(a) The commission shall use the majority of the 2 percent allocated for purposes of paragraph (4) of subdivision (b) of Section 70115.1 to provide outreach to potential grantees, to review, score, and select grantees, and to oversee and evaluate grant implementation. The commission shall give outreach priority to underrepresented regions of the state that are not already offering a local child savings account program.

(b) The commission shall provide technical assistance to applicants that includes, but is not necessarily limited to, developing a toolkit for qualifying entities seeking to successfully launch a new local child savings account program, establishing a working group of grantees to share best practices, and assisting qualifying entities that are not offering a local child savings account program in developing an application to receive a grant.

(c) The commission shall encourage potential applicants to use the technical assistance made available by the commission to develop their program plans.

(d) (1) The Child Savings Account Grant Program Council is hereby established to advise the commission and grantees on topics that include, but are not necessarily limited to, all of the following:

(A) The development of systems and infrastructure to facilitate the successful implementation and operation of local child savings account programs.

(B) Outreach and coordination with local child savings account programs.

(C) Incentives to assist in the development of sustainable and expandable local child savings account programs.

(D) Strategies to minimize grantees’ administrative fees and to cap administrative costs to better ensure that local child savings account programs are of low or no cost to participants.

(E) Contribution strategies, including recordkeeping and cash deposit strategies.

(F) The development of strategies to address local child savings account program accessibility issues, such as language barriers, identification of eligible students, and banking access.

(2) The Child Savings Account Grant Program Council may include representatives of the Governor’s office, the commission, successful local child savings account programs, experts in relevant fields such as taxation, savings, and outreach, and interested researchers.

(Added by Stats. 2019, Ch. 53, Sec. 18. (SB 77) Effective July 1, 2019.)