Asm. Jay Obernolte

This measure would declare the month of January 2016 as Pet Care Education Month and would request Californians to observe the month by ensuring that their companion animals receive the proper preventative care by establishing a financial plan for pet health emergencies and by contributing to charitable organizations that provide low-cost spay and neuter services and vaccinations or funds to help low-income individuals pay for veterinary care.

Existing law provides for the establishment of veterans' homes and requires the administrator of a veterans' home to maintain a Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Fund to be used, subject to the approval of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to provide certain operations and activities relating to the general welfare of the veterans, as provided. Moneys in the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Fund may be used to establish or operate a Veterans' Home Exchange that may conduct any lawful endeavor that, in the judgment of the administrator, will benefit the veterans, except as prohibited. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to that provision.

Existing law requires the state to have the primary financial responsibility for preventing and suppressing fires in areas that the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection has determined are state responsibility areas, as defined. Existing law requires the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, by September 1, 2011, to adopt emergency regulations to establish a fire prevention fee in an amount not to exceed $150 to be charged on each habitable structure on a parcel that is within a state responsibility area. Existing law authorizes the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, on July 1, 2013, and annually thereafter, to adjust the fire prevention fee, as specified. Existing law requires the fire prevention fee to be collected annually by the State Board of Equalization, in accordance with specified procedures, and specifies that the annual fee shall be due and payable 30 days from the date of assessment by the state board. Existing law authorizes a petition for redetermination of the fee to be filed within 30 days after service of a notice of determination, as specified. This bill would require the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, by July 1, 2016, to amend those emergency regulations to establish a fire prevention fee in an amount not to exceed $152.33 and would authorize the board, on July 1, 2017, and annually thereafter, to adjust the fire prevention fee, as specified. The bill would extend the time when the fire prevention fee is due and payable from 30 to 60 days from the date of assessment by the State Board of Equalization and would authorize the petition for redetermination to be filed within 60 days after service of the notice of determination, as specified.

Existing law dissolved redevelopment agencies and community development agencies, as of February 1, 2012, and provides for the designation of successor agencies to, among other things, wind down the affairs of the dissolved redevelopment agencies and to make payments for enforceable obligations, as defined. Existing law requires a successor agency to employ a licensed accountant to conduct a due diligence review to determine the unobligated balances of the former redevelopment agency that are available for transfer to taxing entities. Existing law requires the Department of Finance to issue a finding of completion to a successor agency that completes the due diligence review and meets other requirements. This bill would provide that the requirements of a due diligence review have been satisfied if specified conditions with respect to a transfer of assets are met, and would provide in that event, that the successor agency is entitled to a finding of completion by the department.

Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Existing law authorizes the department to implement a moratorium on the enrollment of providers in the Medi-Cal program under specified circumstances. This bill would require the department to exempt a clinical laboratory provider from a moratorium on the enrollment of clinical laboratories if the provider has an existing relationship with the Medi-Cal program as a provider of benefits through a contract with a Medi-Cal managed care plan. The bill would also make other technical, nonsubstantive changes to these provisions.

Existing law requires the Department of the California Highway Patrol to provide for the proper and adequate policing of all toll highways and all vehicular crossings to ensure enforcement of the Vehicle Code and of any other law relating to the use and operation of vehicles upon toll highways, highways or vehicular crossings, and of the rules and regulations of the Department of Transportation as they relate to those laws, and to cooperate with the Department of Transportation to the end that vehicular crossings are operated at all times in a manner as to carry traffic efficiently. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to these provisions.

Existing law requires a county elections official to conduct a preelection residency confirmation procedure and authorizes a county elections official to contract with a consumer credit reporting agency or its licensees to obtain use of change-of-address data in lieu of mailing a residency confirmation postcard pursuant to the preelection residency confirmation procedure. Provisions of existing law require the county elections official to send a forwardable notice, as specified, to a registered voter to enable the voter to verify or correct address information, and provide for the county elections official to take appropriate actions based on the voter's response, as specified. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to those provisions.

Existing law requires the State Department of Public Health to issue a single consolidated license to a general acute care hospital that includes more than one physical plant maintained and operated on separate premises if all applicable requirements of licensure, as specified, are satisfied. Under existing law, the physical plants maintained and operated under a general acute care hospital's single consolidated license must be located no more than 15 miles apart, unless a specified exception applies. This bill would create an exception to permit a general acute care hospital to operate an emergency department located more than 15 miles from its main physical plant, if all applicable requirements of licensure are satisfied. The bill would also permit a closing general acute care hospital's emergency department to continue to be operated at the same location or locations by an acquiring general acute care hospital, as specified. The bill would create an exception to permit the acquiring general acute care hospital to operate the closing general acute care hospital's emergency department at that location or locations, even if located more than 15 miles from the acquiring general acute care hospital's main physical plant, if all applicable requirements of licensure are satisfied.

In a fiscal year immediately after a fiscal year in which a transfer is made into the Public School System Stabilization Account, existing law prohibits a school district's adopted or revised budget from containing a combined assigned or unassigned ending fund balance that is in excess of either 2 or 3 times the minimum recommended reserve for economic uncertainties adopted by the State Board of Education, depending on the school district's units of average daily attendance. Existing law authorizes the county superintendent of schools to waive the prohibition, pursuant to specified conditions, for up to 2 consecutive fiscal years within a 3-year period if the school district provides documentation indicating that extraordinary fiscal circumstances substantiate the need for the balance. This bill would repeal those provisions. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.