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 emission reductions. A violation of a regulation adopted by the state board pursuant to the act is subject to specified civil and criminal penalties. Pursuant to the act, the state board adopted a regulation requiring automobile service providers, by September 1, 2010, among other things, to check and inflate vehicle tires to the recommended pressure rating when performing automobile maintenance or repair services. This bill, until January 1, 2017, would require a tire pressure gauge used to meet the requirements of this regulation to be accurate within a range of plus or minus 2 pounds per square inch of pressure (2 psi) . The bill, until January 1, 2017, would authorize automotive service providers to meet the requirements of the regulation without checking and inflating a vehicle's tire if that tire is determined to be an unsafe tire, as defined.
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Existing federal law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act, beginning in 2014, requires most individuals to maintain minimum essential health care coverage or pay a penalty. This measure would amend the California Constitution to prohibit a federal, state, or local law or rule from compelling a person or business to participate in a health care system, as defined; imposing penalties or fines, as defined, for failure to maintain coverage; or prohibiting the sale or purchase of health care or health insurance, subject to specified exceptions.
(1) Existing law establishes various public agency retirement systems, including the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) , the State Teachers' Retirement System (STRS) , the Judges' Retirement System II, and various county retirement systems pursuant to the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937, among others, and these systems provide defined pension benefits to public employees based on age, service credit, and amount of final compensation. The California Constitution permits a city or county to adopt a charter for purposes of its governance that supersedes general laws of the state in regard to specified subjects, including compensation of city or county employees. The California Constitution also establishes the University of California as a public trust with full powers of organization and government, subject only to specified limitations. Charter cities and the University of California may establish pension plans under their respective independent constitutional authority. These pension systems are funded by employee and employer contributions and investment returns. Existing law provides that public employee pension benefits are a form of deferred compensation, the right to which vests in the employee on contractual principles and is protected from impairment by the California Constitution and the United States Constitution. This measure would require each public retirement system, as defined in statute, to provide one or more hybrid pension plans meeting the requirements of this measure to each public employer that provides its employees a defined benefit pension plan administered by the public retirement system. The measure would require that a hybrid pension plan consist of a defined benefit component and a defined contribution or alternative plan design component, as specified. The measure would require, among other things, that a hybrid pension plan be designed with a goal of providing annually during retirement, based on a full career in public service, as defined, replacement income of 75% of a public employee's final compensation. The measure would require the Director of Finance, on or before January 1, 2013, to establish initial criteria and requirements for one or more hybrid pension plans, as specified. The measure would require, on and after July 1, 2013, each public retirement system to administer, and make available to each public employer that provides a defined benefit pension plan, one or more hybrid pension plans, except as specified, for public employees hired in each member classification in the public retirement system. The measure would require, for public employees hired on and after January 1, 2013, that retirement benefits be limited as provided, with regard to a defined benefit that is calculated with reference to final compensation, as specified, that final compensation be calculated using at least a consecutive 36-month period of service. The measure would establish various other limitations on the retirement benefits offered by public employers to public employees, regardless of the date the employees are hired, to the fullest extent permissible under the United States Constitution. In this regard, the measure would require that any change to a formula or benefit resulting in an increase in a member's pension benefits shall apply only to service performed on and after the operative date of the change and would require that employers and employees make required payments to fund the normal cost of benefits, as specified. The measure would require public employees to contribute at least 12 of the normal costs of any defined benefit plan and would prohibit an employer from paying an employee's required contributions, except as specified. The measure would also prohibit retirement systems from granting any nonqualified service credit, as specified. The measure additionally would require that a public employee, who is convicted of any felony arising from his or her official duties, forfeit retirement benefits based on certain statutes. The measure would limit the amount of service that a retired public employee may perform for public employers. The measure would provide that neither its provisions nor any related statutory provisions apply to, or otherwise restrict, death, survivor, and disability benefits, except as specified. The measure would provide that labor contracts that are in effect on November 7, 2012, and that are in conflict with the measure's provisions remain in effect until the expiration of the contract, at which time the requirements of the measure would apply. The measure would specify that terms used in those provisions are to be defined in a specified statute and would permit the Legislature to amend specified statutes referenced in the measure's provisions by a 23 vote of the membership of each house by a statute that is consistent with and furthers its purposes. The measure would provide that the activities, programs, and levels of service associated with its provisions are not state-mandated local programs requiring a subvention of funds. (2) The California Constitution prohibits the Legislature from changing the composition of the retirement board of a public pension or retirement system that included elected employee members as of a specified date, including the number, terms, and method of selection and removal of members, unless the change is ratified by a majority vote of the electors of the jurisdiction in which the participants of the system are, or were, prior to retirement, employed. This measure would require the composition of the retirement board of a public pension or retirement system to be modified, in the manner provided for in a specified statute, and would exempt that modification from ratification by the electors. (3) The measure would require the state to defend the constitutionality of its provisions.
This measure would designate February 27, 2012, as California Day of Remembrance for the Massacres of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, and Baku, and would call upon the people of California to use vigilance to promote greater tolerance in Azerbaijan and ensure the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict while protecting the security of the Armenians in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.
This resolution would recognize the month of January 2012, and each following January, as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and it would recognize February 1, 2012, and each following February 1, as California's Free From Slavery Day.
Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of professions and vocations by boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs and these boards may require licensees to satisfy continuing education course requirements. This bill would provide, if applicable, that continuing education or competency courses, as specified, that advance or promote labor organizing on behalf of a union, or that advance or promote statutory or regulatory changes, political candidates, political advocacy, or political strategy shall not be considered content relevant to the practice regulated by the board and shall not be acceptable for meeting requirements for licensure renewal. The bill would also prohibit, to the extent applicable, an approved provider from representing that such a continuing education or competency course is acceptable for meeting requirements for licensure renewal and would require a board, subject to specified procedural requirements, to withdraw its approval of a provider that violates that requirement for no less than 5 years, as specified.
The Sales and Use Tax Law imposes a tax on retailers measured by the gross receipts from the sale of tangible personal property sold at retail in this state, or on the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of tangible personal property purchased from a retailer for storage, use, or other consumption in this state. That law, with certain exceptions, defines a retailer as a seller that makes any retail sale of tangible personal property and as a person that makes more than 2 retail sales of tangible personal property during any 12-month period, and defines a retail sale as a sale of tangible personal property for any purpose other than resale in the regular course of business. This bill would provide, until January 1, 2016, that a qualified destination management company, as defined, is a consumer, and not a retailer, of tangible personal property it provides to its clients pursuant to a qualified contract, as defined, for destination management services, so that the sale of the tangible personal property to the destination management company is the retail sale subject to tax. The Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law authorizes counties and cities to impose local sales and use taxes in conformity with the Sales and Use Tax Law, and existing law authorizes districts, as specified, to impose transactions and use taxes in accordance with, which conforms to the Sales and Use Tax Law. Amendments to state sales and use taxes are incorporated in these taxes. Section 2230 of the Revenue and Taxation Code provides that the state will reimburse counties and cities for revenue losses caused by the enactment of sales and use tax exemptions. This bill would provide that, notwithstanding Section 2230 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, no appropriation is made and the state shall not reimburse local agencies for sales and use tax revenues lost by them pursuant to this bill. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy, but its operative date would depend on its effective date.
(1) Existing law, for purposes of ethics training for officers and employees of a local government, defines the term ethics laws to include, among others, laws relating to government transparency. This bill would additionally define the term ethics laws to include compensation setting guidelines as established by specified organizations or the local agency. (2) Existing law requires local agency officials, as defined, to receive ethics training, if the local agency provides any type of compensation, salary, or stipend to a member of a legislative body, or provides reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses incurred by a member of a legislative body in the performance of official duties. This bill would require the local agency to post the ethics training records of all elected members of the local agency on the local agency's Internet Web site, if any, and to submit a copy of the records to the Controller within 90 days of receiving the records. By increasing the duties of local officials, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (3) Existing law authorizes a local agency, as defined, to pay compensation to members of a legislative body for attendance at specified occurrences. Existing law authorizes a local agency to pay compensation for attendance at other occurrences if the governing body has adopted, in a public meeting, a written policy specifying other types of occasions that constitute the performance of official duties. Existing law authorizes a local agency to reimburse members of a legislative body for actual and necessary expenses incurred in the performance of official duties, if the governing body has adopted a written policy, in a public meeting, specifying the types of occurrences that qualify a member of the legislative body to receive reimbursement of specified actual and necessary expenses. This bill would require a local agency that has adopted a written attendance compensation policy or written reimbursement policy to post the policy on the local agency's Internet Web site, if any, and to submit a copy of the policy to the Controller. The bill would, if a local agency does not comply with these requirements, require the Controller to withhold any funds to which the local agency is otherwise entitled, as specified. (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, 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 these statutory provisions.
This bill would annually appropriate $1,030,000 of revenue currently received by the state from specified tax and fee revenue sources for firefighting and emergency response purposes, including, but not limited to, the purchase of firefighting and rescue vehicles and equipment. The bill would also require the secretary to consult with additional specified individuals involved in firefighting before adopting certain regulations.