Existing law establishes the California Conservation Corps and requires young adults participating in the corps program to be generally engaged in projects that do specified things, including, among other things, projects that directly contribute to the conservation of energy. This bill would instead require young adults participating in the corps program to be generally engaged in projects that, among other things, promote or contribute to the conservation of energy and the development or enhancement of clean energy, climate resilience, or sustainable nature-based solutions. Existing law provides that it is the intent of the Legislature that the corps blend academic and job skills training with personal growth opportunities in order to develop productive youths who can make substantial contributions as California workers and citizens. This bill would require the Director of the California Conservation Corps to establish a Green Collar Certification Program that provides corpsmembers participating in the corps with skills and education including, but not limited to, reducing carbon emissions in residential and nonresidential buildings, preparing communities for environmental disasters, and developing conservation infrastructure projects that stabilize shorelines and restore ecological habitats, as provided. The bill would require the director to issue a Green Collar Certificate to a corpsmember who successfully completes the program. The bill would require the director, in administering the program, to collaborate with specified entities to identify emerging workforce needs, as specified. The bill would authorize the director to authorize certified community conservation corps to implement the program pursuant to guidelines established by the corps, as specified. This bill would also authorize the director to apply for and accept grants or donations of funds from any public or private source that are provided for specified purposes relating to the program. The bill would establish the Green Collar Certification Program Fund and would require the grants or donations described above to be deposited into the fund. The bill would continuously appropriate the moneys in the fund to the director for specified purposes relating to the program. By providing for the continuous appropriation of fund moneys to the director, this bill would create an appropriation.
Existing law, the California Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly Act, requires the State Department of Social Services to license, inspect, and regulate residential care facilities for the elderly (RCFEs) , as defined, and imposes criminal penalties on a person who violates the act or who willfully or repeatedly violates any rule or regulation adopted under the act. This bill would require each RCFE to calculate a direct care ratio, as defined, and maintain records of its direct care ratios for a minimum of 12 months. The bill would require RCFEs to disclose its direct care ratios to residents or to the resident's representatives upon admission and any time there is a rate increase, as specified. The bill would require these disclosures to be provided in writing and signed by the resident, the resident's representative, or the licensee or an employee of the licensee, as specified, to confirm receipt. The bill would require copies of the signed disclosure to be provided to the resident or the resident's representative. The bill would require each RCFE to make its direct care ratios available to the public by specified means, including, among others, by posting the daily direct care ratio on the facility's internet website. The bill would require the RCFE's internet website and any literature or internet website used to advertise the RCFE and the level of care provided by that facility to include a statement that direct care ratios are calculated on a daily basis, that direct care ratios are available to the public upon request for any given day within the prior 12 months, and that direct care ratios are required to be disclosed to residents or their representatives at the points of time described above. The bill would require each RCFE to post the daily direct care ratio in locations visible to all residents, including, but not limited to, the lunchroom or lobby of the facility. By expanding the definition of an existing crime, this 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 Department of General Services, beginning no later than the 2024–25 fiscal year, to ensure that at least 50% of the light-duty vehicles purchased for the state vehicle fleet each fiscal year are zero-emission vehicles, except as provided. If the department determines that it cannot meet the needs of the state while fulfilling that requirement, existing law requires the department to cease implementing that requirement, as specified. This bill would require the department to require a supplier of light-duty vehicles purchased for the state vehicle fleet to certify that the raw materials used in the manufacturing of the light-duty vehicles, including, but not limited to, aluminum, cobalt and lithium, come from mining operations that are free of child labor, except as specified. The bill would require the supplier of light-duty vehicles purchased for the state vehicle fleet to provide to the department the locations where the raw materials used in the production of the light-duty vehicles were mined and the average hourly wage of the workers that mined the raw materials, and would require the department to post on its internet website that information provided by the supplier and a list of the light-duty vehicles purchased for the state vehicle fleet that are certified to be made with raw materials that come from mining operations that are free of child labor.
Existing law establishes the California Conservation Corps in the Natural Resources Agency and requires the corps to implement and administer the conservation corps program. Existing law authorizes the Director of the California Conservation Corps to establish various training and educational program, including, among others, the Education and Employment Reentry Program, within the corps, to provide education and training to formerly incarcerated individuals who successfully served on a California Conservation Camp program crew. This bill would require the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to jointly evaluate the Ventura Training Center and would require the evaluation to include specified components, including, among others, an evaluation of ways to increase the rate of graduated trainees entering the firefighter workforce. The bill would require the departments to submit a report describing the evaluation to certain legislative committees by January 1, 2026, and would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2030. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, as one of the segments of public postsecondary education in the state. Existing law requires the board to appoint a chief executive officer, known as the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges. Existing law establishes community college districts throughout the state, under the administration of community college district governing boards, and authorizes these districts to provide instruction at the community college campuses they operate. Existing law establishes the Part-Time Community College Faculty Health Insurance Program, which authorizes the governing board of a community college district to provide a program of health insurance for part-time faculty, multidistrict part-time faculty, and their dependents. Existing law requires the chancellor, by June 15 of each year, to apportion to each community college that establishes a program an amount that equals up to12 of the total cost of the individual premiums required to be paid for the health insurance coverage of participating part-time faculty, multidistrict part-time faculty, and their dependents, and to apportion any remaining funds to each community college district that establishes a program and meets certain criteria, up to the total cost of the individual premiums required to be paid for the health insurance coverage of the participants, as provided. If funds appropriated for purposes of the program remain after those apportionments, existing law requires that the balance revert to the General Fund annually, as specified. This bill would instead require that the balance be deposited into the Part-Time Community College Faculty Health Insurance Program Fund, which the bill would create. The bill would continuously appropriate the moneys in the fund to the chancellor for purposes of the above-described apportionments, as specified. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature that, by January 1, 2030, each community college district commence negotiations with the exclusive representatives for part-time community college faculty to offer health insurance benefits to part-time and multidistrict part-time community college faculty and their eligible dependents.
Existing law provides that a provision of a memorandum of understanding reached between the state employer and a recognized employee organization representing state civil service employees that requires the expenditure of funds does not become effective unless approved by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act. This bill, notwithstanding the above-described statutory provisions, would approve a memorandum of understanding entered into between the state employer and State Bargaining Unit 6, as of an unspecified date. The bill would provide that the provisions of the memorandum of understanding requiring the expenditure of funds will not take effect unless funds for those provisions are specifically appropriated by the Legislature. The bill would require the state employer and State Bargaining Unit 6 to meet and confer to renegotiate the affected provisions if funds for these provisions are not specifically appropriated by the Legislature. The bill would specify that the provisions of the memorandum of understanding requiring the expenditure of funds will become effective even if these provisions are approved by the Legislature in legislation other than the annual Budget Act.
Existing law provides for the county-administered In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, under which qualified aged, blind, and disabled persons are provided with supportive services in order to permit them to remain in their own homes. Existing law requires a county to use county-only funds to fund both the county share and the state share, except as specified, when any increase in provider wages or benefits is locally negotiated, mediated, or imposed by a county, public authority, or nonprofit consortium, or any increase in provider wages or benefits is adopted by ordinance. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to that provision.
Existing law, for purposes of unemployment insurance provisions, requires employers to make contributions with respect to unemployment insurance and disability insurance from the wages paid to their employees. Existing law establishes, within the state disability insurance program administered by the Employment Development Department, a family temporary disability insurance program, also known as the paid family leave program, for the provision of wage replacement benefits to workers who take time off work to care for a seriously ill family member or to bond with a minor child within one year of birth or placement, as specified. This bill would require the Legislative Analyst's Office, on or before January 1, 2027, and annually thereafter, to prepare and submit a report to the Legislature that evaluates the quality of services provided by the department to the public with regard to unemployment and disability insurance. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2031.
Existing law requires the Employment Development Department to administer a program for the payment of unemployment compensation to the eligible unemployed. Existing law requires the department to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility and benefits that result in delayed eligibility unemployment determinations or benefit payments and that fail to identify or prevent fraud. Existing law required the department to provide specified committees of the Legislature with a plan for assessing the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection tools by May 1, 2022, and to provide a report to those committees with an update on its progress on performing this assessment by July 1, 2022. Existing law requires the department to annually analyze and assess the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection tools and to submit this analysis and assessment to those committees, as specified. This bill would revise those annual requirements to, instead, require the department to analyze and assess the effectiveness of its fraud prevention and detection tools and to submit this analysis and assessment to those committees, biennially commencing on January 1, 2027.
Existing law makes a farm labor contractor successor to any predecessor farm labor contractor that owed wages or penalties to a former employee of the predecessor, whether or not the predecessor was licensed by the Labor Commissioner to carry on the business, activities, or operations of a farm labor contractor, liable for those wages and penalties, if the successor farm labor contractor meets one or more specified criteria including using substantially the same facilities or workforce to offer substantially the same services as the predecessor. Existing law provides an exception and an affirmative defense to the liability for wages and penalties owed to a former employee of the predecessor farm labor contractor if the farm labor contractor has operated for at least the preceding 3 years, and certain conditions apply. Existing law makes a person who violates farm labor contractor requirements guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by specified fines, or imprisonment in the county jail for not more than 6 months, or both. This bill would decrease the amount of time that a farm labor contractor would be required to have operated with a valid license in order to have an affirmative defense to liability for wages and penalties owed to a former employee of the predecessor farm labor contractor to a least the preceding year and would make other related changes. Existing law also makes a farm labor contractor successor liable for wages and penalties owed to a former employee, as described above, if the successor farm labor contractor is an immediate family member, as defined, of any owner, partner, officer, licensee, or director of the predecessor farm labor contractor or of any person who had a financial interest in the predecessor farm labor contractor. This bill would expand the definition of "immediate family member" for purposes of the provision described above that makes a farm labor contractor successor liable for wages and penalties owed to a former employee of the predecessor farm labor contractor to include a step-parent, adoptive parent, foster parent, half-sibling, and step-grandparent. By expanding the requirements placed upon farm labor contractor successors, the violation of which would be a crime, 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.
