The California Constitution authorizes the Legislature, with the approval of 23 of the membership of each legislative house, to allow a county board of supervisors to exempt from property taxation those properties having a full value too low to justify the costs of assessment and collection. Existing property tax law implementing this authority generally limits any exemption granted under this constitutional provision by a county board of supervisors to real property with a total base year value, as adjusted annually for inflation, or personal property with a full value, not exceeding $10,000. The annual inflation adjustment applied to real property total base year value for this purpose is limited to no more than 2% per year. Existing property tax law also limits any exemption for new construction to situations where the new total base year value of the property, as adjusted for inflation, including the new construction, is $10,000 or less. This bill would raise these maximum exemption amounts to $15,000 for the lien dates occurring on or after January 1, 2024, and before January 1, 2029. The bill would apply the inflation adjustment factor commencing on January 1, 2025, for calculating the maximum exemption value to both the total base year value of real property and the full value of personal property. The bill would also eliminate the 2% limitation to the inflation adjustment for the purpose of calculating the exemption for a property having a full value too low to justify the costs of assessment and collection. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax exemption will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would make specified findings detailing the goal, purpose, and objective of the above-described expansion of a tax exemption, performance indicators for determining whether the expanded exemption meets that goal, purpose, and objective, and data collection requirements. Existing law requires the state to reimburse local agencies annually for certain property tax revenues lost as a result of any exemption or classification of property for purposes of ad valorem property taxation. This bill would provide that, notwithstanding those provisions, no appropriation is made and the state shall not reimburse local agencies for property tax revenues lost by them pursuant to the bill. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, prohibits a business from selling the personal information of a consumer if the business has actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age, unless the consumer, in the case of a consumer at least 13 years of age and less than 16 years of age, or the consumer's parent or guardian, in the case of a consumer who is less than 13 years of age, has affirmatively authorized the sale of the consumer's personal information. Existing law, the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, requires, beginning July 1, 2024, a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements, including a requirement to configure all default privacy settings offered by the online service, product, or feature to the settings that offer a high level of privacy, as prescribed, and requires a business, before any new online services, products, or features are offered to the public, to complete a Data Protection Impact Assessment for any online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children and maintain documentation of this assessment as long as the online service, product, or feature is likely to be accessed by children. This bill would prohibit a social media platform, as defined, from using a design, algorithm, or feature that the platform knows, or which by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, causes child users, as defined, to do any of certain things, including experience addiction to the social media platform. This bill would provide that a social media platform is not in violation of the bill if the social media platform instituted and maintained a program of at least quarterly audits, as defined, of its designs, algorithms, and features that have the potential to cause violations of the provision described above, and the social media platform corrected, within 30 days of the completion of the audit, any design, algorithm, or feature discovered by the audit to present more than a de minimis risk of violating that provision. This bill would subject a social media platform that knowingly and willfully violates these provisions to a civil penalty not to exceed $250,000 per violation, an injunction, and an award of litigation costs and attorney's fees in an action brought only by certain public attorneys, including the Attorney General.
Existing law establishes the California School for the Deaf, Northern California, the California School for the Deaf, Southern California, and the California School for the Blind, known as the state special schools, under the administration of the State Department of Education, and 3 related diagnostic centers under the administration of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as provided. Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula, as specified. Existing law requires specified components of the local funding formula to be adjusted by the percentage change in the annual average value of the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government Purchases of Goods and Services for the United States, as published by the United States Department of Commerce for the 12-month period ending in the 3rd quarter of the prior fiscal year, as specified. Existing law requires the Superintendent to annually apportion any entitlement provided to the state special schools from specified former categorical programs to the state special schools in the same amount as the state special schools received from those categorical programs in the 2012–13 fiscal year. Commencing with the 2024–25 fiscal year, this bill would require that amount be adjusted each fiscal year by the same percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above. Existing law appropriates additional funding to the state special schools and centers in the annual Budget Act. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to increase the amount of state funding appropriated for the state special schools and diagnostic centers in the annual Budget Act by the same percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above. The bill would require the Superintendent to calculate, for the 2024−25 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, an adjustment amount to the amount appropriated for the state special schools and diagnostic centers in a specified item of the annual Budget Act for the preceding fiscal year that is equivalent to the percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above, for the fiscal year that is being calculated. The bill would, contingent upon an appropriation for these purposes, require the Superintendent to proportionately allocate those funds appropriated for the adjustment amount to the state special schools and diagnostic centers.
Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission, in consultation with the Independent System Operator, to establish resource adequacy requirements for all electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators. Existing law requires electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to maintain physical generating capacity and electrical demand response adequate to meet their load requirements, as specified. This bill would expressly authorize electrical corporations, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to jointly enter into agreements to procure electricity generated from offshore wind facilities.
Existing law establishes the Labor and Workforce Development Agency in state government under the supervision of an executive officer known as the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development. Existing law charges the agency with various duties relating to coordinating workforce programs and overseeing specified departments, boards, and panels, including the Employment Development Department and the California Workforce Development Board. Existing law establishes the California Workforce Development Board, formerly named the California Workforce Investment Board, as the body responsible for assisting the Governor in the development, oversight, and continuous improvement of California's workforce investment system and the alignment of the education and workforce investment systems to the needs of the 21st century economy and workforce. Existing law requires the board to establish a committee known as the Green Collar Jobs Council to, among other things, consult with other state agencies, higher education representatives, local workforce investment boards, industry representatives, and specified others in the development of a strategic initiative relating to the training and development of a skilled workforce to meet the needs of California's emerging green economy. This bill would require the Labor Market Information Division of the Employment Development Department to conduct, upon appropriation by the Legislature, a green jobs survey, as specified, to gather information about statewide green job industry strengths. The bill would require the division to create a standard operating definition of "green job" based on the results of the survey for the purpose of employment in California, as described. The bill would require the California Workforce Development Board to incorporate the survey's findings into education outreach, as specified, and would require the Workforce Services Branch of the Employment Development Department to incorporate the survey's findings into appropriate communications or educational materials relating to job opportunities for persons seeking employment.
Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. This bill would make specified findings and would express the intent of the Legislature to enact future legislation relating to Medi-Cal.
Existing law establishes the Domestic Violence Prevention Act for the purpose of preventing acts of domestic violence, abuse, and sexual abuse and providing for a separation of the persons involved in the domestic violence for a period sufficient to enable those persons to seek a resolution of the causes of the violence. Existing law authorizes a court to issue a protective order enjoining a party from engaging in specified acts, including threatening or harassing the other party or disturbing the peace of the other party. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to those provisions.
The California Constitution provides that the University of California constitutes a public trust, and requires the university to be administered by the Regents of the University of California, a corporation in the form of a board, with full powers of organization and government, subject to legislative control only for specified purposes. These provisions grant the regents all the powers necessary or convenient for the effective administration of its trust. This bill would request the University of California to establish an ethnic studies undergraduate graduation requirement at the university.
Existing law provides that title to specified legislative office facilities is vested in the Legislature. Existing law requires that the space in the legislative office facilities be allocated from time to time by the Senate Committee on Rules and the Assembly Committee on Rules in accordance with their determination of the needs of the Legislature, as specified. This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to that provision.
Existing law, the Optometry Practice Act, establishes the State Board of Optometry in the Department of Consumer Affairs for the licensure and regulation of the practice of optometry. Existing law makes a violation of the act a misdemeanor. Existing law excludes certain classes of agents from the practice of optometry unless they have an explicit United States Food and Drug Administration-approved indication, as specified. This bill would add neuromuscular blockers to the list of excluded classes of agents. By expanding the scope of a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Existing law requires an optometrist who holds a therapeutic pharmaceutical agents certification and meets specified requirements to be certified to medically treat authorized glaucomas. This bill would authorize an optometrist certified to treat glaucoma to obtain certification to perform specified advanced procedures in a patient 18 years of age or older if the optometrist meets certain education, training, examination, and other requirements, as specified. By requiring optometrists, qualified educators, and course administrators to certify or attest specified information relating to advanced procedure competency, thus expanding the crime of perjury, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the board to set a fee for the issuance and renewal of the certificate authorizing the use of advanced procedures, which would be deposited in the Optometry Fund. The bill would require an optometrist who performs advanced procedures pursuant to these provisions to report certain information to the board, including any adverse treatment outcomes that required a referral to or consultation with another health care provider. The bill would require the board to compile a report summarizing the data collected and make the report available on the board's internet website. 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law provides that libel is a false and unprivileged written publication that injures the reputation and that slander is a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered, that injures the reputation, as specified. Existing law applies the provisions relating to libel and slander to campaign advertisements and communications, and it further provides that a defendant's willingness or unwillingness to retract or correct a communication made in the course of a campaign is admissible for purposes of determining damages, as specified. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to that provision.
Existing law vests the Department of Transportation with full possession and control of all state highways and all property and rights in property acquired for state highway purposes. Existing law requires the department to adopt rules and regulations that allow the placement, near exits on freeways in rural areas, of information signs identifying specific roadside businesses, including a business offering electric vehicle charging facilities. This bill would require the department to install electric vehicle charging station signage along each state highway for each electric vehicle charging station that meets the eligibility requirements for the department's zero-emission general service sign program.
