Existing law provides that a provision of a memorandum of understanding between the state employer and a recognized employee organization representing state civil service employees that requires the expenditure of funds does not become effective unless approved by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act. This bill would approve provisions of a memorandum of understanding entered into between the state employer and State Bargaining Unit 9, the Professional Engineers in California Government, that require the expenditure of funds, and would provide that these provisions will become effective even if these provisions are approved by the Legislature in legislation other than the annual Budget Act. The bill would provide that provisions of the memorandum of understanding approved by this bill that require the expenditure of funds will not take effect unless funds for those provisions are specifically appropriated by the Legislature, and would require the state employer and the affected employee organization to meet and confer to renegotiate the affected provisions if funds for those provisions are not specifically appropriated by the Legislature. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Sponsored bills
Existing law imposes various taxes, including taxes on the privilege of engaging in certain activities. The Fee Collection Procedures Law, the violation of which is a crime, provides procedures for the collection of certain fees and surcharges. This bill would impose an oil and gas severance tax upon any operator, as defined, for the privilege of severing oil or gas from the earth or water in this state for sale, transport, consumption, storage, profit, or use, as provided, at the specified rates, calculated as provided. The tax would be administered by the State Board of Equalization and would be collected pursuant to the procedures set forth in the Fee Collection Procedures Law. The bill would require the board to deposit all tax revenues, penalties, and interest collected pursuant to these provisions into the California Higher Education Fund, a continuously appropriated fund created by this bill, for allocation to the Regents of the University of California, the Trustees of the California State University, the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and to a reserve account, as provided. Because this bill would expand the scope of the Fee Collection Procedures Law, the violation of which is a crime, it would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIIIA of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 23 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. 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.
Under existing law, the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services Act, every state agency that makes contact with, and every local agency that serves, a substantial number of non-English-speaking people is required to employ a sufficient number of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions to ensure provision of information and services in the language of the non-English-speaking person, as specified. Under existing law, the state, through the State Department of Social Services and county welfare departments, is required to establish and support a public system of statewide child welfare services for the protection of children. This bill would prohibit the department and each county welfare department, and its vendors, from denying services to parents or children on the basis of the client's language, or discriminating against clients on the basis of race, color, or national origin in providing services to which clients are entitled. The bill would require the department, to the extent applicable, and each county welfare department to, among other things, determine and document the communication needs of each Hispanic parent and child, provide Spanish-speaking clients with information regarding child welfare services in Spanish, and have adequate bilingual staff capacity to assign bilingual workers to Spanish-speaking families. Existing law provides that when a child is removed from his or her family by the juvenile court, placement of the child in foster care should secure, as nearly as possible, the custody, care, and discipline equivalent to that which should have been given to the child by his or her parents. This bill would require that care for children who are in the county welfare department's custody shall be linguistically and culturally equivalent to, as nearly as possible, the care provided by the children's parents. The bill would require that children of Spanish-speaking parents be placed with Spanish-speaking foster parents, and require that placement occur within 60 days from the date the children are removed from their homes. Existing law requires the department to establish the California Child and Family Service Review System to review all county child welfare systems. Existing law requires the California Health and Human Services Agency to convene a workgroup, as prescribed, to establish a work plan by which child and family service reviews shall be conducted. Existing law requires the workgroup to consider, among other things, measurable outcome indicators. Existing law requires the department to identify and promote the replication of best practices in child welfare service delivery to achieve these outcomes. Existing law requires the department to provide prescribed information to legislative committees relating to child welfare system improvements, as specified. This bill would require the workgroup described above to examine outcome indicators for each racial and ethnic population served within a county. This bill would require a county to address in its self-assessment and system improvement plan, among other things, its efforts to eliminate disparities in services and outcomes for children of color in, and to provide adequate and culturally appropriate services within, its child welfare system, as specified. This bill would require the department to identify and promote best practices for increasing cultural competency in the provision of services and eliminating inequities in service delivery to racial and ethnic communities. This bill would authorize the director of the department to take specified actions if he or she determines a county substantially failed to comply with the requirements of its system improvement plan, as specified. This bill would require the department to report prescribed information relating to disparities for Latinos in the child welfare system to the Legislature by January 1, 2016. By imposing additional duties on counties relating to their self-assessments and system improvement plans and other child welfare services, this bill would create 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 these statutory provisions.
The Medi-Cal Act establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid Program provisions. Existing law requires, except as otherwise provided, Medi-Cal provider payments to be reduced by 1% or 5%, and provider payments for specified non-Medi-Cal programs to be reduced by 1%, for dates of service on and after March 1, 2009, and until June 1, 2011. Existing law requires, except as otherwise provided, Medi-Cal provider payments and payments for specified non-Medi-Cal programs to be reduced by 10% for dates of service on and after June 1, 2011. This bill would instead require that, to the extent permitted by federal law, this payment reduction not apply to skilled nursing facilities or subacute care units that are a distinct part of a general acute care hospital, intermediate care or other specified facilities serving developmentally disabled individuals, or specified Medi-Cal provider payments for fee-for-service benefits, including payments to pharmacies, for dates of service on or after June 1, 2011. The bill would also provide that this payment reduction shall not apply to managed health care plans for dates of service after the effective date of the bill. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law, provides for the licensure and regulation by the Commissioner of Corporations until July 1, 2013, and thereafter by the Senior Deputy Commissioner of Business Oversight for the Division of Corporations, of persons engaged in the business of originating or making deferred deposit transactions, as defined. Existing law requires a licensee to file an annual report with the commissioner, on or before March 15 of each year. Under existing law, the licensee's annual report is confidential and not open to public inspection. Existing law requires the commissioner to prepare an annual consolidated report based upon specified information received from licensees. Existing law authorizes the commissioner to suspend or revoke the license of a license that fails to file the annual report. Existing law makes a willful violation of the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law a crime. Under existing law, a licensee may defer the deposit of a customer's check for up to 31 days, regardless of the check amount. Existing law requires a licensee to provide a notice to the customer regarding the deferred deposit transaction, containing specified information, including an example of all charges and fees that would be charged on at least a $100 and a $200 deferred deposit transaction, payable in 14 and 30 days, respectively. Existing law also authorizes a licensee to offer an extension of time, or a payment plan, for the repayment of a deferred deposit transaction under specified circumstances. This bill would revise the period for which a licensee could defer a customer's check, depending on the amount of the check. The bill would require the notification provided to the customer to set forth an example of charges and fees charged on a $100, $200, and $300 deferred deposit payable in 30, 60, or 90 days, respectively. The bill would impose specified underwriting duties on licensees, to determine a customer's likely ability to repay a deferred deposit transaction when due. The bill would also prohibit a licensee from entering into a deferred deposit transaction with a customer if it would result in the customer entering into more than 4 deferred deposit transactions in a 12-month period. This bill would delete existing repayment extension procedures, and instead require a licensee to offer an installment payment option, as specified, to a customer who notifies the licensee that he or she is unable to repay a deferred deposit transaction amount when due. The bill would delete the provisions that make a licensee's annual report to the commissioner confidential and exempt from public inspection. The bill would revise the required contents of the licensees' and commissioner's annual reports described above to include, among other things, prescribed information relating to installment plans entered into by a licensee. Existing law prohibits a licensee from entering into an agreement for a deferred deposit transaction with a customer during the period of time that an earlier written agreement for a deferred deposit transaction for the same customer is in effect. This bill instead would prohibit a licensee from entering into an agreement for a deferred deposit transaction with a customer during the period of time that an earlier written agreement for a deferred deposit transaction for the same customer is in effect with any licensee, as specified. This bill would require the commissioner to develop and implement a common database to provide licensees with real-time access, via an Internet connection, to specified information relating to deferred deposit transaction customers. Records in the database would not be open to public inspection. The bill would prescribe the duties of licensees, the database provider, and the commissioner in connection with the creation and operation of the database, and additionally would make various conforming changes. The bill would authorize the database provider, pursuant to rules adopted by the commissioner, to charge a fee for entering data into the database. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. Because a willful violation of the bill's requirements would be a crime, 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 property tax law requires the county auditor, in each fiscal year, to allocate property tax revenue to local jurisdictions in accordance with specified formulas and procedures, and generally requires that each jurisdiction be allocated an amount equal to the total of the amount of revenue allocated to that jurisdiction in the prior fiscal year, subject to certain modifications, and that jurisdiction's portion of the annual tax increment, as defined. Existing property tax law also reduces the amounts of ad valorem property tax revenue that would otherwise be annually allocated to the county, cities, and special districts pursuant to these general allocation requirements by requiring, for purposes of determining property tax revenue allocations in each county for the 1992–93 and 1993–94 fiscal years, that the amounts of property tax revenue deemed allocated in the prior fiscal year to the county, cities, and special districts be reduced in accordance with certain formulas. It requires that the revenues not allocated to the county, cities, and special districts as a result of these reductions be transferred to the Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund (ERAF) in that county for allocation to school districts, community college districts, and the county office of education. Existing property tax law requires the auditor of each county with qualifying cities, as defined, to make certain property tax revenue allocations to those cities in accordance with a specified Tax Equity Allocation (TEA) formula established in a specified statute and to make corresponding reductions in the amount of property tax revenue that is allocated to the county. Existing law requires the auditor of Santa Clara County, for the 2006–07 fiscal year and for each fiscal year thereafter, to reduce the amount of property tax revenue allocated to qualified cities in that county by the ERAF reimbursement amount, as defined, and to commensurately increase the amount of property tax revenue allocated to the county ERAF, as specified. This bill would, instead, for the 2014–15 fiscal year and for each fiscal year thereafter, delete the requirement that the auditor of Santa Clara County reduce the amount of property tax revenues allocated to qualified cities in that county by the ERAF reimbursement amount, and commensurately increase the amount of property tax revenues allocated to the county ERAF. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute. By imposing new duties in the allocation of ad valorem property tax revenues in the County of Santa Clara, 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 these statutory provisions.
Existing law provides for the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, a county-administered program under which qualified aged, blind, and disabled persons receive services enabling them to remain in their own homes. The IHSS program includes various eligibility requirements for individuals who provide services to recipients under the program. Under existing law, a private provider of in-home care services is not subject to the requirements of the IHSS program. Existing law provides for the licensing and regulation of various community care facilities by the State Department of Social Services. This bill would enact the Home Care Services Consumer Protection Act, which would provide, on and after January 1, 2015, for the licensure and regulation of home care organizations, as defined, by the State Department of Social Services, and the registration of home care aides. The bill would exclude specified entities from the definition of a home care organization and would not include certain types of individuals as home care aides for the purposes of these provisions. This bill would require the department to establish and continuously update a home care aide registry, which would include specified information relating to home care aide applicants and registered home care aides. This bill would require background clearances for home care aides, as prescribed, and would set forth specific duties of the home care organization, the department, and the Department of Justice in this regard. The bill would require a home care aide applicant to submit to the Department of Justice a signed declaration under penalty of perjury regarding any prior criminal convictions. The bill would require home care aides to demonstrate they are free of active tuberculosis. The bill would require the department to impose various fees to be deposited in the Home Care Fund to be created by this bill. This bill, in addition, would prescribe enforcement procedures, fines, and penalties for violations of the act by a home care organization or a home care aide. The bill would require any fines and penalties collected under these provisions to be deposited into the Home Care Penalties Subaccount within the Home Care Fund to be created by this bill. This bill would provide that is a misdemeanor for a person to falsely represent or present himself or herself as a home care aide applicant or registered home care aide. The bill would also provide that any person who violates these provisions or willfully or repeatedly violates a rule or regulation promulgated under these provisions is guilty of a misdemeanor. Because this bill creates new crimes, this bill imposes 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.
(1) Existing law provides that the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) is governed by its board of administration (board) and prescribes the composition of the board. Existing law requires the retirement fund of PERS to reimburse an employing agency that employs an elected member of the board and that employs a person to replace the member during attendance at meetings of the board, among other times, for the direct and reasonable costs incurred by employing a replacement. This bill would recast these provisions to provide that the employing agency be reimbursed, as specified, without regard to whether it replaces the elected member. (2) Existing law requires that a patrol member of PERS who is subject to specified benefit formulas be retired in the calendar month succeeding that in which he or she attains 60 years of age. This bill, until January 1, 2018, would except from this requirement a Commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, as specified, who was appointed on or after January 1, 2008. (3) Existing law authorizes the board to sell exchange-traded call options only through an exchange, and only with respect to stock owned by the system, as specified. This bill would repeal these provisions. (4) Existing law authorizes a member, in lieu of the retirement allowance for his or her life alone, to elect, or to revoke or change a previous election, to have the actuarial equivalent of his or her retirement allowance, as specified, applied to a lesser retirement allowance, in accordance with one of several optional settlements. Existing law authorizes a member who previously elected to receive one of certain optional settlements involving a life contingency of the beneficiary, and who has a qualifying event, as specified, to make a new election within 12 months after the occurrence of the qualifying event. Existing law requires the member to name a new beneficiary for this purpose. This bill would authorize a member who exercises the election described above on and after January 1, 2014, to name the same beneficiary as previously designated and requires that the resulting benefit under these circumstances otherwise satisfy applicable existing law requirements. (5) Existing law permits a person entitled to a benefit from PERS to request that payment be made by an electronic fund transfer, as specified. Existing law prohibits the board from sending a copy of benefit payment information to any person who has had payment made by electronic fund transfer or by mail, as specified, if the board has received a written request from that person that it not be sent. This bill would authorize the board to make available, in a manner it determines appropriate, copies of the monthly benefit payment information electronically and by mail. The bill would require the board, if it does not elect to mail copies of this payment information, as specified, to all or some of the people receiving monthly benefit payments, to notify people of their right to request that a copy of the benefit payment information be mailed. The bill would require the board to mail the information upon receiving a written request to do so. (6) Existing law, the Public Employees' Medical and Hospital Care Act (PEMHCA) , authorizes the board to enter into contracts with carriers offering health benefit plans or with entities offering services relating to the administration of health benefit plans. Existing law authorizes the board to contract for, or approve, health benefit plans exclusively for the employees and annuitants of the state and contracting agencies. Existing law defines an employee for these purposes and provides that a person who is an intermittent or irregular employee is not an employee. Existing law authorizes a contracting agency and its employees and annuitants to elect to be subject to PEMHCA upon filing with the board a resolution of its governing body, as specified. Existing law authorizes the board, by regulation, to establish requirements for a contracting agency that elects to become subject to PEMHCA. Existing law creates the Public Employees' Health Care Fund to fund health benefit plans administered by the board. Existing law provides that the fund is continuously appropriated and consists of, among other things, health plan premiums paid by contracting agencies, the state, and enrolled employees. Existing law creates the Public Employees' Contingency Reserve Fund, and various accounts within that fund, which are continuously appropriated, for the receipt of funds for certain purposes relating to PEMHCA, including for payments made by contracting agencies for health care premiums. This bill would revise the definition of employee to include an individual who would not otherwise qualify but who meets the definition of a full-time employee provided in specified federal law and is designated as an employee by the state or a contracting agency. By providing for increased contributions to a continuously appropriated fund, this bill would make an appropriation. The bill would provide that a contracting agency and its employees and annuitants may obtain a health benefit plan, as defined, subject to board approval of a resolution submitted by the governing body. The bill would authorize the board to refuse to contract with, or to agree to an amendment proposed by, any contracting agency for benefit provisions that are not specifically authorized by PEMHCA and that the board determines would adversely affect the administration of this system. Among other things, the bill would permit the board to require the contracting agency to enter into a contract with the board in this regard. The bill would require that the approval of the contract be by affirmative vote of a majority of the members of the relevant governing body. (7) The County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 prescribes a comprehensive set of rights and benefits for county and district employees who are members of a retirement system subject to that law and establishes retirement boards for the administration of those systems. Existing law authorizes a retirement board to promulgate regulations regarding the administration of benefits and specifically authorizes regulations for the use and acceptance of a document requiring a signature that is submitted by a member using an electronic signature, as specified. This bill would permit a retirement board to promulgate regulations regarding the use of recorded telephone communications for the processing of authorized transactions affecting a member's account if the board approves procedures adequate to protect the member and the system, as specified.
Existing law establishes the Local Housing Trust Fund Matching Grant Program for the purpose of supporting local housing trust funds dedicated to the creation or preservation of affordable housing. Existing law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to make available the amount of $35,000,000 for the Local Housing Trust Fund Matching Grant Program, from the continuously appropriated Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund of 2006. Under the grant program, the department is authorized to make matching grants available to cities, counties, cities and counties, and existing charitable nonprofit organizations that have created, funded, and operated housing trust funds. The minimum allocation to a program applicant is $1,000,000 for existing trust funds, or $500,000 for newly established housing trust funds. The maximum allocation for any applicant is $2,000,000. Under existing law, all funds provided under the grant program are to be matched on a dollar-for-dollar basis with moneys that are not required by any state or federal law to be spent on housing. This bill would revise the law applicable to the above grant program, including (1) reducing the maximum allocation to $1,000,000 per notice of funding availability for a trust that has previously received a grant through the program, (2) revising funding priorities for certain types of local housing trust funds, and (3) revising requirements relative to deed restrictions and equity sharing agreements applicable to for-sale housing projects or units within for-sale housing projects. Under existing law, an applicant is required to continue funding the local housing trust fund from identified local sources, and continue the trust in operation for a period of no less than 5 years from the date of award. This bill would extend any award to a local housing trust that was under contract on January 1, 2013, by 12 months. Existing law requires 50% of the funds allocated to the Local Housing Trust Fund Matching Grant Program to be made available exclusively for newly established housing trust funds. Existing law requires funds set aside for newly established housing trust funds to be available for encumbrance for 42 months and, after that time, to revert to another specified housing fund. This bill would remove the above restrictions, making the funds continuously available for purposes of the program and not reverting to another fund, thus making an appropriation. The bill also would authorize funding for a housing trust fund that had previously received a grant under the program. Under existing law, the department awards funds under the grant program through the issuance of a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) , as specified. This bill would require the department to issue a new NOFA for new trusts, as defined, by June 30, 2014. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law requires every person convicted of certain offenses, for the rest of his or her life while residing in California, or while attending school or working in California, as specified, to register with the chief of police of the city in which he or she is residing, or the sheriff of the county if he or she is residing in an unincorporated area or city that has no police department, and, additionally, with the chief of police of a campus of the University of California, the California State University, or community college if he or she is residing upon the campus or in any of its facilities, within 5 working days of coming into, or changing his or her residence within, any city, county, or city and county, or campus in which he or she temporarily resides, and to register thereafter as specified. Existing law, the California Community Care Facilities Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of community care facilities, including group homes and foster family homes, by the State Department of Social Services. Existing law provides for the certification of foster homes by foster family agencies. This bill would, subject to exception, prohibit any person who is required to register as a sex offender, based upon the commission of an offense against a minor, from residing, working, or volunteering in specified foster homes or facilities, as provided. The bill would provide that violation of the prohibition is a misdemeanor. By creating a new 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.