The Local Agency Public Construction Act sets forth the requirements for competitive bidding on various types of contracts awarded by local agencies. The act requires county drainage districts to let any contract for the doing of work and furnishing material to the lowest responsible bidder. The act governs levee district contracts in excess of $2,500 for the construction or repair of any levees or associated works, as specified. The act requires reclamation district contracts for any improvement or unit of work, or for materials or supplies, in excess of $25,000 to be let to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder. The act, for certain projects and purchases of materials for projects of a reclamation district, authorizes the reclamation district to exceed those limitations to a maximum of $50,000, if approved by landowners of the district, as prescribed (landowner approval) . This bill would establish a $50,000 threshold amount for county drainage districts for the requirement to let to the lowest responsible bidder. The bill would increase the threshold amount for subjecting levee districts to the act from $2,500 to $50,000. The bill would increase the lowest responsible bidder threshold amount for reclamation district contracts from $25,000 to $50,000 and would delete the landowner approval provisions.
Sponsored bills
Existing law prescribes certain penalties for the illegal sale or purchase of abalone taken by a person required to be licensed, as specified. Existing law prescribes certain penalties for the illegal take, possession, import, export, sale, purchase, barter, trade, or exchange of a bird, fish, mammal, reptile, amphibian, or part of any of those animals, or the illegal take or possession in the field of more than 3 times the daily bag limit, or the illegal possession of more than 3 times the legal possession limit, of those animals. Existing law prescribes certain penalties for the knowing violation and conviction of certain provisions involving trophy deer, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep, or wild turkey. This bill would prohibit, if the court grants probation to a person punished pursuant to the above provisions, the period of probation from exceeding 3 years. Because this bill would extend the maximum period of probation that may be granted pursuant to these provisions, and thereby would increase the penalty for a 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 establishes the Employment Development Department, administered by the Director of Employment Development, within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and sets forth its powers and duties related to the administration of the state unemployment and disability compensation programs. This bill would require the department to establish, upon appropriation by the Legislature, an advisory committee to advise the department on matters within the department's jurisdiction, including, but not limited to, unemployment insurance. The bill would require the committee to include members representing a diverse spectrum of private and public employers and employees impacted by programs overseen by the department, as provided. The bill would require the committee to hold open and public meetings in compliance with the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act at least once a quarter. The bill would require, commencing on January 1, 2023, the committee to prepare and publicly publish an annual report describing its activities, including, but not limited to, recommendations made by the advisory committee and the department's response to those recommendations. The bill would also make related findings and declarations.
The Corporation Tax Law imposes on every bank and specified financial corporations doing business in the state a tax according to or measured by net income, as provided. That law defines net income as gross income, computed as provided, less allowable deductions. That law also provides various exclusions from gross income. Under that law, when the income of a taxpayer subject to a tax under the Corporation Tax Law is derived from or attributable to sources both within and without the state, the tax is required to be measured by the net income derived from or attributable to sources within the state in accordance with specified procedures. Under that law, in the case of an apportioning trade or business that derives more than 50% of its gross business receipts from conducting one or more qualified business activities, which includes savings and loan activities and banking or financial business activities, business income is apportioned in accordance with a 3-factor formula. Under the 3-factor formula, the specified apportioning trade or business is required to multiply business income by a fraction, the numerator of which is the property factor plus the payroll factor plus the sales factor, and the denominator of which is 3. 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 require, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2022, and before January 1, 2027, a qualified taxpayer that apportions its business income under the 3-factor formula described above to exclude the amount of qualified interest income from its calculation of the sales factor under the 3-factor formula. The bill would define a qualified taxpayer as a bank or financial corporation, as defined, that generates business income that is derived from or attributable to sources within and without this state and that is determined pursuant to the 3-factor formula. The bill would define qualified interest income as interest income that a qualified taxpayer generates on a qualified loan, as defined, during the taxable year and that would be subject to apportionment under the 3-factor formula but for the application of the bill's provisions. This bill would also provide that, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2022, gross income does not include the amount of qualified interest income, which is defined as interest income that a qualified taxpayer generates on a qualified loan during the taxable year, generated by the qualified taxpayer. The bill would define a qualified taxpayer for this purpose as a bank or financial corporation that generates business income that is solely derived from or attributable to sources within this state. This bill would provide findings to comply with the additional information requirement for any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law requires the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to a person, other than that driver, or in the death of a person to immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the accident and provide specified personal information to the injured person or the occupants of the other vehicle and to any traffic or police officer at the scene of the accident. Under existing law, if a vehicle accident results in permanent, serious injury or death, a person who violates the requirement to stop is subject to punishment by imprisonment in the state prison for 2, 3, or 4 years, or in a county jail for not less than 90 days nor more than one year, or by a specified fine, or both the imprisonment and fine. Existing law authorizes the court, in the interests of justice and for other reasons stated in the record, to reduce or eliminate the minimum imprisonment or fine requirements. This bill would instead make a person who fails to immediately stop, as required, at the scene of an accident that resulted in a permanent, serious injury subject to punishment by imprisonment in the state prison for 2, 3, or 4 years, or in a county jail for not less than 90 days nor more than one year, and a specified fine, and if the accident resulted in death, the violation of those requirements would be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 3, 4, or 6 years, or in a county jail for not less than 90 days nor more than one year, and a specified fine.
Existing law requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a local assistance grant program for fire prevention activities, as defined, in the state. Existing law requires the department to prioritize, to the extent feasible, projects that are multiyear efforts. Existing law authorizes the department to consider the fire risk of an area, among other things, when awarding local assistance grants. This bill would expand the definition of "fire prevention activities" to include the removal of hazardous dead trees, creation of fuel breaks and community defensible spaces, and creation of ingress and egress corridors. The bill would also require the department to prioritize projects that have a completed, or nearly completed, environmental review document, as provided. The bill would authorize the department to consider and evaluate the wildfire risk within the proposed project area, as well as the socioeconomic characteristics of communities that the various education and mitigation projects are intended to protect, when awarding local assistance grants. Existing law requires the department to provide a report to the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature on or before July 1, 2022, that includes a summary of specified findings relating to fire prevention activities and the local assistance grant program. This bill would also require the report to include, but not be limited to, the total amount of acreage treated by an awarded grant recipient, whether the project was awarded funding for vegetation management activities, the number of communities protected by an awarded project, and the total number of population receiving a benefit of the project.
Existing law, the Nursing Practice Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of the practice of nursing by the Board of Registered Nursing. The Vocational Nursing Practice Act provides for the licensure and regulation of vocational nurses by the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians of the State of California. The Nursing Practice Act establishes the Board of Registered Nursing Fund and the Vocational Nursing Practice Act establishes the Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians Fund. This bill would enact the Nurse Licensure Compact, under which the Board of Registered Nursing and the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians would be authorized to issue a multistate license that would authorize the holder to practice as a registered nurse or a licensed vocational nurse, as applicable, in all party states under a multistate licensure privilege, as specified. The bill would designate the Board of Registered Nursing as the licensing board for registered nurses for purposes of the compact and would designate the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians as the licensing board for vocational nurses for purposes of the compact. The bill would require the boards to participate in a coordinated licensure information system that would include all of the licensure and disciplinary history of all licensed registered nurses and licensed vocational nurses. The bill would provide that the Board of Registered Nursing and the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians shall alternate as the administrator of the compact for the state and as members of an entity known as the Interstate Commission of Nurse Licensure Compact Administrators. The bill would authorize the commission to adopt rules that have the force and effect of law. The bill would prohibit fees collected by the Board of Registered Nursing or the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians for purposes of granting a multistate license pursuant to the bill from exceeding the cost of administering that multistate license under the compact and would require those fees to be deposited in the Board of Registered Nursing Fund or the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians Fund, as applicable. By authorizing out-of-state licensees to practice in this state under the multistate compact privilege created by the bill, the bill would expand the scope of the criminal provisions of the Nursing Practice Act and Vocational Nursing Practice Act, thereby imposing 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.
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law, in modified conformity with federal law, generally define "gross income" as income from whatever source derived, except as specifically excluded, and provides various exclusions from gross income for purposes of computing tax liability. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2021, and before January 1, 2026, would exclude, under both laws, from gross income the amount of a grant awarded pursuant to the California Small Business COVID-19 Relief Grant Program. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law, the Nursing Practice Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of nurses by the Board of Registered Nursing in the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing law requires a licensee under the act to apply for renewal of their license every 2 years and allows an inactive license to be reactivated, as specified. This bill would authorize the board to reduce as prescribed the renewal fee for a licensee who meets certain age and practice qualifications.
(1) The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. Existing law authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law continuously appropriates 35% of the annual proceeds of the fund for transit, affordable housing, and sustainable communities programs and 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund for certain components of a specified high-speed rail project. This bill would continuously appropriate $480,000,000 and $20,000,000 to the Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention and the California Conservation Corps, respectively, for fire prevention activities, as provided. (2) The Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973 prohibits a person from conducting timber operations unless a timber harvesting plan prepared by a registered professional forester has been submitted to, and approved by, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Existing law, until January 1, 2022, authorizes the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to exempt from the requirements of that act a person engaged in forest management whose activities are limited to the cutting or removal of trees on the person's property that eliminates the vertical continuity of vegetative fuels and the horizontal continuity of tree crowns for the purpose of reducing flammable materials and maintaining a fuelbreak for a distance of not more than 300 feet on each side from an approved and legally permitted habitable structure, when that cutting or removal is conducted in compliance with certain requirements. This bill would extend the state board's authorization to provide for the above exemption indefinitely. The bill would extend the distance of the fuelbreak to not more than 500 feet. (3) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. This bill would exempt from the requirements of CEQA projects or activities related to forest health and fuel reduction that involve thinning overgrown brushes or trees 10 inches or less in diameter by mechanical thinning, pile burning, prescribed fire, and grazing. Because a lead agency would be required to determine the applicability of this exemption, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (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.