Asm. Cecilia Aguiar-Curry

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 a public agency to contract to make its employees members of PERS, and prescribes a process for this. Under PERL, a contracting agency and its employees may agree in writing to share the costs of the employer contribution in accordance with specified procedures. Existing law requires, in these circumstances, the collective bargaining agreement for a contracting agency and its employees to specify the exact percentage of member compensation that is to be paid toward the current service costs of the benefits by members. This bill would revise that provision to also refer to a memorandum of understanding ratified by the employee bargaining unit and the governing body of the contracting agency. The bill would require these agreements, as an alternative to specifying the exact percentage of member compensation to be paid toward the current service cost of the benefit by members, to specify the methodology for calculating that cost-sharing rate. Under PERL, the above-described provision regarding cost sharing does not apply to a contracting agency or its employees until the agency elects to be subject to this provision by contract or contract amendment. Existing law further specifies that contributions are withheld from member compensation or otherwise collected when the contract amendment becomes effective. This bill would specify that once a contracting agency elects to be subject to the cost-sharing provision, contract amendments are not required to effectuate cost sharing in subsequent collective bargaining agreements or memoranda of understanding ratified by the employee bargaining unit and the governing body of the agency. The bill would, however, further require the contracting agency, if a collective bargaining agreement or memorandum of understanding sets forth a methodology for calculating the cost-sharing rate instead of an exact percentage, to provide the retirement system with a signed side letter ratified by the employee bargaining unit and the agency indicating the exact percentage at least 90 days prior to the effective date of the cost-sharing rate as set forth in the signed side letter.

This measure would urge the United States Department of Justice not to direct its enforcement priorities towards California's lawfully and closely regulated cannabis industry, among other things.

This measure would encourage the federal government to maintain or restore full funding to integral international exchange programs, such as the Fulbright U.S. Student Program.

This measure would designate a portion of State Highway Route 29 in the County of Napa as the Veterans' Memorial Highway. The measure would request the Department of Transportation to determine the cost for appropriate signs with this designation, and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources covering that cost, to erect those signs.

This measure would recognize the month of June 2018 as California's Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness Month and Thursday, June 21, 2018, as The Longest Day in California, and would urge all Californians to wear purple on this day to help spread global awareness of the Alzheimer's Association's vision of a world without Alzheimer's disease.

Under existing law, a candidate for State Senate or Assembly who accepts specified voluntary expenditure limits may purchase the space to place a statement in the voter information portion of the county voter information guide that does not exceed 250 words. Existing law requires that statement to be submitted in accordance with certain timeframes and procedures for the preparation of the voter information portion of the county voter information guide. This bill would require an elections official who posts a form on his or her Internet Web site for a candidate for State Senate or Assembly to use to submit his or her statement, as described above, to accept that form by electronic submission if it is submitted in accordance with certain timeframes and procedures for the preparation of the voter information portion of the county voter information guide. The bill would also require the elections official of each county to accept the form from a candidate's county of residence if the candidate is running in a multicounty district, and it would also prohibit an elections official from requiring a candidate to submit any additional forms as a means of correcting Internet Web site posting errors made by the elections official, except as provided.

Existing law recognizes certain animals, plants, towns, museums, and memorials as official state emblems, including, among others, the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial as the official state Vietnam veterans war memorial and the California State Military Museum and Resource Center as the official state military museum. This bill would recognize the LGBTQ Veterans Memorial at the Desert Memorial Park in Cathedral City as the official state LGBTQ veterans memorial.