crandall, a petition for writ of mandate against Phillip R. Crandall, the Director of Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services, Humboldt County Department of Health and Human Services, Dennis Boyle, the Director of the California Department of Social Services (DSS), and DSS. Advocates seek a writ of mandate directing DSS to administer the Adoption Assistance Program in accordance with the law and directing Respondent Dennis Boyle, Director of the California Department of Social Services, to withdraw his department’s approval of the Modified Specialized Care Program. Advocates further seek a writ of mandate directing Respondent Boyle to set aside his decisions of May 27, 2005 and June 23, 2005, rejecting Petitioners’ administrative challenges to reductions in their Adoption Assistance Program benefits. Finally, Advocates seek redress for constitutional, statutory, and contractual violations resulting from Respondent Humboldt County’s submittal of its Modified Specialized Care Plan and Respondent DSS’s approval of that plan.
Petitioners brought suit challenging Respondents reductions to the Adoption Assistance Payments (AAP) in Humboldt County based on changes to the county’s Specialized Care Increment. Petitioners claim that Respondents violated California law in doing so because the reductions were not based on an analysis of the individualized needs of the children or an adjustment in the State-approved basic foster care rate, as required by law. Rather, the reductions were an arbitrary and unsuccessful attempt at satisfying a bureaucratic desire to simplify Humboldt County’s specialized care program and possibly save money. In addition, Humboldt County’s plan to make these changes violated the law because it wholly failed to consider the impacts on adopted children. Also, Respondents failed to notify Petitioners that the Modified Specialized Care Plan would result in decreases in their AAP benefits until after the plan was finalized and approved. As further discussed below, the reduction of benefits significantly impacts Petitioner parents’ ability to provide for their children’s special needs and is a severe hardship for each family.
The National Center for Youth Law represented all four families at administrative hearings in Humboldt in April and May of this year. We received adverse decisions in each of the hearings.
On October 11, 2005, we filed a petition for a writ of mandate in Sacramento Superior Court. We served the respondents on October 28, 2005.
Updated Dec. 20, 2005
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