A BILL to amend and reenact § 63.2-905.6 of the Code of Virginia, relating to foster care; federal benefits; representative payees.
HB578 amends Virginia’s foster care law governing how local departments of social services identify, apply for, manage, and account for federal benefits owed to children in foster care. The bill requires local departments to screen children for eligibility for benefits from the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Railroad Retirement Board within 60 days of entering foster care and annually thereafter, and to apply for benefits when a child may be eligible. It also requires notice to the child and relevant family members or legal representatives when an application is filed and when the department serves as representative payee.
The bill adds detailed rules for representative payees. Local departments must review existing payees to ensure they are acting in the child’s best interests, collaborate with the child and other interested parties to identify a suitable payee, and serve in that role only when no other suitable candidate is available. If the department is the payee, benefits must be used only for the child’s current, individual, unmet needs, conserved in protected accounts or trust instruments when appropriate, and released to the child when they leave foster care. The bill also requires annual accountings and training for both representative payees and older foster youth on managing these benefits.
HB578 would expand and formalize the duties of local departments of social services in foster care cases involving federal benefits, affecting administration of Social Security, VA, and Railroad Retirement benefits for eligible children. It would amend § 63.2-905.6 of the Code of Virginia to impose screening, application, notice, payee-review, conservation, accounting, and training requirements, and it would direct the Department to develop training materials and guidance. The practical effect would be to increase oversight of benefit management and potentially reduce the use of children’s federal benefits for general foster care costs that the Commonwealth is otherwise obligated to cover.
The bill appears to have been framed as a child-protection and fiduciary-oversight measure, with an emphasis on ensuring that federal benefits belonging to foster children are identified, preserved, and used in the child’s best interests. There is no recorded committee testimony or vote history in the provided materials, and the bill was left in the House Appropriations Committee. That procedural outcome suggests the measure did not advance, but the available text indicates a policy approach that is generally protective of foster youth and their assets.
The main policy tension in HB578 is between protecting a foster child’s federal benefits for the child’s future use and the administrative burden placed on local departments of social services. The bill limits the department’s ability to use those benefits for ordinary foster care costs and requires more documentation, notice, annual accounting, and training. Another possible point of contention is the requirement that the department only serve as representative payee when no other suitable candidate is available, which could raise implementation questions about how to identify and vet alternative payees and how quickly benefits can be accessed for the child’s needs.