Existing law provides that a child may come within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and become a dependent child of the court in certain cases, including when the child has suffered, or is at substantial risk of suffering, serious physical harm or illness as a result of the willful or negligent failure of the parent or guardian to provide the child with adequate food, clothing, shelter, or medical treatment. Existing law requires a social worker who has cause to believe that a child has been abused or neglected to immediately conduct an investigation to determine whether child welfare services should be offered to the family and whether proceedings in the juvenile court should be commenced. This bill would require a social worker, when he or she is conducting that investigation, to ascertain whether the parent or guardian of the child, or that person's spouse, is a member of the Armed Forces, as specified. The bill would require the social worker to notify the applicable military Family Advocacy Program when there is an open investigation, relating to a military parent or guardian, or a military spouse of the parent or guardian, to determine if a child has been abused or neglected. Because this bill would impose additional duties on social workers, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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 requires the Governor to proclaim certain days each year for specified reasons. Existing law also designates particular days each year as having special significance in public schools and educational institutions and encourages those entities to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on those dates. This bill would require the Governor to annually proclaim the date corresponding with the start of the lunar calendar as Lunar New Year's Day, would designate that date each year as having special significance in public schools and educational institutions, and would encourage those entities to observe that date by conducting culturally appropriate activities and exercises observing the Lunar New Year.
Existing law authorizes the state to recoup employee overpayments through methods mutually agreed to by the employee and the state, as specified, and provides the state, when an employee separates from employment prior to full repayment, with the right to exercise all legal means to recover the additional amount owed. Existing law prohibits the state from taking administrative action to recover an overpayment unless the action is initiated within 3 years from the overpayment. This bill would require the administrative action for overpayment to be initiated by written notice to the employee. The bill, for an overpayment that involves leave credits, would make the date of overpayment either the date the employee receives compensation in exchange for leave erroneously credited to the employee or, if the state alleges that the employee obtained the overpayment as a result of fraud, embezzlement, or falsification, the date the state discovers the fraud, embezzlement, or falsification, whichever is later.
(1) Existing law authorizes the governing board of any school district or community college district to order an election and submit to the electors of the district the question of whether the bonds of the district shall be issued and sold to raise money for specified purposes. Existing law generally requires, to pass a school bond measure, that either at least 23 of the votes cast on the proposition of issuing bonds be in favor of issuing the bonds to pass the measure, or, if certain conditions are met, at least 55% of the votes cast on the proposition of issuing bonds be in favor of issuing the bonds. Existing law prohibits the total amount of bonds issued by a school district or community college district from exceeding 1.25% of the taxable property of the district, only if the tax rate levied to meet specified requirements of the California Constitution in the case of indebtedness incurred by a school district, at a single election, would not exceed $30 per year per $100,000 of taxable property, as specified. This bill would raise that limit to 2%. (2) Existing law authorizes a unified school district to issue bonds receiving at least 55% of the votes cast on the proposition of issuing the bonds that, in aggregation with bonds issued with a 23 favorable vote, do not exceed 2.5% of the taxable property of the district, but only if the tax rate levied to meet specified requirements of the California Constitution in the case of indebtedness incurred by a school district, at a single election, would not exceed $60 per year per $100,000 of taxable property, as specified. This bill would raise that limit to 4%. The bill would make a similar percentage increase for community college districts.
Existing law requires the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges to provide the San Francisco Community College District with certain revenues in the 2014–15, 2015–16, and 2016–17 fiscal years if the number of full-time equivalent students (FTES) of the community college district decreases from the 2012–13 fiscal year and certain conditions are satisfied, including that the board of governors finds the community college district or one of its campuses is in imminent jeopardy of losing its accreditation. This bill would provide that for 3 fiscal years beginning with the 2017–18 fiscal year, the San Francisco Community College District shall be entitled to restoration of any reduction in apportionment revenue due to decreases in FTES if there is a subsequent increase in FTES. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the San Francisco Community College District.
Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to compute the percentage of unduplicated pupils, defined as pupils enrolled in a school district or a charter school who are either classified as English learners, eligible for free or reduced-price meals, or foster youths. This bill would require the State Department of Education to develop and post on its Internet Web site a list of high schools with 75% or greater enrollment in this classification. Existing law establishes certain block grants to be apportioned to a school district or charter school for specified purposes. This bill would establish the K–12 College Readiness Block Grant for the purposes of preparing California's high school pupils, particularly unduplicated pupils, to be eligible for admission into a postsecondary institution, and increasing the 4-year-college-going rates of these pupils. This program would be contingent on the appropriation of funding for its purposes in the annual Budget Act or another statute. The California Constitution provides that the University of California constitutes a public trust 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. Existing law, until June 30, 2017, requests the Regents of the University of California, with the approval of the Concurrence Committee, to establish and maintain cooperative endeavors designed to accomplish specified purposes related to teacher professional development. This bill would include among the goals of these endeavors providing administrators, counselors, and teachers of students at certain schools with strategies for improving A–G course completion rates, college readiness, and college-going rates. This bill would also add the California College Readiness Project to the list of authorized endeavors and grant priority for admission to programs offered by the California College Readiness Project to school personnel employed by local educational agencies eligible for supplemental or concentration grant funding under the local control funding formula. This bill would extend the operation of these provisions relating to teacher professional development indefinitely. Existing policy of the Board of Admissions and Relations of the Academic Senate of the University of California allows pupils who, in addition to other criteria, graduate in the top 9% of their high school class to be granted admission into the University of California. This bill would require the University of California, as a condition of Budget Act funding for specified enrollment increases, to develop an implementation plan to increase California resident admissions, significantly increase admissions for pupils enrolled in high schools with 75% or greater enrollment of unduplicated pupils, and satisfy related objectives. This bill would also require the University of California, as a condition of Budget Act funding for specified enrollment increases, to annually report information related to these objectives to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature and the Department of Finance. This bill would also make findings and declarations related to college readiness.
Existing law establishes the California Foreign Investment Program and requires the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development to serve as the lead state entity for overseeing the state's participation with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' EB-5 Investment Program. Existing law authorizes specified public and private corporations to establish, operate, and maintain a regional center subject to specified conditions and restrictions. Existing law requires the director to post on the office's Internet Web site a list with contact information for each regional center where information is readily available to the office. This bill would define "regional center" for those purposes. The bill would require the contact information to include a link to the Internet Web site for each regional center. Existing law also establishes the California Business Investment Services Program within the office, under the direct authority of the Director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, to serve employers, corporate executives, business owners, and site location consultants who are considering California for business investment and expansion. Existing law requires the director to establish and implement a process for convening teams on specified key business development situations. Existing law requires the director, in implementing the program, to work cooperatively with marketing institutions and trade organizations in attracting, retaining, and helping businesses grow and be successful in the state. This bill would include attracting foreign and domestic investors among those key business development situations. The bill would also require the director to work cooperatively with marketing institutions and trade organizations in attracting, retaining, and helping investments grow and be successful in the state.
Existing law requires a person operating a bicycle upon a roadway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time to ride as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway except in specified situations. A violation of this provision is an infraction. Existing law further authorizes a person operating a bicycle upon a roadway of a highway that carries traffic in one direction only and has two or more marked traffic lanes to ride as close to the left-hand curb or edge of that roadway as practicable. This bill would expand the exceptions to riding as close as practicable to the right-hand curb or roadway edge to include, among others, when riding in class I, class II, or class IV bikeways, as specified.
The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act generally imposes a surcharge on amounts paid by every person in the state for intrastate telephone service to provide revenues sufficient to fund "911" emergency telephone system costs, and requires the Office of Emergency Services to annually determine the surcharge rate. Commencing with the calculation made October 1, 2015, existing law requires the office to compute the charges applicable to the intrastate portion of prepaid mobile telephony services, as provided. The Prepaid Mobile Telephony Service Surcharge Collection Act establishes a prepaid MTS surcharge, as defined, based upon a percentage of the sales price of each retail transaction that occurs in this state for prepaid mobile telephony services, as defined, that is imposed in lieu of any charges imposed pursuant to the Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act and specified Public Utility Commission surcharges. That act requires the prepaid MTS surcharge to be annually calculated by the State Board of Equalization by November 1 of each year, commencing November 1, 2015, by using the emergency telephone user surcharge rate reported by the office and specified Public Utility Commission surcharges. The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act requires the office to notify the board of the emergency telephone user surcharge rate and the emergency telephone user surcharge rate applicable to prepaid mobile telephony services by October 15 of each year. This bill would instead require the office to notify the board of the emergency telephone user surcharge rate by October 1. The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act requires, immediately upon notification by the office and fixing the surcharge rate, the board to notify by mail every registered service supplier of the new rate. This bill would instead require the board to notify every registered service supplier of the new rate by means then available to it, including, but not limited to, mail, electronic mail, or Internet Web site postings. This bill would make other technical, nonsubstantive changes. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
(1) Existing law generally prohibits the possession or transfer of assault weapons, except for the sale, purchase, importation, or possession of assault weapons by specified individuals, including law enforcement officers. Under existing law, "assault weapon" means, among other things, a semiautomatic centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has any one of specified attributes, including, for rifles, a thumbhole stock, and for pistols, a second handgrip. This bill would revise this definition of "assault weapon" to mean a semiautomatic centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of those specified attributes. The bill would also define "fixed magazine" to mean an ammunition feeding device contained in, or permanently attached to, a firearm in such a manner that the device cannot be removed without disassembly of the firearm action. By expanding the definition of an existing crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law requires that any person who, within this state, possesses an assault weapon, except as otherwise provided, be punished for a felony or for a period not to exceed one year in a county jail. This bill would exempt from punishment under that provision a person who possessed an assault weapon prior to January 1, 2017, if specified requirements are met. (3) Existing law requires that, with specified exceptions, any person who, prior to January 1, 2001, lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the date it was defined as an assault weapon and that was not specified as an assault weapon at the time of lawful possession, must register the firearm with the Department of Justice. Existing law permits the Department of Justice to charge a fee for registration of up to $20 per person but not to exceed the actual processing costs of the department. Existing law, after the department establishes fees sufficient to reimburse the department for processing costs, requires fees charged to increase at a rate not to exceed the legislatively approved annual cost-of-living adjustment for the department's budget or as otherwise increased through the Budget Act. Existing law requires those fees to be deposited into the Dealers' Record of Sale Special Account. Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, establishes the requirements for the adoption, publication, review, and implementation of regulations by state agencies. This bill would require that any person who, from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2016, inclusive, lawfully possessed an assault weapon that does not have a fixed magazine, as defined, including those weapons with an ammunition feeding device that can be removed readily from the firearm with the use of a tool, register the firearm with the Department of Justice before January 1, 2018, but not before the effective date of specified regulations. The bill would permit the department to increase the $20 registration fee as long as it does not exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department. The bill would also require registrations to be submitted electronically via the Internet utilizing a public-facing application made available by the department. The bill would require the registration to contain specified information, including, but not limited to, a description of the firearm that identifies it uniquely and specified information about the registrant. The bill would permit the department to charge a fee of up to $15 per person for registration through the Internet, not to exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department to be paid and deposited, as specified, for purposes of the registration program. The bill would require the department to adopt regulations for the purpose of implementing those provisions and would exempt those regulations from the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would also make technical and conforming changes. (4) 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 establishes the Public Safety Communications Division within the Office of Emergency Services, under the supervision of a chief, to carry out specific duties relating to state needs and plans for public safety communications systems and equipment. This bill would require the division to require its California 911 Emergency Communications Branch to work with the Department of the California Highway Patrol to continue the work of the Routing on Empirical Data (RED) Project by using the technology and procedures employed in that project to assist in determining whether wireless 911 calls should be routed to a local public safety answering point or a California Highway Patrol call center. The bill would require that the project use historical empirical call data to determine the most efficient routing for wireless 911 calls. The Emergency Telephone Users Surcharge Act generally imposes a surcharge on amounts paid by every person in the state for intrastate telephone service to provide revenues sufficient to fund "911" emergency telephone system costs, and requires the Office of Emergency Services to annually determine the surcharge rate, subject to a specified formula, that it estimates will produce sufficient revenue to fund the current fiscal year's 911 costs, as specified. This bill would instead impose the surcharge at a flat monthly rate of between $0.15 and $0.75, determined annually by the office. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Read. Adopted. (Page 4957.).
