In-home supportive services: provider orientation.

Existing law provides for the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, under which qualified aged, blind, and disabled persons receive services enabling them to remain in their own homes. Existing law authorizes a county board of supervisors to contract with a nonprofit consortium or to establish a public authority to provide in-home supportive services, and provides that the public authority or nonprofit consortium shall be deemed to be the employer of in-home supportive services personnel for the purposes of collective bargaining over wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. Existing law requires prospective providers of in-home supportive services to complete a provider orientation at the time of enrollment, and requires representatives of the recognized employee organization in the county to be permitted to make a presentation of up to 30 minutes at that orientation. Existing law requires each public employer, as defined, to provide the exclusive representative mandatory access to its new employee orientations, and requires the parties, upon request of the employer or the exclusive representative, to negotiate regarding the structure, time, and manner of that access. This bill would provide that the above-described requirement to negotiate regarding the structure, time, and manner of the access of the exclusive representative to a new employee orientation applies to IHSS provider orientations in the Counties of Los Angeles, Merced, and Orange. The bill would, during the period between the effective date of this act and the date of expiration of an existing memorandum of understanding or collective bargaining agreement between the recognized employee organization and the county or the public authority or nonprofit consortium, provide that a request to meet and confer shall reopen the existing memorandum of understanding or collective bargaining agreement solely for the limited purpose of negotiating an agreement regarding access of the recognized employee organization to IHSS provider orientations, as specified. The bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2021, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2022. To the extent that the bill imposes new requirements on counties, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would appropriate $10,000 from the General Fund to the State Department of Social Services for purposes of implementing the bill. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the Counties of Los Angeles, Merced, and Orange. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.