Asm. Carlos Villapudua

Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, as one of the segments of public postsecondary education in this state. The board of governors appoints the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to serve as the chief executive officer of the segment. This bill would establish the California Apprenticeship Grant Program, commencing with the 2022–23 academic year, under the administration of the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, to provide grants to encourage high school pupils, community college students, and employed and unemployed workers seeking to go into career technical education and vocational professions through participation in qualifying, state-approved apprenticeship programs. Under the bill, the chancellor's office would provide supplemental grants to apprentices who participate in qualified, state-approved apprenticeship and vocational programs through high schools, campuses of the California Community Colleges, and industry-driven and -funded state-approved apprenticeship and vocational programs. The bill would prohibit these grants from replacing any existing financial aid or compensation that an apprentice may receive during apprenticeship training. The bill would require that specified eligibility criteria to be met by students and apprenticeship employers and programs to participate in the program to be determined by the chancellor's office in accordance with regulations adopted by the chancellor's office. The bill would authorize the chancellor's office to adopt emergency regulations, as specified, to carry out the purposes of the bill. The bill would make the operation of the program in any fiscal year contingent upon the enactment of an appropriation, in the Budget Act or another statute, of an amount deemed sufficient by the chancellor's office to implement the program for that fiscal year.

Existing law, the Mental Health Services Act, an initiative statute enacted by the voters as Proposition 63 at the November 2, 2004, statewide general election, funds a system of county mental health plans for the provision of mental health services, as specified. Existing law establishes the continuously appropriated Mental Health Services Fund. Existing law requires the Controller, prior to distributing the balance of the funds to the counties, as specified, to reserve up to 5% of the total annual revenues of the fund for the costs for the State Department of Health Care Services, the California Behavioral Health Planning Council, the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, the State Department of Public Health, and any other state agency to implement all duties pursuant to the programs set forth in the act. This bill would amend Proposition 63 by appropriating $20,000,000 annually from the administrative account of the Mental Health Services Fund to the University of California, if the University of California chooses to accept the moneys, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, as specified, to implement the College Mental Health Services Program. The bill would require those funds to be used for the purpose of funding programs to increase campus student mental health services and mental health-related education and training. The bill would require campuses that participate in the program to report on the use of those grant funds, as specified, and to post that information on their internet websites.

(1) Existing laws defines persons who are peace officers and the entities authorized to appoint them. Existing law requires certain minimum training requirements for peace officers including the completion of a basic training course, as specified. Existing law prescribes certain minimum standards for a person to be appointed as a peace officer, including moral character and physical and mental condition, and certain disqualifying factors for a person to be employed as a peace officer, including a felony conviction. This bill would disqualify a person from being employed as a peace officer if that person has been convicted of, or has been adjudicated by a military tribunal as having committed an offense that would have been a felony if committed in this state. The bill would also disqualify any person who has been certified as a peace officer by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training and has had that certification revoked by the commission. (2) Existing law establishes the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to set minimum standards for the recruitment and training of peace officers and to develop training courses and curriculum. Existing law authorizes the commission to establish a professional certificate program that awards basic, intermediate, advanced, supervisory, management, and executive certificates on the basis of a combination of training, education, experience, and other prerequisites, for the purpose of fostering the professionalization, education, and experience necessary to adequately accomplish the general police service duties performed by peace officers. Existing law authorizes the commission to cancel a certificate that was awarded in error or obtained through misrepresentation or fraud, but otherwise prohibits the commission from canceling a certificate that has properly been issued. This bill would require the commission to create a certification program for specified peace officers. The bill would make all records related to the revocation of a peace officer's certification public. This bill would require a peace officer's certificate to be suspended, revoked, or canceled when the person is ineligible to be a peace officer or when the person has been subject to a sustained termination for serious misconduct, as defined, on or after January 1, 2022. The bill would make each law enforcement agency responsible for investigation, findings, and actions by the agency on allegations of serious misconduct and would give the commission access to the agency files. The bill would require the commission to be notified of and to review a peace officer's file after 3 allegations of serious misconduct within 5 years. The bill would establish the Peace Officer Standards Accountability Advisory Board, as specified, to make recommendations on the decertification of peace officers to the commission. The bill would require every law enforcement agency to notify the commission when a peace officer employed by that agency separates from employment. When a peace officer resigns or retires with a pending complaint, charge, or investigation of serious misconduct, the bill would require the law enforcement agency to complete the investigation into the serious misconduct within 90 days and report to the commission whether the complaint of serious misconduct was sustained, not sustained, unfounded, frivolous, or exonerated. The bill would require the commission to refer the files of peace officers whose termination for serious misconduct was sustained to the board to make a recommendation regarding the status of the officer's certificate and would require the commission to accept that recommendation or set forth the analysis and reasons for reaching a different result in writing. (3) Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined. This bill would make those requirements applicable to data obtained from unmanned aircraft systems. By imposing new requirements on local agencies, 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, 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.

Existing law establishes various programs intended to promote the development of affordable housing, including the Multifamily Housing Program, under which the Department of Housing and Community Development provides financial assistance in the form of deferred payment loans to pay for the eligible costs of certain housing development activities. The Planning and Zoning Law requires each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for its physical development, and the development of certain lands outside its boundaries, that includes, among other mandatory elements, a housing element. Existing law requires that the housing element include, among other things, an inventory of land suitable and available for residential development that identifies sites that can be developed for housing within the planning period and that are sufficient to provide for the jurisdiction's share of the regional housing need for all income levels, as specified. This bill would require the department to develop and implement a bonus point system for competitive grant and loan programs that are administered by the department and that facilitate the development of housing. The bill would require the department to award bonus points to proponents of housing development projects that meet specified requirements including that the project has received all necessary local agency approvals to begin construction, and the local agency determines that the project will meet or exceed the local agency's requirement to satisfy the local agency's share of regional housing need for at least one household income level, as specified. The bill would require the department to award bonus points to an applicant that is the proponent of a housing development project that is located on a site identified in the local agency's inventory of land suitable and available for residential development, and the project meets or exceeds the local agency's share of regional housing need at a designated household income level, as specified. The bill would require the bonus point system to also award bonus points to applicants for competitive grants or loans awarded for the purposes of constructing infrastructure necessary for the development of housing that satisfies the local agency's share of regional housing need.

Existing law requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a driver's license to an applicant when the department determines that the applicant is lawfully entitled to a license. Existing law allows an in-person applicant for a driver's license or identification card to request the word "VETERAN" be printed on the face of the driver's license or identification card, subject to certain requirements, including, among others, verification of veteran status, as specified, and payment of a $5 fee, which the department is authorized to increase by regulation in an amount not to exceed $15, as specified. Existing law prohibits a fee from being charged for that request if made by (1) a person who has been determined to have a current income level that meets the eligibility requirements for specified assistance programs, or (2) a person who can verify their status as a homeless person, in accordance with specified provisions. This bill would direct the department to discontinue the fee for printing the word "VETERAN" on the face of a driver's licence or identification card by July 1, 2022, and would repeal that fee provision on January 1, 2023. The bill would also make technical and conforming changes.

The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would allow a credit against those taxes for each taxable year beginning on or after January 1, 2022, and before January 1, 2023, to a taxpayer that is a business with a physical location in the state in an amount equal to the costs paid or incurred by the qualified taxpayer during the taxable year for the purchase of cleaning and sanitizing supplies used at business locations in the state to prevent the transmission of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) . The bill would also include additional information required for any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.

Existing law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to submit an annual report to the Governor and both houses of the Legislature on the operations and accomplishments during the previous fiscal year of the housing programs administered by the department. Existing law requires that the report include, among other things, the number of units assisted by those programs and the number of individuals and households served and their income level. This bill would require the department, by March 1 of each year, to develop an annual summary report that discloses the amount of state, federal, and private funding spent on the development of affordable housing within the state, each city, and each county in the preceding calendar year. The bill would require the department to post the annual summary report on its internet website and make the report available to the public by March 15 of each year.

Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care, and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law requires a health care service plan or health insurer to provide access to medically necessary health care services to its enrollees or insureds who have been displaced by a state of emergency. Existing law enumerates actions that a plan or insurer may be required to take to meet the needs of its enrollees or insureds during the state of emergency. Under existing law, the department may relax time limits for prior authorization during a state of emergency. Existing law requires a health care service plan or a health insurer to reimburse each complete claim, as specified, as soon as practical, but no later than 30 working days, or for a health maintenance organization, 45 working days, after receipt of the complete claim. Under existing law, within 30 working days, or 45 working days for a health maintenance organization, after receipt of the claim, a plan or insurer can contest or deny a claim, as specified. Existing law also authorizes the plan or insurer to request reasonable additional information about a contested claim within 30 working days, or for a health maintenance organization, 45 working days. Existing law allows the plan or insurer 30 working days, or a health maintenance organization 45 working days, after receipt of the additional information to reconsider the claim. Under existing law, once the plan or insurer has received all the information necessary to determine payer liability for the claim and has not reimbursed the claim deemed to be payable within 30 working days, or 45 working days for a health maintenance organization, interest will accrue as specified. Under existing law, for an unpaid claim for nonemergency services, the plan or insurer is required to pay interest, and a plan is required to automatically include the interest in its payment to the claimant on an uncontested claim that has not been paid within the prescribed period. Under existing law, if a plan fails to automatically include this interest owed, it is required to also pay the claimant a $10 fee for failing to comply with this requirement. Under existing law, if a claim for emergency services is not contested by the plan or insurer, and the plan or insurer fails to pay the claim within the 30- or 45-day respective period, the plan or insurer is required to pay a fee or interest, as specified. This bill would require a health care service plan or disability insurer that provides hospital, medical, or surgical coverage to provide access to medically necessary health care services to its enrollees or insureds that are displaced or otherwise affected by a state of emergency. The bill would allow the Department of Managed Health Care and the Department of Insurance to also suspend requirements for prior authorization during a state of emergency. The bill would authorize the respective departments to issue guidance to health care service plans and specified insurers regarding compliance with these provisions. The bill would shorten the time requirements for a plan or insurer to pay or contest a claim for emergency or nonemergency services to 20 working days. The bill would likewise shorten the time limit for requesting additional information about a claim to 20 working days. The bill would require a plan or insurer to pay a provider any interest and fees that accrue from failure to pay a claim regardless of whether the department institutes an enforcement action against the plan or insurer. The bill would define concurrent review for these purposes, and would authorize telephone, videochat, or onsite conduct to qualify as a concurrent review activity. The bill would also prohibit a plan or insurer from recouping an alleged overpayment on one claim by deducting or withholding the amount of the alleged overpayment from another claim relating to the same or a different enrollee or insured. Because a willful violation of the bill's requirements relative to health care service plans 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.