Asm. Sharon Quirk-Silva

(1) Existing laws defines persons who are peace officers and the entities authorized to appoint them. Existing law requires certain minimum training requirements for peace officers including the completion of a basic training course, as specified. Existing law prescribes certain minimum standards for a person to be appointed as a peace officer, including moral character and physical and mental condition, and certain disqualifying factors for a person to be employed as a peace officer, including a felony conviction. This bill would disqualify a person from being employed as a peace officer if that person has been convicted of, or has been adjudicated by a military tribunal as having committed an offense that would have been a felony if committed in this state. The bill would also disqualify any person who has been certified as a peace officer by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training and has had that certification revoked by the commission. (2) Existing law establishes the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to set minimum standards for the recruitment and training of peace officers and to develop training courses and curriculum. Existing law authorizes the commission to establish a professional certificate program that awards basic, intermediate, advanced, supervisory, management, and executive certificates on the basis of a combination of training, education, experience, and other prerequisites, for the purpose of fostering the professionalization, education, and experience necessary to adequately accomplish the general police service duties performed by peace officers. Existing law authorizes the commission to cancel a certificate that was awarded in error or obtained through misrepresentation or fraud, but otherwise prohibits the commission from canceling a certificate that has properly been issued. This bill would require the commission to create a certification program for specified peace officers. The bill would make all records related to the revocation of a peace officer's certification public. This bill would require a peace officer's certificate to be suspended, revoked, or canceled when the person is ineligible to be a peace officer or when the person has been subject to a sustained termination for serious misconduct, as defined, on or after January 1, 2022. The bill would make each law enforcement agency responsible for investigation, findings, and actions by the agency on allegations of serious misconduct and would give the commission access to the agency files. The bill would require the commission to be notified of and to review a peace officer's file after 3 allegations of serious misconduct within 5 years. The bill would establish the Peace Officer Standards Accountability Advisory Board, as specified, to make recommendations on the decertification of peace officers to the commission. The bill would require every law enforcement agency to notify the commission when a peace officer employed by that agency separates from employment. When a peace officer resigns or retires with a pending complaint, charge, or investigation of serious misconduct, the bill would require the law enforcement agency to complete the investigation into the serious misconduct within 90 days and report to the commission whether the complaint of serious misconduct was sustained, not sustained, unfounded, frivolous, or exonerated. The bill would require the commission to refer the files of peace officers whose termination for serious misconduct was sustained to the board to make a recommendation regarding the status of the officer's certificate and would require the commission to accept that recommendation or set forth the analysis and reasons for reaching a different result in writing. (3) Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined. This bill would make those requirements applicable to data obtained from unmanned aircraft systems. By imposing new requirements on local agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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.

Existing law authorizes a school district, county superintendent of schools, child development program, local agency, private school, parochial school, or any other agency that qualifies for federal aid under specified federal school meal programs, to apply to the State Department of Education for all available federal and state funds so that a nutritionally adequate breakfast or lunch, or both, may be provided to pupils each schoolday at each school, as provided. Existing law describes a nutritionally adequate breakfast or lunch for this purpose as one that qualifies for reimbursement under the most current meal pattern for the federal School Breakfast Program or the federal National School Lunch Program. This bill would revise the sodium and sugar requirements for a nutritionally adequate breakfast or lunch to be more stringent than federal requirements, as provided. The bill would require the sodium requirements, commencing with the 2031–32 school year, to be determined by the department in alignment with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Dietary Reference Intakes for Sodium and Potassium. The bill, commencing with the 2025–26 school year, would require that a breakfast or lunch meet, on average over the school week, requirements that the department develops that are consistent with the quantitative recommendations for limiting added sugars established pursuant to specified federal dietary guidelines.

Existing law establishes the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program, administered by the State Department of Education, with the purpose of encouraging, maintaining, and strengthening the delivery of high-quality career technical education programs. Existing law appropriates specified amounts for the program from the General Fund for the 2015–16, 2016–17, and 2017–18 fiscal years. Existing law provides, for the 2018–19 fiscal year and every fiscal year thereafter, that $150,000,000 is made available for the program upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law specifies minimum eligibility requirements for grant applicants. Existing law also requires the department, on or before January 31, 2024, and on or before January 31 every 5 years thereafter, to submit to the Department of Finance, the Governor, and the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature a report evaluating the progress that local educational agencies have made with respect to specified issues related to the program. This bill would provide that, for the 2021–22 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, $300,000,000 would be made available to the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature in the Budget Act or another statute, for the program. The bill would also make slight adjustments to program provisions relating to eligibility requirements for grant applicants and to the reporting requirements referenced above.

Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, requires each city, county, and city and county to prepare and adopt a general plan that contains certain mandatory elements, including a housing element. Existing law requires the planning agency of a city or county to provide an annual report that includes specified information by April 1 of each year to specified entities, including the Department of Housing and Community Development. Among other things, existing law requires that this report include the progress in meeting the city's or county's share of regional housing needs and local efforts to remove governmental constraints to the maintenance, improvement, and development of housing, as specified. This bill would additionally require that the annual report include the total number of housing units that received a certificate of occupancy in the prior year. The bill would require this information to also specify the total number of housing units constructed that were approved pursuant to a specified streamlined, ministerial approval process and the total number of accessory dwelling units constructed that were approved by the city or county, as specified. By adding to the reporting requirements imposed on cities and counties, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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 regulates the appropriation of state funds and imposes various requirements on the Controller with respect to the transfer of state funds. Existing law also sets various maximum allowable administrative costs for particular grant programs. This bill would require any state grants to a local government to include a maximum allocation of funds that may be expended for administrative costs, as defined, and would prohibit a local government, as defined, from expending more than 5% of grant funds for administrative costs, except as provided. The bill would specify that it is not intended to affect federal funding.

Existing law gives control of the state park system to the Department of Parks and Recreation, and requires the Director of Parks and Recreation to promote and regulate the use of the state park system in a manner that conserves the scenery, natural and historic resources, and wildlife for the enjoyment of future generations. Existing law authorizes the department to collect fees, rents, and other returns for use of any state park system area, as provided. Existing law prohibits the department from collecting from any group of pupils in kindergarten or grades 1 to 12, inclusive, or their escorts, any fee, rental, or other return for use of any unit in the state park system when the group is visiting the area pursuant to a school outing or field trip under the direction of a school personnel, as provided. This bill would require the department to waive the day use entrance fees to a unit of the state park system for any child in the 4th grade, or the 4th grade equivalent, who holds a valid federally issued "Every Kid Outdoors" pass, as provided. The bill would require the department to post on its internet website information on how to obtain the federal "Every Kid Outdoors" pass, including a hyperlink to the federal program establishing the pass.

Existing law provides for the foster care system, which is overseen by the State Department of Social Services and administered by county welfare departments. Existing law generally provides for children placed in foster care to be assigned a social worker who meets regularly with the foster child and performs specified services on behalf of the child. This bill would require the department to convene a workgroup to examine the negative effects of high turnover of foster family agency social workers on foster youth and children and to identify measures to reduce foster family agency social worker turnover in order to improve permanency outcomes for foster youth and children. The bill would require that the working group include representatives from specified state agencies and stakeholders. The bill would require the department to submit specific recommendations to the Legislature on or before December 31, 2022.

Existing law, known commonly as the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, authorizes a public agency, by making specified findings, to authorize public agency officials and property owners to enter into voluntary contractual assessments to finance the installation of distributed generation renewable energy sources or energy or water efficiency improvements that are permanently fixed to real property. Existing law also requires the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority to develop and administer a PACE risk mitigation program for PACE financing to increase its acceptance in the marketplace and protect against the risk of default and foreclosure. This bill would require the authority, upon an appropriation by the Legislature for purposes of the bill, to develop and administer the PACE risk mitigation program to address residential PACE-related mortgage and tax delinquencies in order to avoid default or foreclosure by awarding a grant, in an amount equal to at least one annual PACE assessment but not more than 4 annual PACE assessments, to an eligible property owner, as defined. The bill would require the authority to award the grants on a first-come, first-served basis.

Existing law establishes the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, as one of the segments of public postsecondary education in this state. The California State University comprises 23 institutions of higher education located throughout the state. Existing law authorizes the trustees to require the payment of fees, rents, deposits, and charges for services, facilities, or materials provided by the trustees. Existing law establishes the California Promise, which requires at least 20 individual campuses of the California State University to establish a California Promise program through which each campus would enter into a pledge with a student who satisfies specified criteria to support the student in earning a baccalaureate degree in limited time. Existing law establishes the California College Promise, under the administration of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges, to provide funding, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to each community college meeting prescribed requirements. Existing law authorizes a community college to use that funding to waive some or all of the fees for 2 academic years for certain first-time students. This bill would prohibit the charging of tuition or mandatory systemwide fees for enrollment at a campus of the California State University for any academic year, for up to 2 academic years, to a California Community College resident transfer student who has completed an associate degree for transfer, has received a fee waiver pursuant to the California College Promise, and is at least 28 years of age, as specified. Upon the enactment of an appropriation for this purpose, the bill would require the Chancellor of the California State University to distribute funding to each California State University campus to offset the costs of waiving tuition and mandatory systemwide fees to transfer students pursuant to this bill. The bill would make implementation of its provisions contingent upon the enactment of an appropriation for its purposes.

Existing law establishes a system of public elementary and secondary schools in this state, and authorizes local educational agencies throughout the state to operate schools and provide instruction to pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive. This bill would appropriate, for the 2021–22 fiscal year, $1,000,000 from the General Fund to the State Department of Education for the Superintendent of Public Instruction to allocate, through a competitive selection process, to a school district for the purpose of implementing a Career Preparedness Systems Framework pilot program that could be used by local educational agencies as a diagnostic template that examines school systems that intentionally build and cultivate soft skills, hard skills, and pupil purpose and authentic voice. The bill would require the selected school district, on or before January 1, 2023, to submit a report to the department and the Legislature on the development of the Career Preparedness Systems Framework pilot program that includes recommendations on how to incorporate the framework into a local educational agency's local control and accountability plan. Funds appropriated by this bill would be applied toward the minimum funding requirements for school districts and community college districts imposed by Section 8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution.