Existing law establishes the Department of Veterans Affairs and designates the Secretary of Veterans Affairs as the chief administrative officer of the department. Existing law also establishes the California Veterans Board, and requires the board to advise the department and secretary on policies for operations of the department. Existing law provides for veterans programs, including the veterans farm and home purchase programs, and provides for veterans homes. This bill would create the office of Inspector General for Veterans Affairs, who would be subject to the direction of the Governor, within the department. The bill would require the inspector general to be appointed by the Governor, subject to Senate confirmation. The inspector general would be responsible for reviewing the operations and financial condition of each California veterans home, each veterans farm and home purchase program, and all other veterans programs supported by the state. Beginning January 1, 2017, and each year after, the bill would require the inspector general to submit a report to the board and the Legislature and make any recommendations he or she deems necessary for improving the operations of the veterans programs. The bill would repeal the reporting requirement on January 1, 2020. The bill would authorize the inspector general to receive communications from any individual who believes he or she may have information that warrants a review or investigation of a veterans program. The bill would authorize, and in some instances require, the inspector general to conduct a review or investigation. The bill would also require the establishment of a toll-free telephone number to report alleged wrongdoing regarding veterans programs. 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.
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Existing law provides for the regulation of long-term care insurance, as defined, and requires the Insurance Commissioner to review and approve individual and group policies, certificates, riders, and outlines of coverage. This bill would require, only until January 1, 2021, the commissioner to commission an annual study comparing the statutory requirements for long-term care products in this state with the statutory requirements governing long-term care products as set forth in the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Compact developed by the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission. The bill would also require the commissioner to provide a report to the Legislature, on or before January 1, 2017, and each January 1 thereafter, until January 1, 2021, comparing the marketability and affordability of long-term care insurance products in this state with similar products in New York, Texas, and Florida.
(1) Existing law requires employers to send the Employment Development Department specified information regarding their employees, including wage information and social security numbers. The department maintains a file of wage records of employees for the purpose of computing earnings in a base period to establish amounts for unemployment benefits. Existing law provides that information obtained in the administration of the Unemployment Insurance Code is confidential, for the exclusive use of the Director of Employment Development in the discharge of his or her duties, and not open to the public. Existing law permits the director to use the information for certain purposes, including providing information to law enforcement agencies upon request, and permits reimbursement of direct costs incurred. Existing law provides that a person who knowingly accesses, uses, or discloses this confidential information without authorization is guilty of a misdemeanor. This bill would require the department to review, at least once each year, the information in its unemployment insurance base wage file, to identify if multiple names are associated with a single social security number. The bill would require the department, when it discovers multiple names associated with a single social security number to inform the appropriate law enforcement official of this fact, along with relevant supporting information, as a potential misuse of a social security number. The bill would require the department to establish a reasonable threshold for the number of names associated with a single social security number that would trigger further investigation by the department or referral to law enforcement. By expanding the crime of unauthorized use or disclosure of this information, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) 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, the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, approved by the voters as Proposition 1 at the November 4, 2014, statewide general election, authorizes the issuance of general obligation bonds in the amount of $7,545,000,000 to finance a water quality, supply, and infrastructure improvement program. The bond act provides that the sum of $725,000,000 is to be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for grants or loans for water recycling and advanced treatment technology projects. The bond act requires these water recycling and advanced treatment technology projects to be selected on a competitive basis, considering specified criteria, including, among other criteria, water supply reliability improvement and public health benefits from improved drinking water quality or supply. This bill would include in the water supply reliability improvement criterion whether the project is proposed by a community that is heavily dependent on groundwater from a basin in overdraft, and would include in the public health benefits criterion whether the project is proposed by a community that has extended, or is in the process of extending, its water service delivery to entities reliant on either contaminated groundwater or groundwater wells that have run dry.
Existing law requires the Department of Water Resources, in consultation with the State Department of Public Health and the Center for Irrigation Technology at California State University, Fresno, to adopt standards for the installation of graywater systems. Existing law requires the California Building Standards Commission, as a part of the next triennial edition of the California Building Standards Code adopted after January 1, 2011, to adopt building standards for the construction, installation, and alteration of graywater systems for indoor and outdoor uses in nonresidential occupancies, in accordance with prescribed requirements. Existing law terminates the authority of the Department of Water Resources to adopt standards for graywater systems upon the approval or adoption of certain standards by the commission. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to explicitly permit incorporated and unincorporated communities to sell graywater for agricultural purposes and agriculture to use graywater for agricultural purposes.
Existing law establishes various grant programs relating to education, including, but not limited to, the Education Technology Grant Act of 2002 and the Child Development Teacher and Supervisor Grant Program. Under existing law, the Department of Water Resources operates the State Water Project and exercises other functions relating to the state's water resources. This bill would require the Department of Water Resources to create and administer the "Edmund G. 'Pat' Brown, Sr., Research Grant" to provide a one-year grant to support research that would examine ways to expand California's water portfolio. The bill would specify that only California State University campuses and University of California campuses are eligible for this grant. The bill would appropriate $145,000 from the General Fund to the department for this purpose.
Existing law requires the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to adopt emergency regulations to establish a fire prevention fee to be charged on each habitable structure, as defined, on a parcel that is within a state responsibility area. Existing law requires that the fee be levied upon the owner of a habitable structure identified by the department as located within the state responsibility area, if that person owns the habitable structure on July 1 of the year for which the fee is due. Existing law authorizes the board to exempt from the fire prevention fee any habitable structure that is subsequently deemed inhabitable as a result of a natural disaster during the year the fee is due, if certain conditions are met. This bill would require the board to reduce the amount of the fee to be charged on a habitable structure by an amount equal to the amount paid by the owner of the structure to a local fire district for fire prevention services during the year for which the fee is due, if the owner of the structure provides the board with written documentation of the amount paid to the local fire district for those services. The bill would require the board to adopt guidelines to clarify the type of written documentation the owner of a structure is required to provide to the board to receive a fee reduction pursuant to those provisions.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The state board is required to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020, and to adopt rules and regulations in an open public process to achieve the maximum, technologically feasible, and cost-effective greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing state board regulations require specified entities to comply with a market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2013, and require additional specified entities to comply with that market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2015. This bill instead would exempt categories of persons or entities that did not have a compliance obligation, as defined, under a market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2013, from being subject to that market-based compliance mechanism through December 31, 2020. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law requires the Department of Water Resources to categorize each basin or subbasin as high-, medium-, low-, or very low priority and to establish ground water the initial priority for each basin no later than January 31, 2015. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to this provision.
This measure would proclaim January 26, 2016, as India Republic Day, and would urge all Californians to join in celebrating India Republic Day.