Sen. Robert Dutton

Existing law authorizes the Department of Parks and Recreation to enter into an agreement with an agency of the United States, a city, county, district, or other public agency, or any combination thereof, for the care, maintenance, administration, and control of lands of the state park system. This bill would make a statement of legislative findings and declarations, including the intent of the Legislature to encourage the department to actively seek to negotiate operating agreements with local governments, who have the interest and capacity to assist the state in operating a state park, to minimize the number of state parks that could otherwise be subject to closure due to the budget challenges facing the state.

Existing law authorizes an employer to propose an alternative workweek schedule, that authorizes work for the affected employees for no longer than 10 hours a day within a 40-hour workweek without the requirement to pay overtime wages, that may be either a single, standard work schedule or part of a menu of work schedule options offered to the employees. Under existing law, approval by secret ballot election of at least 23 of the affected employees in a readily identifiable work unit is required for adoption of an alternative workweek schedule. Existing law requires the employer to pay overtime compensation to employees who work more than their regularly scheduled hours under the alternative workweek and to make reasonable accommodations to find a work schedule that does not exceed 8 hours per day for employees who were eligible to vote in the election but are unable to work the alternative workweek hours. This bill would provide that an alternative workweek schedule adopted pursuant to those provisions may include a regularly scheduled alternative workweek that authorizes work by the affected employees for more than 10 hours a day, as long as the employees are paid at the appropriate overtime rate set forth in those provisions. The bill would provide a definition of "regularly scheduled." The bill further would exempt from those provisions employers with 5 or fewer employees, but would permit such employers and their employees to voluntarily enter into a revocable written agreement setting forth an alternative workweek schedule that allows an employee to work up to 10 hours a day, 40 hours a week, without the payment of overtime wages, with the requirement to pay a prescribed rate of overtime pay for excess hours and days.

Existing law provides a process for the civil commitment of a person who is determined by a court to be a sexually violent predator, prior to his or her release from the custody of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to those provisions.

Existing law authorizes certain members of the Public Employees' Retirement System, the State Teachers' Retirement System, and county, city, and district retirement systems that have adopted specified provisions, to make additional contributions to the retirement system and receive up to 5 years of additional retirement service credit for time that does not qualify for public service, as specified. The bill would repeal the provisions that authorize these additional contributions and service credit, and would make related technical changes.

Existing law requires that every person who willfully obtains personal identifying information, as defined, of another person, and uses that information for an unlawful purpose, including to obtain, or attempt to obtain, credit, goods, services, real property, or medical information without the consent of that person, is guilty of a public offense. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to that provision.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report (EIR) on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA further requires specified state agencies to perform, at the time of the adoption of a rule or regulation requiring the installation of pollution control equipment, or a performance standard or treatment requirement, an environmental analysis of the reasonably foreseeable methods of compliance. If a project consists solely of compliance with a performance standard or treatment requirement imposed by a specified state agency, CEQA requires the lead agency for the compliance project, to the greatest extent feasible, to utilize that environmental analysis in the preparation of a negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or environmental impact report on the project or in otherwise fulfilling its responsibilities under CEQA. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change in those provisions relating to the requirements imposed on a lead agency for the compliance project.

Existing law provides that, when employees are terminated pursuant to a reduction in workforce, a school district is required to terminate the employees in order of seniority. Existing law further provides those employees with preferred right to reappointment and opportunity for substitute service in order of seniority. Existing law requires that, if a terminated employee who is offered the opportunity for substitute service serves for at least 21 out of 60 schooldays, the compensation received by the employee in that 60-day period be no less than the compensation the employee would receive if he or she were being reappointed. This bill would temporarily delete the above-referenced requirement relating to compensation for the period of January 1, 2012, to June 30, 2015, inclusive. The bill would also prohibit local educational agencies from creating a vacant position, as defined, and subsequently filling that position with a substitute employee, as defined. The bill would make various technical and nonsubstantive clarifying changes.

Existing law makes it felony to transport, import into this state, sell, furnish, administer, or give away specified controlled substances, unless upon the prescription of a physician, dentist, podiatrist, or veterinarian licensed to practice in this state. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to this provision.

The Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, the Ralph C. Dills Act, provisions commonly referred to as the Educational Employment Relations Act, the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act, the Trial Court Employment Protection and Governance Act, the Trial Court Interpreter Employment and Labor Relations Act, and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Transit Employer-Employee Relations Act each provide for the representation of state or local public employees by recognized employee organizations, and provide that the scope of this representation includes negotiations concerning wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment between the state or local public employer and representatives of those employee organizations. This bill would exclude matters relating to the retroactive effect of pension benefit increases from the scope of representation of public employees by recognized employee organizations, and would thereby prohibit these employee organizations from negotiating for a retroactive effect of pension benefit increases with public employers. The Public Employees' Retirement Law creates the Public Employees' Retirement System, which provides a defined benefit to its members based on age at retirement, service credit, and final compensation. The State Teachers' Retirement Law, the Judges' Retirement System II Law, and the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 also provide for a defined benefit based on age at retirement, service credit, and final compensation. This bill would require that any adjustment to the formula used to calculate the retirement benefits of a member of a public retirement system that would yield an increase in the member's retirement benefits apply only to service performed after the operative date of the adjustment, and would prohibit the retroactive application of that adjustment, except as provided.

The Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL) provides a defined benefit to members of the Public Employees' Retirement System based on age at retirement, service credit, and final compensation, as those terms are defined. The management and control of PERL is vested in the board of administration of PERL, including the calculation of the contribution rates for public employers. Existing law requires the board, any time it adopts or forecasts the contribution rates, to submit a report to the Legislature, the Governor, and the Treasurer describing the investment return assumptions, discount rates, and amortization periods utilized by the board in the calculation of the contribution rates for all public employees and employers. Existing law also requires that this report include recalculations of those rates based on specified adjustments of the investment return assumptions, amortization periods, and discount rates utilized by the board, and specifically requires the board to calculate the liabilities of the fund using a discount rate equal to the rate of the 10-year United States Treasury Bond. Existing law requires the Treasurer, within 30 days following receipt of the report, to provide each house of the Legislature, at a publicly noticed floor session, with an explanation of the role played by the investment return assumption and amortization period in the calculation of the contribution rates and the consequences for future state budgets if the investment return assumptions are not realized, to report whether the board's amortization period exceeds the estimated average remaining service periods of employees covered by the contributions, and to express his or her opinion of the reasonableness of the board's calculation of the contribution rates. This bill would instead require an annual report and would limit the scope of this report to include only contribution rates for the state employer. The bill would delete the reference to the 10-year United States Treasury Bond, and would instead require the board to include a calculation of the liabilities of the fund using discount rates equal to (1) the average rate of investment return since the establishment of the fund, and (2) the average rate of investment return since January 1, 1984. The bill would require the Treasurer, within 30 days of receipt of the report, to present the above-described information to a publicly noticed, joint meeting of the budget and retirement committees of both houses of the Legislature.