Does the California Workers Compensation Board have the authority to determine and allow a lien against a Workers Compensation award for living expenses?

Labor Code section 4903, subdivision (c), authorizes the WCAB to determine and allow a lien against a Workers Compensation award for "[t]he reasonable value of the living expenses of an injured employee or of his or her dependents, subsequent to the injury." While the WCAB has the authority to determine the amount of living expenses, and may, as it did here, award an amount less than that demanded, it does not, in the absence of an agreement, have the power to modify or compromise an order for restitution in a criminal proceeding. To allow the WCAB such authority would only frustrate the efforts of public agencies to collect monies fraudulently taken from them. The purpose of section 4903 is "to protect persons who advance credit or loan money to dependents for necessary living expenses." (Rowland v. Workers Comp. Appeals Bd. (1977) 66 Cal.App.3d 448, 451, 136 Cal.Rptr. 1.) It is certainly not intended for the benefit of individuals who wrongfully obtain funds.