Existing law establishes the California State Library as a state government agency under the control of an executive, who is required to be a technically trained librarian and known as the "State Librarian." Existing law requires the State Librarian, among other duties, to give advisory, consultive, and technical assistance to librarians and library authorities in public libraries and to assist all other authorities, state and local, in assuming their full responsibility for library service. Existing law requires the State Librarian to establish the Reading Initiative Program with funds appropriated for that purpose and with funds received from private sources, and requires the State Librarian to administer the program, as provided. Existing law requires the State Librarian, in administering the program, to, among other things, develop a list of recommended books in consultation with various groups, including, but not limited to, teachers, librarians, parents, writers, publishers, and employees of the State Department of Education. Existing law requires the recommended books to supplement the state-recommended English/language arts curriculum framework and to include recreational reading selections for children. This bill would establish the Statewide Imagination Library Program under the administration of the State Librarian for purposes of developing, implementing, promoting, and fostering a comprehensive statewide initiative for encouraging preschool children to develop a love of reading and learning. The bill would create and continuously appropriate the Imagination Library of California Fund for purposes of the program, as provided, thereby making an appropriation. The bill would require moneys from the fund to be used to provide age-appropriate books on a monthly basis, at home, to each child registered in the program, from birth to their 5th birthday, inclusive, at no cost to families, through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. The bill would require moneys from the fund to be allocated to qualified local entities that agree to a dollar-for-dollar match for purposes of the program, unless waived by the State Librarian, as provided. This bill would require the State Librarian to coordinate with a nonprofit entity, as specified, that is organized solely to promote and encourage reading by the children of the state, for purposes of implementing the bill's provisions, and would require the State Librarian to do certain things, including, among other things, promote the statewide development of local Dolly Parton Imagination Library programs, recruit volunteers to assist in the development, promotion, and coordination of the programs, administer the local match requirement, and coordinate the collection and remittance of local program costs for books and mailing. This bill would require the State Librarian, by January 1, 2028, and annually thereafter, to report to the Legislature on the implementation of the program, as specified. This bill would authorize the California State Library to promulgate regulations as may be needed for the administration of the program. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
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Existing law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission to supervise and regulate every public utility in the state, including telephone corporations, and to fix just and reasonable rates and charges for public utilities. Existing law establishes the state's 6 universal service funds in the State Treasury, including the California High-Cost Fund-A Administrative Committee Fund and the California High-Cost Fund-B Administrative Committee Fund, and provides that moneys in each of the state's universal service funds are the proceeds of rates and are held in trust for the benefit of ratepayers and to compensate telephone corporations for their costs of providing universal service. Moneys in the funds may only be expended to accomplish specified telecommunications universal service programs, upon appropriation in the annual Budget Act or upon supplemental appropriation. Existing law, until January 1, 2023, requires the commission to maintain the California High-Cost Fund-A Administrative Committee Fund (the CHCF-A program) to provide universal service rate support to small independent telephone corporations, as defined, in certain amounts in furtherance of the state's universal service commitment to the continued affordability and widespread availability of safe, reliable, high-quality communications services in rural areas of the state. Existing law, until January 1, 2023, requires the commission to develop, implement, and maintain a suitable, competitively neutral, and broad-based program to establish a fair and equitable local rate support structure aided by universal service rate support to telephone corporations serving areas where the cost of providing services exceeds rates charged by providers, as determined by the commission (the CHCF-B program) . This bill would extend the CHCF-A program and CHCF-B program requirements to January 1, 2028. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or an order or direction of the commission is a crime. Because the CHCF-A program and CHCF-B program, that are extended under the provisions of this bill, are within the act and a decision or order of the commission implements the programs' requirements, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by expanding the definition of a crime. 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. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law establishes the Department of Veterans Affairs. The department, among other services, provides veterans and their dependents and survivors with assistance in processing service-related disability claims, assistance in obtaining affordable housing, and information about health ailments associated with military service. This bill would require the department to establish a program to fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, an academic study of mental health among women veterans in California, as specified. The bill would require the department to submit a report summarizing the findings and recommendations of the study to the Legislature no later than July 31, 2024. This bill would make these provisions inoperative on July 31, 2024, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2025.
Existing law requires the State Department of Health Care Services to collect and publish annually quantitative information concerning the operation of various provisions relating to community mental health services, including the number of persons admitted for evaluation and treatment for certain periods, transferred to mental health facilities, or for whom certain conservatorships are established, as specified. Existing law requires each local mental health director, and each facility providing services to persons under those provisions, to provide the department, upon its request, with any information, records, and reports that the department deems necessary for purposes of the data collection and publication. This bill would additionally require the department to collect data quarterly and publish, on or before May 1 of each year, a report including quantitative, deidentified information relating to, among other things, the number of persons in designated and approved facilities admitted or detained for 72-hour evaluation and treatment, clinical outcomes and services for certain individuals, waiting periods prior to receiving an evaluation or treatment services in a designated and approved facility, demographic data of those receiving care, the number of all county-contracted beds, and an assessment of the disproportionate use of detentions and conservatorships on various groups. The bill would specify that the information be from each county for some of those data. The bill would require the Judicial Council to provide the department, by October 1 of each year, with data from each superior court to complete the report, including, among other things, the number and outcomes of certification review hearings, petitions for writs of habeas corpus, and judicial review hearings. The bill would, beginning with the report due May 1, 2025, require the report to also include the progress that has been made on implementing recommendations from prior reports. The bill would require the department to make the report publicly available on the department's internet website. The bill would require each county behavioral health director or other entity involved in implementing the provisions relating to detention, assessment, evaluation, or treatment for up to 72 hours to provide data as prescribed by the department. The bill would authorize the department to impose a plan of correction against a facility or county that fails to submit data timely or as required. The bill would authorize the department to implement these provisions through information notices or other similar written instructions. The bill would exempt contracts entered into by the department for purposes of these provisions from certain contract-related requirements. To the extent that the bill would increase the duties of county behavioral health directors, facilities of local entities, or any other local entities with regard to providing the department with new types of data, 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, 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.
The existing federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 provides for the negotiation and execution of tribal-state gaming compacts for the purpose of authorizing certain types of gaming on Indian lands within a state. The California Constitution authorizes the Governor to negotiate and conclude tribal-state gaming compacts, subject to ratification by the Legislature. Existing law expressly ratifies a number of tribal-state gaming compacts between the State of California and specified Indian tribes. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project, as defined, that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment, as defined, or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. This bill would ratify the tribal-state gaming compact entered into between the State of California and the Tejon Indian Tribe. The bill would provide that, in deference to tribal sovereignty, certain actions related to these compacts are not projects for purposes of CEQA. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes various credits against the taxes imposed by that law, including a credit for qualified renters in the amount of $120 for spouses filing joint returns, heads of household, and surviving spouses if adjusted gross income is $50,000, as adjusted, or less, and in the amount of $60 for other individuals if adjusted gross income is $25,000, as adjusted, or less. This bill would require the Franchise Tax Board to prepare a written report by April 1, 2023, on the number of taxpayers claiming the credit, and the average credit amount on returns claiming the credit.
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. The Sales and Use Tax Law provides various exemptions from those taxes, including an exemption for the sale of, or the storage, use, or consumption of, tangible personal property sold by a thrift store located on a military installation and operated by a designated entity, as defined, that, in partnership with the United States Department of Defense, provides financial, educational, and other assistance to members of the Armed Forces of the United States, eligible family members, and survivors that are in need. Existing law provides that this exemption will remain in effect only until January 1, 2024. This bill would remove the exemption's expiration date. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives that the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. This bill would make findings and declarations in satisfaction of that requirement. 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 laws authorize districts, as specified, to impose transactions and use taxes in accordance with the Transactions and Use Tax Law, which generally conforms to the Sales and Use Tax Law. Amendments to the Sales and Use Tax Law are automatically incorporated into the local tax laws, as specified. Existing law requires the state to reimburse counties and cities for revenue losses caused by the enactment of sales and use tax exemptions. This bill would provide that, notwithstanding that provision, no appropriation is made and the state shall not reimburse any local agencies for sales and use tax revenues lost by them pursuant to the provisions this bill would impose. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
Existing law establishes veterans homes in the State of California, under the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Existing law requires the department to review the use of each home no later than 5 years before the expiration of the use restriction imposed on the home by federal law to determine the best continued use of the home. In making that determination, existing law requires the department to review, among other things, the current needs of the regional veteran population. When the department reviews the use of each home, this bill would require the department to assess, among other things, the potential for the Veterans Health Administration to place satellite medical clinics on state veteran home campuses and within a 30-minute drive of a state veteran home campus, to serve both residents of the veteran homes and nonresident veterans in the communities where state veteran homes are located. The bill would require the department to meet and confer with officials of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs on the possibility of locating satellite clinics on state veteran home campuses and within a 30-minute drive of a state veteran home campus.
Existing law provides for the licensure and regulation of health facilities, including general acute care hospitals, by the State Department of Public Health. A violation of these provisions is a crime. This bill would, until January 1, 2028, require a general acute care hospital to include a urine drug screening, as defined, for fentanyl if a person is treated at the hospital and the hospital conducts a urine drug screening to assist in diagnosing the patient's condition. By expanding the scope of a crime, 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.