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Subcommittee hears request to baseline Sunbucks EBT spending authority for faster summer issuance
Summary
Office of Technology and Solutions Integration requested permanent spending authority alignment to allow quick Sunbucks (summer EBT) issuance after late federal approvals; LAO had no comment and no vote occurred.
Brandon Hansard of the California Office of Technology and Solutions Integration told the Senate Budget Subcommittee 3 that the department is seeking to align its spending authority so it can rapidly engage an EBT processor after late federal approvals and get Sunbucks cards into households by June.
"This is to align the OTSI spending authority so that when we get these late approvals such as April 9 for this year, that we are able to quickly work with our EBT processor to be able to distribute Sunbucks by the summer months," Hansard said.
The item is intended to baseline the one‑time budget revisions historically required for Sunbucks implementation so the state can avoid delay in future summers. Sonia Garuso of the Legislative Analyst's Office said LAO had nothing to add. The Department of Finance did not present additional comment. The Subcommittee did not take a formal vote during the hearing.
Department witnesses said the Sunbucks program delivered about $672,000,000 in benefits to roughly 5.6 million children in summer 2024 and that the plan for summer 2025 had been approved by federal officials on April 9, 2025, enabling card mailings to begin in early June.
No formal action was recorded in the hearing; staff said the department will continue to coordinate scheduling and budget authority for processor contracts ahead of summer issuance.
