This measure would designate May 29, 2018, as 529 College Savings Day, to raise awareness about the importance of saving for college with the help of 529 college savings plans.
This measure would recognize May 2018 as Blue Star Mothers of America Month in California, as specified.
This measure would urge lawmakers in Poland to reverse or revise a recent Polish law on speech related to the Holocaust, would call on Congress to join that effort, and would call for a renewed commitment to Holocaust education in California.
This measure would recognize the month of May 2018 as Foster Care Month as an opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges that children, and particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, face in the foster care system, as specified.
This measure would recognize May 2018 as National Mental Health Awareness Month in California to enhance public awareness of mental illness.
Under the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, the State Water Resources Control Board and the California regional water quality control boards are the principal state agencies with regulatory authority over water quality. This bill would require the state board to establish a Freshwater and Estuarine Harmful Algal Bloom Program to protect water quality and public health from algal blooms. The bill would require the state board, in consultation with specified entities, among other things, to coordinate immediate and long-term algal bloom event incident response, as provided, and conduct and support algal bloom field assessment and ambient monitoring at the state, regional, watershed, and site-specific waterbody scales.
Existing law establishes the Veterans' Home of California system, comprised of subsidiary home locations including the Veterans' Home of California, Yountville, in Napa County. Existing law requires all moneys received by a home, or by an officer of a home, to be paid to the administrator of the home, as specified. Existing law requires the administrator, on the 10th day of each month, to forward to the Treasurer all moneys in his or her possession for deposit in the General Fund, as specified. Existing law authorizes the Department of General Services to lease any real property held by the department for a veterans' home, and requires all moneys received from a lease to be deposited into the General Fund to the credit of and in augmentation of the appropriation for the support of the veterans' home system. This bill would require the administrator of the Veterans' Home of California, Yountville, to deposit all revenue generated from employee housing on the campus into a continuously appropriated fund maintained by the administrator for expenditure by the administrator for the maintenance, rehabilitation, and restoration of the Yountville campus. By authorizing the expenditure of these funds, this bill would make an appropriation.
(1) Existing law establishes the Department of Food and Agriculture and requires it to promote and protect the agricultural industry of the state. This bill would establish the Agricultural Growth Council, with a prescribed membership of specified state agencies and public members, to plan for regulatory alignments that would aid grower compliance, reduce costs to the agriculture industry, and protect the environment and to make recommendations for regulatory alignments to the proper agency or department. The bill would require the council, if the council determines that it is impossible for a person, and similarly situated persons, to comply with one or more regulations due to conflicting regulatory requirements, to suspend the application of one or more of the conflicting requirements to those persons as necessary to resolve the conflict. The bill would provide for the continued suspension of a requirement or requirements as to those persons until all applicable agencies have resolved the original conflict and provided clear direction on how to achieve compliance with the previously conflicting requirements. The bill would require the department to create a user-friendly navigational link on its Internet Web site that provides farmers and other members of the agricultural industry comprehensive information about regulatory requirements, and guidance, for operating and managing a farm. The bill would require the department to encourage community college districts, California state universities, the University of California, and state and county fairgrounds to establish and maintain smart farms, as described by the bill, on the respective campuses or fairgrounds to provide regional agricultural businesses the opportunity to show up-to-date agricultural technology, as defined by the bill, in real world practice. (2) Existing law provides for a department of agriculture in each county and for the appointment of a county agricultural commissioner. The county agricultural commissioner has specified duties, including making an annual report to the Secretary of Food and Agriculture on the condition of agriculture in his or her county, attending the annual meeting of the California Agricultural Commissioners Association, and consulting with staff members of various federal departments. This bill would require the county agricultural commissioner, in completing the annual report, to also conduct a survey of Internet accessibility on farms and in rural communities in his or her county to identify gaps in Internet accessibility on farms that create hurdles to the adoption of agricultural technology. By creating additional duties on local officials, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (3) Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, and the California State University as 2 of the segments of public postsecondary education in this state. Existing law, the Student Transfer Achievement Reform Act, requires community colleges to create associate degrees for transfer that meet the requirements of approved transfer model curricula, which are developed and vetted through a process known as the Course Identification Numbering System process. Existing law requires the California State University to guarantee, to a student holding a transfer model curriculum-aligned associate degree for transfer, admission to a corresponding program or major and concentration, as specified, of the California State University. This bill would require the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges to direct the statewide Academic Senate for California Community Colleges to engage in the Course Identification Numbering System process to explore the feasibility of developing, within established transfer model curricula for agricultural disciplines, a model curriculum in the subdiscipline of Agricultural Business and Technology that focuses on agricultural technology. (4) The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow various credits against the taxes imposed by those laws. This bill would allow a credit against those taxes for each taxable year beginning on or after January 1, 2020, and before January 1, 2025, in an amount, as specified, for agricultural technology deployed for at least 3 consecutive months during the taxable year. The bill would establish the Agriculture Technology Innovation Institute within the Department of Food and Agriculture, or as a part of another public entity that may otherwise be designated by an interagency agreement between the department and the public entity, to, among other things, administer these credits. (5) Existing law creates the Employment Development Department within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, which is vested with the duties, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction regarding job creation activities. This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to include in the annual Budget Act an appropriation of moneys to the Labor Market Information Division within the Employment Development Department for the purpose of performing agricultural industry statistical analysis and examining the economic impact and employment effect the agricultural industry has on the state. (6) This bill would express the intent of the Legislature to include in the Budget Act of 2019, or annually in the Budget Act, as provided, appropriations in specified amounts from the General Fund for specified purposes relating to agriculture. (7) 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
