Asm. Ash Kalra

The State Contract Act governs the bidding and award of public works contracts by specific state departments and requires an awarding department, before entering into any contract for a project, to prepare full, complete, and accurate plans and specifications and estimates of cost. The Buy Clean California Act, requires, among other things, the Department of General Services, in consultation with the State Air Resources Board, to establish a maximum acceptable global warming potential for each category of eligible materials, as specified. That law requires an awarding authority, as defined, to require a successful bidder to submit a current Environmental Product Declaration developed in accordance with specified standards, for that type of product. This bill would provide that it is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that provides that the policy of the state is to ensure that companies that contract with the state are not contributing to tropical deforestation, either directly or through their supply chains.

Existing law establishes the Department of Housing and Community Development in the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and requires the department to administer various housing programs. Existing law requires agencies and departments administering state programs to collaborate with the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to adopt guidelines and regulations that incorporate core components of housing policy, including Housing First. Existing law contains provisions governing the operation and financing of community mental health services for persons with mental health disorders in every county through locally administered and locally controlled community mental health programs. This bill would require, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the Department of Housing and Community Development to establish the Coordination of Care for At-Risk Individuals Grant Program to provide grants to counties currently enrolled in the Data Driver Recovery Project for the innovative identification and intervention of frequent utilizers, as defined, and to aid in providing those individuals with services. This bill would require a grant recipient to meet specified criteria, including an expressed intent in coordinating with fellow counties to share data in order to identify frequent utilizers. The bill would require an applicant to the program to provide a proposal containing specified information, including a viable plan to identify frequent utilizers and performance metrics and goals the applicant seeks to achieve through the program. The bill would require the department to score applicants to the program competitively according to specified criteria. The bill would require a grant recipient to use prearrest diversion when applicable and provide other services to vulnerable individuals to promote anti-recidivism, among others. The bill would require the department to distribute funds allocated to a grant recipient for a term of 3 years, subject to automatic renewal. The bill would also require a grant recipient to then execute contracts with community-based organizations to provide services to frequent utilizers. The bill would require a grant recipient to submit an annual report to the department on specified information, including the types of services provided to frequent utilizers and whether the grant recipient met the performance metrics identified in their application.

Existing law authorizes the formation of nonprofit corporations under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law by 20 or more persons for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Existing law authorizes a corporation, or human officer thereof, to proffer a complaint against any person, before any court or magistrate having jurisdiction, for the violation of any law relating to or affecting animals and to aid in the prosecution of the offender before a court or magistrate. This bill would authorize a corporation, or humane officer thereof, proffering a complaint under existing law to bring it as a civil action to obtain specific or injunctive relief to enforce laws relating to or affecting animals. This bill would also make legislative findings and declarations in support of its provisions.

Under existing law, by executive order, CaliforniaVolunteers is established in the Office of the Governor and is charged with overseeing programs and initiatives for service and volunteerism. Existing law authorizes CaliforniaVolunteers to form a nonprofit public benefit corporation or other entity exempt from income taxation, as provided, to raise revenues and receive grants or other financial support from private or public sources, for purposes of undertaking or funding any lawful activity authorized to be undertaken by CaliforniaVolunteers. Existing federal law, the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, also requires the state to create a commission to carry out specified duties relating to national service programs to be eligible for grants or allotments under certain programs, or to receive distributions of approved national service positions. Existing state law continues into existence the Board of Commissioners under CaliforniaVolunteers for purposes of meeting the requirements of the federal act and the act's implementing rules and regulations. #CaliforniansForAll Youth Jobs Corps is a program of the CaliforniaVolunteers. This bill would establish in statute the #CaliforniansForAll Youth Job Corps Program. The bill would require the CaliforniaVolunteers to expand the program, upon appropriation by the Legislature, which would fund supportive services, as specified, that are necessary for homeless youth and current or former foster youth to enable their participation in the workforce development program, as defined. Under the bill, grants would be awarded on a competitive basis. The bill would require the CaliforniaVolunteers to conduct outreach activities and to provide technical assistance to eligible applicants to ensure that grants are awarded to qualified applicants providing a broad spectrum of supportive services. The bill would prescribe definitions, duties for the CaliforniaVolunteers, and requirements for applications and applicants, including the requirement that applicants agree to provide the office any information that the office deems necessary to meet reporting requirements and other grant requirements. The bill would require the CaliforniaVolunteers to evaluate how grants awarded under the program address the needs of eligible targeted populations and, beginning one year after the initial award of grant funds, to post an annual report on its internet website regarding the progress and success of the program.

Existing law authorizes a peace officer to use reasonable force to effect the arrest, to prevent escape, or to overcome resistance of an individual. Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to maintain a policy on the use of force. Existing law prohibits the use of kinetic energy projectiles or chemical agents by any law enforcement agency to disperse any assembly, protest, or demonstration, except in compliance with specified standards. This bill would prohibit the use of an unleashed police canine by law enforcement to apprehend a person unless the person is being pursued for a felony that threatened or resulted in the death of or serious bodily injury to another person and the person poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person and any use of a police canine for crowd control. The bill would prohibit a police canine from being used to bite unless there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person by the person against whom the canine is used. The bill would attribute the death of or serious bodily injury to a person caused by a police canine to the canine's handler as constituting deadly force. The bill would prohibit law enforcement agencies from authorizing any use or training of a police canine that is inconsistent with this bill.

Existing law, the California Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly Act (act) , requires the State Department of Social Services to license, inspect, and regulate residential care facilities for the elderly 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. Under existing law, whether or not unrelated persons are living together, a residential care facility for the elderly that serves 6 or fewer persons is considered a residential use of property, as specified. Existing law makes certain violations of the act a crime. This bill would revise those provisions by deleting the restriction to facilities that serve 6 or fewer and instead referring to residential care facilities for the elderly that are licensed by the State Department of Social Services and provide onsite services. The bill would also require that such a facility that has greater than 6 beds reserve a minimum of 30% of the additional beds for low-income individuals or recipients of specified benefits. By expanding the number of facilities subject to the provisions of the act, thereby expanding the crimes associated with the act, and by creating a new crime this bill would establish 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.

(1) Existing law provides that any person who willfully disturbs any public school or any public school meeting is guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to a fine of not more than $500. The bill would exempt from those misdemeanor and fine provisions a person who, at the time of the disturbance, is a pupil of the school district. (2) Existing law requires, if any employee of a school district or county superintendent of schools is attacked, assaulted, or physically threatened by any pupil, the employee and any person under whose direction or supervision the employee is employed who has knowledge of the incident are required to promptly report the incident to specified law enforcement authorities. Under existing law, failure to make the report is an infraction punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 and acts by specified persons to inhibit or impede the making of the report is an infraction punishable by a fine of not less than $500 and not more than $1,000. This bill would delete those infraction provisions for a failure to report and for inhibiting or impeding the making of the report. The bill would authorize, instead of require, the employee who was the target of the incident to make that notification and prohibit the governing board of a school district, a member of the governing board, a county superintendent of schools, and an employee of a school district or of the office of any county superintendent of schools from imposing any sanctions against a person making that notification. The bill would strongly encourage an employee of a school district or of the office of a county superintendent of schools to employ other means of correction, as provided, before considering a law enforcement referral. (3) The federal Gun-Free Schools Act prohibits a local educational agency from receiving certain federal funds unless the local educational agency has a policy requiring referral to the criminal justice or juvenile delinquency system of any student who brings a firearm or weapon to a school served by the local educational agency. Existing state law requires the principal of a school or the principal's designee to notify the appropriate law enforcement authorities of the county or city in which the school is situated of certain acts committed by a pupil that may be unlawful, including, among others, the selling or possession of narcotics or other designated controlled or regulated substances, and acts of assault, as specified. This bill instead would require that notification only if the pupil's acts require notification under that federal law, or a pupil or nonpupil's acts include possessing, selling, or otherwise furnishing a firearm or possessing an explosive.

Existing law provides for the creation of various programs to provide health care services to persons who have limited incomes and meet various eligibility requirements, including the Medi-Cal program administered by the State Department of Health Care Services. Existing law provides for the regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law establishes the California Health Benefit Exchange to facilitate the purchase of qualified health plans through the Exchange by qualified individuals and small employers. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to guarantee accessible, affordable, equitable, and high-quality health care for all Californians through a comprehensive universal single-payer health care program that benefits every resident of the state.