Existing law, the Student Loan Servicing Act, prohibits a person from engaging in the business of servicing a student loan in California without first obtaining a license. Existing law commits the administration of these provisions to the Commissioner of Business Oversight and grants the commissioner various powers in this regard, including the authority to conduct investigations of applicants and licensees. The act requires an applicant for a license to submit audited financial statements prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and acceptable to the commissioner that indicate a net worth of at least $250,000 and requires a licensee to maintain a minimum net worth of $250,000. Existing law, the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, regulates the collection of consumer debts by debt collectors, as defined. Under existing law, a debt collector who violates the act is liable to a debtor for actual damages resulting from the violation, and is subject to additional civil penalties for any willful or knowing violation of the act, and other specified remedies. This bill would authorize the commissioner to allow a licensee that is a wholly owned subsidiary of a public holding company required to comply with the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission to satisfy the requirement to submit audited financial statements with an application for a license and to maintain a minimum net worth of $250,000 by submitting the annual consolidated audited financial statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as specified. This bill would impose new requirements on a student loan servicer, defined as any person engaged in the business of servicing student loans in the state. These requirements would include the timely posting, processing, and crediting of student loan payments within certain timeframes, applying overpayments consistent with the best financial interest of a student loan borrower, as defined, applying partial payments to minimize late fees and negative credit reporting, maintaining records, timely processing of paperwork, and diligently overseeing service providers. The bill would require a student loan servicer to provide specialized training for customer service personnel that advises military borrowers, borrowers in public service, borrowers with disabilities, and older borrowers. The bill would prohibit a student loan servicer from engaging in unfair or deceptive practices, or abusive acts or practices in connection with the servicing of a student loan, as specified. The bill would authorize a consumer who suffers damages as a result of a person's failure to comply with these provisions as well as all applicable federal laws relating to student loan servicing to bring an action for actual damages, injunctive relief, restitution, punitive damages, attorney's fees, and other relief, including treble damages in certain circumstances. The bill would require a consumer to give specified notice to a person before bringing an action for damages against that person for a violation of the bill's provisions and would provide that person an opportunity to cure the alleged violation, as specified. The bill would prohibit an attempt to cure a violation by a person who receives a notice of that violation from being admissible in court against that person but would authorize the attempt to cure to be admitted as evidence by that person, as specified. The bill would define terms for purposes of its provisions. The bill would require, beginning on July 1, 2021, the commissioner, as specified, to designate a Student Loan Ombudsman to work within the department and to hire additional staff, as needed to implement these provisions. The bill would require the Student Loan Ombudsman to receive and review complaints, to refer complaints to an appropriate unit within the department that would be authorized to investigate the complaint, and to refer complaints regarding servicers not subject to licensing under the Student Loan Servicing Act to the Department of Justice, which would be permitted to investigate those complaints. The bill would require complaints regarding any private postsecondary educational institution licensed by the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education to be referred to the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education's Office of Student Assistance and Relief. The bill would require the Student Loan Ombudsman to confer with the Department of Justice and the Office of Student Assistance and Relief regarding the student loan servicing complaints, the proper referral processes for those complaints, and the reporting requirements imposed by the bill. The bill would require the Student Loan Ombudsman not later than 18 months after the operative date of the bill, and no less than once yearly thereafter, to submit a report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature regarding the implementation of these provisions, the types of complaints received, and other data and analysis on student loan issues. The bill would also, beginning July 1, 2021, authorize the Commissioner of Business Oversight to monitor for risks to consumers in the provision of student loan servicing and would authorize the commissioner to gather information regarding the organization, business conduct, and activities of student loan services. The bill would authorize the commissioner to gather and compile information from student loan servicers and to develop and publicize metrics based on the data collected. Among other actions, the bill would authorize the commissioner to require student loan servicers to file, under oath or otherwise, annual or special reports or answers in writing to specific questions. By expanding the crime of perjury, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would include related legislative findings and would make conforming and nonsubstantive changes to provisions in the Student Loan Servicing Act. 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.
Sponsored bills
(1) Existing law, commonly known as the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR) , states the intent of the Legislature to improve California's child welfare system and its outcomes by increasing the use of home-based family care and creating faster paths to permanency resulting in shorter durations of involvement in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, among other things. Existing law, as part of the CCR, requires the State Department of Social Services to implement a resource family approval process, and directs counties and foster family agencies, to approve resource families, as defined, in lieu of licensing foster family homes, certifying foster homes by foster family agencies, approving relatives and nonrelative extended family members as foster care providers, and approving guardians and adoptive families. Existing law requires a foster family agency to, and authorizes a county to, conduct a reference check of a resource family applicant before approval by contacting specified entities, including any foster family agencies that have certified the applicant. This bill would, among other things, clarify that the reference check is to determine whether it is safe and appropriate to approve the resource family, and would require that a foster family agency that has previously certified the applicant or approved the applicant as a resource family to divulge information, as specified, regarding the applicant within 20 business days of being contacted by a foster family agency or county conducting a reference check. (2) Existing law authorizes a resource family that is currently approved by a foster family agency or a county to be approved by a subsequent foster family agency upon the completion of specified activities, including the resource family submitting an application and the subsequent foster family agency conducting a background check and reference check, as specified. Existing law also authorizes a resource family approved by a foster family agency to transfer their approval to a county upon the completion of similar activities. This bill would prohibit a subsequent foster family agency or a county from approving or denying an application if there is a pending investigation that poses a health and safety risk or a pending administrative action against the applicant or an adult residing in the home. The bill would authorize the approval or denial of the application after the investigation or administrative action has concluded, and the subsequent foster family agency or county confirms that the applicant is still eligible to apply for approval and does not pose a health and safety risk to children or nonminor dependents. (3) Existing law, the California Community Care Facilities Act, provides for the licensing and regulation of community care facilities, including foster family homes, group homes, and short-term residential therapeutic programs, by the State Department of Social Services. The act requires a license under the act or a resource family approval to be forfeited by operation of law under specific circumstances, including when the licensee or resource family is convicted of a specified offense for which the department is prohibited from granting a criminal record exemption for. The act authorizes the department to extend a provisional license for a group home or short-term residential therapeutic program that is in substantial compliance with licensing standards up to an additional 6 months if the facility needs additional time to be in full compliance with licensing standards or is operating at a specified capacity. A violation of the act is a misdemeanor. This bill would remove the above-described circumstance from the requirement that a license under the act or a resource family approval be forfeited by operation of law. The bill would require forfeiture of a group home license when the licensee transfers the group home to a short-term residential therapeutic program and receives a license for that program, unless the department approves the licensee to operate a short-term residential program in an identifiable and separate unit on the same grounds. The bill would authorize the department to extend the provisional license an additional 12 months for a short-term residential therapeutic program that requires additional time to complete specified mental health program approval. (4) Existing law requires specified proceedings under the California Community Care Facilities Act against a foster family home, certified family home, or a resource family of a foster family agency to be confidential and not open to the public in order to preserve the confidential information of a child or foster parent. This bill would expand that confidentiality requirement to all proceedings under the act against a foster family home, certified family home, or a resource family of a foster family agency. The bill would require all licensed community care facilities serving children to provide trauma-informed care and utilize trauma-informed practices, as defined by the department. The bill would require the department to implement this requirement, and would authorize the department to implement this requirement through interim licensing standards until the regulations are adopted. Because the failure of a licensed community care facility serving children to comply with these provisions would be a misdemeanor, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (5) Existing law establishes the Aid to Families with Dependent Children-Foster Care (AFDC-FC) program, under which counties provide payments to foster care providers on behalf of qualified children in foster care. Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to administer a state system for establishing rates in the AFDC-FC program. This bill would authorize the department, at the request of a county to develop, implement, and approve alternative funding models and set individualized rates for innovative AFDC-FC programs or models of care and services that provide children with service alternatives to residential care, enhance the ability of children to remain in the least restrictive, most family-like setting possible, and promote services that address the needs and strengths of individual children and their families. The bill would require a county that requests an alternative funding model or individualized rate to pay the nonfederal share of any additional cost that exceeds the state system of rates, as specified. This bill would expand the locations where a child or nonminor dependant may be placed, on and after April 1, 2021, to be eligible for AFDC-FC to include a residential family-based treatment facility for substance abuse that meets specified requirements in which an eligible child is placed with a parent in treatment. By expanding the coverage of benefits in this manner, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would authorize the department to implement this expansion through all-county letters or similar written instructions from the department until regulations are adopted. This bill would provide a one-year extension for the payments of specified established interim rates, including, among others, the basic rate for a certified family home of a foster family agency, interim rates for short-term residential therapeutic program placements, and payments for foster family agencies that provide treatment, intensive treatment, and therapeutic foster care programs. (6) Existing law requires the Department of Social Services to implement intensive treatment foster care programs for eligible children and exempts the rates for these programs from the current AFDC-FC foster family agency ratesetting system. Existing law required the department from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2019, inclusive, to implement an interim rate structure to reflect the appropriate level of placement and address the need for specialized health care, support services, and mental health treatment services for foster children served in these programs. Existing law provides the method to calculate current rates for these programs.This bill would authorize the department, notwithstanding specified provisions, to implement a new interim rate structure through December 31, 2021, to reflect the appropriate level of placement and address the needs specified above. (7) Existing law excludes a person from a facility licensed by the State Department of Social Services if the person was issued a specified license or approval as a resource family and that license was revoked or approval rescinded within the preceding 2 years. Existing law also excludes a person from a licensed facility if the person applied for a specified license and that application was denied within the last year. This bill would add the denial of a resource family approval application within the last year as a basis for excluding a person from specified facilities licensed by the department, and would make related changes. (8) Existing law, until July 1, 2021, exempts specified contracts or grants necessary for the department to administer the continuum of care reform from personal services contracting requirements, as specified, the Public Contract Code and the State Contracting Manual, and review by either the Department of General Services or the Department of Technology. This bill would extend those exemptions until July 1, 2023. (9) Existing law authorizes the juvenile court to adjudge a child to be a dependent child of the court or a minor to be a ward of the court under specified circumstances. Existing law requires the court, social worker, or probation officer to make further inquiry regarding the possible Indian status of the child if there is reason to believe that an Indian child is involved in these proceedings. This bill would specify when there is reason to believe an Indian child, including a child who is eligible for membership in an Indian tribe, is involved in these proceedings. (10) Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. (11) 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. (12) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL) , establishes the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) , which provides a defined benefit to members of the system based on final compensation, credited service, and age at retirement, subject to certain variations. PERL authorizes any public agency to make its employees members of PERS by contract. Under existing law, when a contracting agency is succeeded by another agency, the successor agency may become a contracting agency of PERS. Existing law provides that if the successor agency contracts with PERS, the contract of the former agency shall merge with the contract of the succeeding agency. This bill would authorize a successor agency for the Central Fire Protection District and the Aptos/La Selva Fire Protection District to provide employees the defined benefit plan or formula that those employees received from their respective employer prior to the consolidation. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the County of Santa Cruz.
Existing law prohibits an agreement to settle an employment dispute from containing a provision that prohibits, prevents, or otherwise restricts a settling party that is an aggrieved person, as defined, from working for the employer against which the aggrieved person has filed a claim or any parent company, subsidiary, division, affiliate, or contractor of the employer. This bill would require the aggrieved person to have filed the claim in good faith for the prohibition to apply. Existing law creates an exception from the prohibition if the employer has made a good faith determination that the aggrieved person engaged in sexual harassment or sexual assault. This bill would require the determination of sexual assault or sexual harassment to be documented by the employer before the aggrieved person filed the claim. The bill would also expand this exception to include determinations that the aggrieved person engaged in any criminal conduct.
This measure would designate a specified portion of State Route 50 in the County of El Dorado as the Deputy Sheriff Brian "Ish" Ishmael Memorial Highway. The measure would request that the Department of Transportation determine the cost of appropriate signs showing this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, erect those signs.
Existing law authorizes a court to allow a defendant sentenced to county jail for a felony to withdraw their plea of guilty or plea of nolo contendere and enter a plea of not guilty, after the lapse of one or 2 years following the defendant's completion of the sentence, provided that the defendant is not under supervision, and is not serving a sentence for, on probation for, or charged with the commission of any offense. Existing law requires the defendant to be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense of which the defendant was convicted, except as specified. This bill would allow a defendant who successfully participated in the California Conservation Camp Program or a county incarcerated individual hand crew as an incarcerated individual hand crew member, and has been released from custody, to petition to withdraw their plea of guilty or plea of nolo contendere and enter a plea of not guilty. The bill would make persons convicted of specified violent felonies and sex offenses ineligible for relief. The bill would allow the court, if the defendant is eligible for relief, to dismiss the accusations or information against the defendant at the court's discretion and in the interest of justice and would release the defendant from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense, except as provided. In granting this relief, the bill would require the court to order the early termination of probation, parole, or supervised release if the court determines that the defendant has not violated any of the terms or conditions of their release during the pendency of the petition.
(1) The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, administered by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, generally regulates the disposal, management, and recycling of solid waste, including, among other solid waste, single-use plastic straws. The Sustainable Packaging for the State of California Act of 2018 prohibits a food service facility located in a state-owned facility, operating on or acting as a concessionaire on state property, or under contract to provide food service to a state agency from dispensing prepared food using a type of food service packaging unless the type of food service packaging is on a list that the department publishes and maintains on its internet website that contains types of approved food service packaging that are reusable, recyclable, or compostable. Existing law makes a legislative declaration that it is the policy goal of the state that not less than 75% of solid waste generated be source reduced, recycled, or composted by 2020. This bill would enact the California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, which would impose a comprehensive regulatory scheme on producers, retailers, and wholesalers of single-use packaging, as defined, and priority single-use products, as defined, made partially or entirely of plastic, to be administered by the department. As part of that regulatory scheme, the bill would require producers, as defined, (A) to source reduce, to the maximum extent feasible, single-use packaging and priority single-use products, and (B) to ensure that all single-use packaging and priority single-use products that are manufactured on or after January 1, 2032, and that are offered for sale, sold, distributed, or imported in or into the state are recyclable or compostable. The bill would require the department to achieve and maintain, by January 1, 2032, a statewide 75% reduction of the waste generated from single-use packaging and priority single-use products offered for sale, sold, distributed, or imported in or into the state through source reduction, recycling, or composting. The bill would require the department, by January 1, 2025, to adopt regulations to implement the act and, before adopting the regulations, to conduct extensive outreach, as prescribed, and to identify and evaluate specified provisions for potential inclusion in the regulations. The bill would require the department to establish a Circular Economy and Waste Pollution Reduction Panel for the purpose of identifying barriers and solutions to creating a circular economy consistent with the act. The regulatory scheme would include, among other requirements, registration, reporting, and recordkeeping requirements. The bill would require reports and data provided to the department pursuant to the act to be accurate and attested to under penalty of perjury, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program by expanding the crime of perjury. The bill would prohibit a retailer or wholesaler, as defined, from offering for sale or selling single-use packaging, products packaged in single-use packaging, or priority single-use products if the producer of the single-use packaging or priority single-use product is listed as noncompliant for that packaging or product category on the department's internet website on a list that the bill would require the department to post, as specified. The bill would prohibit certain online marketplaces, upon notification from the department, from allowing on the online marketplaces the offering for sale, sale, or distribution into the state of single-use packaging, a product packaged in single-use packaging, or a priority single-use product if the product or packaging is identified as noncompliant with the act in the notice provided by the department. The bill would require the department to develop criteria to determine whether the packaging or priority single-use products are reusable, recyclable, or compostable. The bill would authorize local governments, solid waste facilities, recycling facilities, and composting facilities to provide information requested by the department for purposes of developing that criteria. The bill would require single-use packaging and priority single-use products offered for sale, sold, distributed, or imported in or into the state by a producer to meet specified recycling rates that are based on date of manufacture and that increase over a prescribed timeframe, and would authorize the department to impose a higher or lower recycling rate for packaging or product categories, as specified. The bill would require the department to establish and post on its internet website a list of packaging and product categories, and current recycling rates being achieved in the state for those packaging and product categories, as specified. The bill would require the department to adopt regulations containing specified provisions authorizing the establishment of a stewardship program. The bill would authorize producers to collectively form one or more stewardship organizations that adopt a stewardship plan as an alternative to individually complying with the above-referenced comprehensive regulatory scheme. The bill would require the department to establish, and a producer to remit to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, the California circular economy regulatory fee. The bill would require the department to set the amount of the regulatory fee at no more than is necessary to cover the reasonable regulatory costs of the above-referenced comprehensive regulatory scheme and stewardship program, and would authorize a stewardship organization to pay the regulatory fee on behalf of its member producers, as specified. The bill would require the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration to collect the regulatory fee in accordance with the Fee Collection Procedures Law, as prescribed. The bill would require the regulatory fees to be deposited into the California Circular Economy Fund, which the bill would create. The bill would provide that moneys in the fund shall be available upon appropriation by the Legislature to the department to fund the regulatory activities of the act and to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration for expenses incurred in the collection of the regulatory fee. The bill would require the department to report to the Legislature every 2 years its progress in implementing the act. The bill would provide for exceptions to, and enforcement of, the act, including authorizing the department to impose an administrative civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $50,000 per day per violation, except as specified, on an entity that is not in compliance with the act's requirements. The bill would require the department to deposit collected penalties into the Circular Economy Penalty Account, which the bill would create. The bill would provide that moneys in the account shall be available upon appropriation by the Legislature for purposes that further the act. (2) The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989 requires each city and county, and each regional agency formed pursuant to the act, to develop a source reduction and recycling element of an integrated waste management plan to divert 50% of all solid waste, through source reduction, recycling, and composting activities. This bill would prohibit a city, county, city and county, or other local public agency from requiring a grocery store, as defined, to use a certain type of food packaging for any food sold in the grocery store unless the majority of residential households within the jurisdiction of the local agency have access to a curbside program, as defined, that accepts the material from which that food packaging is made. The bill would also prohibit those local agencies from requiring a grocery store to use a food packaging container that does not meet specified criteria. The bill would repeal these provisions as of January 1, 2032. (3) The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, administered by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, regulates the granting of licenses for the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages within the state. The act requires an out-of-state vendor shipping beer into the state to hold a certificate of compliance granted by the department, as prescribed. The act authorizes the department to suspend or revoke the certificate of compliance, as specified, if an out-of-state vendor, after obtaining the certificate, fails to submit a certain monthly report or fails to comply with a particular provision of the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act. This bill would authorize the department to suspend or revoke the certificate of compliance of an out-of-state vendor that fails to comply with the California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act. (4) Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. (5) 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 provisions of the California Constitution establish the University of California as a public trust under the administration of the Regents of the University of California. The California Constitution grants to the regents all the powers necessary or convenient for the effective administration of this public trust. Pursuant to the California Constitution, there are 7 ex officio members of the regents and 18 appointive members appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate, a majority of the membership concurring. This measure would enact the University of California Equal Employment Opportunity Standards Act, which would, effective January 1, 2021, except as specified, require the regents to ensure that all contract workers, as defined, who are paid to perform support services for students, faculty, patients, or the general public at any campus, dining hall, medical center, clinic, research facility, laboratory, or other university location, are at all times subject to and afforded the same equal employment opportunity standards, as defined, as university employees performing similar services. The measure would authorize the regents, or any campus or other entity of the University of California, to contract for, or otherwise arrange to use, contract labor, as defined, to perform support services only under specified conditions, only if authorized to do so by statute, and only to the extent necessary to address one or more of prescribed needs. The measure would authorize the Legislature to enact statutes to further the purposes of, and to aid the enforcement of, this measure.
This measure would urge each bank with which the State of California has a business relationship to evaluate its commercial relationship with gun manufacturers and to consider the repercussions of that relationship, and urge all banks to discuss their lending practices with their shareholders and to adopt lending practices that mirror the people of California's values of protecting citizens before profit.