How we source IHSS information

When a page states what the IHSS program requires, we rely on official sources, in this order:

1. California Department of Social Services (CDSS) letters and notices: All County Letters (ACLs) and All County Information Notices (ACINs).
2. State law and regulations: the Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) and the CDSS Manual of Policies and Procedures (MPP).
3. Official forms: the CDSS SOC forms, such as the timesheet, the Provider Enrollment Agreement (SOC 846) and the Protective Supervision medical form (SOC 821).
4. County IHSS offices and Public Authorities: for local facts such as office contacts and how a county runs a step.

Summaries written by legal-aid groups, unions and news outlets can help us find the official source or check that we read it correctly. We do not treat them as the basis for a rule by themselves. Where a source is published online, our guides link to it.

If we cannot confirm something from an official source, we leave it out, or we say that your county decides. We do not fill a gap with a guess.

We use AI tools to help draft and translate pages. Every rule is checked against the official source before it's published, and translations are reviewed by native speakers after publication.

• Guides show when they were first published and when they were last updated. We change the “Updated” date when the content changes in a meaningful way, not for every small edit.
• County pages show the date we last compared the county's rate with the CDSS wage list.
• The pay calendar download prints the date its dates were last verified.

A date tells you when we last looked. It is not a promise that nothing has changed since. Rules and rates can change between our checks, so confirm anything important with your county IHSS office.

County hourly rates come from the CDSS IHSS county wage list. CDSS replaces that file in place when a rate changes, so we keep a dated copy of each check and compare it with the rates on our site. Rates are read from that copy into one data file; they are not typed into individual pages. You can see every rate, its effective date and the date we checked it on our pay rates by county page, and download the same data as a CSV file.

The California minimum wage we compare rates with comes from the California Department of Industrial Relations. It is stored with the date each amount takes effect.

Some things on this site are official IHSS rules. Others are our own choices, and we label them so you can tell the difference.

• Official rules (for example, the four weekly triggers for a timesheet violation) are tied to the source above.
• Planning defaults are limits our planner uses to build a schedule. For example, it plans a live-in provider's day at no more than 12 hours, and other days at no more than 16. These are our planning limits, not IHSS rules.
• Estimates, such as a paycheck figure or an estimated pay date, depend on what you enter and on things we cannot see, such as holidays, when a timesheet is approved, and your bank. They are estimates, not what you will be paid.

Our tools are for planning and information. They are not legal advice, and they do not replace your county IHSS office or your official timesheet.

If you think something on this site is wrong, email support@ihssprovider.com. Tell us the page and what you think is incorrect. A link to an official source is the most useful thing you can send.

When we confirm a mistake, we fix the page and update its date. We check a reported rule against the official source before changing it. If you are right, we correct it; if the source says something different, we explain what the source says.

Correction notes. Fixing a typo or a wording problem only updates the page's date. When we correct a rule, meaning something we said the program requires that turned out to be wrong, we also put a visible note at the top of the page in this form: “Corrected [date]: [what changed].” The note says what was corrected and names the official source it now follows. It stays on the page; we do not remove it quietly later.

IHSS Provider is independent. We are not affiliated with CDSS, the State of California, or any county or Public Authority, and no government agency has reviewed or endorsed our pages. IHSS Provider is made by LCIS Solutions LLC; see About.

Our planning tools, guides, county pages and pay calendar information are free to use. Guided Help kits are a paid, separate product. What our free guides say about the rules does not depend on whether you buy one.