Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson

Existing law establishes the California Health and Human Services Agency, under the direction of the Secretary of California Health and Human Services, which includes, among other departments, the State Department of Public Health and the State Department of Health Care Services. Existing law establishes various programs for the prevention and control of communicable diseases, including programs that provide for the testing for, notifications of exposure to, and tracking by the state of, communicable diseases. This bill would establish, in the California Health and Human Services Agency, the Pathways Through Pandemics Task Force to study lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and to develop strategies to navigate future pandemics. The bill would require the task force to convene various entities to engage in discussions on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, develop and recommend best practices for an equitable response to future pandemics, and determine the impact of state laws on coordinating the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as specified. The bill would require the task force to report its findings to the Legislature, as specified, on or before December 1, 2024, and would repeal these provisions as of January 1, 2025.

Existing law establishes the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency in state government, consisting of, among other entities, the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) . Existing law requires HCD to administer various programs intended to promote the development of housing, including the Multifamily Housing Program, pursuant to which HCD provides financial assistance in the form of deferred payment loans to pay for the eligible costs of development for specified activities. Existing law also establishes the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) within HCD with the primary purpose of meeting the housing needs of persons and families of low or moderate income. Existing law also establishes the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee (CTCAC) , composed of specified members, and requires that CTCAC, among other things, allocate specified federal low-income housing tax credits, as provided. This bill would enact the State of California Housing Allocation Act, which would require the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency, HCD, CalHFA, and CTCAC, no later than January 1, 2023, to jointly establish and operate a single, centralized housing funding allocation committee, which would be within the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and comprised of representatives of those entities. The bill would require the committee to be responsible for allocating state controlled financing to housing developments and to serve as the point of contact for developers seeking to build affordable housing in California. The bill, no later than December 31, 2023, would require the committee to create a unified application and award process for the allocation of state-controlled affordable housing funds and, to the extent permitted by any applicable law governing the allocation and use of those state-controlled affordable housing funds, make applications and awards at least twice per calendar year. The bill would authorize the committee to exclude state-controlled affordable housing funds from this unified application and award process for specified reasons. The bill would require the Secretary of Business, Consumer Services, and Housing to develop a new organizational plan for the housing departments in the agency to streamline processes and eliminate redundant tasks between departments, as provided, and to submit a report on that plan to the Legislature no later than December 31, 2022.

Existing law establishes the California Health and Human Services Agency, which includes various state departments, including the State Department of Public Health and the State Department of Health Care Services, and is charged with the administration of health, social, and other human services. Existing law also establishes various public health programs for purposes of promoting child and adolescent health, including the Child Health and Disability Prevention Program, which provides for early and periodic health assessments to children in California. This bill would establish the End Racial Inequities in Children's Health in California Initiative (EnRICH CA Initiative) . The bill would require the California Health and Human Services Agency, in collaboration with other specified groups and entities, to convene an advisory workgroup, as specified, to develop and implement a plan, as specified, that establishes targets to reduce racial disparities in health outcomes by at least 50% by December 31, 2030, in chronic conditions affecting children, including, but not limited to, asthma, diabetes, dental caries, depression, and vaping-related diseases. The bill would require the agency to convene the advisory workgroup as soon as January 31, 2022, and would allow the workgroup to disband after the implementation of the plan. The bill would require the agency to submit the plan to the Legislature and post the plan on its internet website on or before January 1, 2023, and to commence implementation of the plan no later than June 30, 2023. The bill would make implementation of its provisions subject to an appropriation by the Legislature. The bill also makes related findings and declarations.

(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including telephone corporations. Existing law requires the commission to develop, implement, and administer the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) to encourage deployment of high-quality advanced communications services to all Californians that will promote economic growth, job creation, and the substantial social benefits of advanced information and communications technologies. Existing law authorizes the commission to impose a surcharge to collect $330,000,000 for deposit into the CASF beginning January 1, 2018, and continuing through the 2022 calendar year. Existing law specifies the amount of surcharge revenues to be deposited into each account within the CASF, subject to appropriation by the Legislature. This bill would authorize the commission to impose the surcharge to fund the CASF until December 31, 2032, as specified. Existing law requires the commission, until April 1, 2023, to annually report specified information to the Legislature, including the remaining unserved areas in the state, the status of the CASF balance, and the projected amount to be collected in each year. This bill would require the commission to report that information in perpetuity. This bill would authorize the commission to require each internet service provider, as defined, to report specified information regarding each free, low-cost, income-qualified, or affordable internet service plan advertised by the provider. (2) Existing law requires the commission to require interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol service providers to collect and remit surcharges on their California intrastate revenues in support of specified public purpose program funds. Existing law authorizes those providers to use certain methodologies to identify their intrastate revenues subject to the surcharge. This bill would repeal that authorization to use those methodologies. (3) Existing law establishes the deaf and disabled telecommunications program and requires the commission to establish a rate recovery mechanism through a surcharge not to exceed 12 of 1% uniformly applied to a subscriber's intrastate telephone service, other than one-way radio paging service and universal telephone service, until January 1, 2025, to allow providers of equipment and service pursuant to that program to recover their costs as they are incurred. This bill would revise those requirements to instead require the commission to administer a surcharge to collect revenues of up to $100,000,000 per year until January 1, 2025, subject to annual appropriation of moneys by the Legislature, to allow providers of equipment and service pursuant to the deaf and disabled telecommunications program to recover their costs as they are incurred. (4) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because certain of the above provisions would be part of the act and a violation of a commission action implementing this 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. (5) This bill would become effective only if SB 4 of the 2021–22 Regular Session is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2022. (6) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

(1) Existing law requires a pupil to complete designated coursework while in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, in order to receive a diploma of graduation from high school. These graduation requirements include, among others, the completion of 3 years of courses in English and 3 years of courses in social studies, including one-year courses in United States history and geography and world history, culture, and geography, a one-semester course in American government and civics, and a one-semester course in economics. Existing law requires the Instructional Quality Commission to develop, and the State Board of Education to adopt, modify, or revise, a model curriculum in ethnic studies. Existing law also encourages each school district and charter school that maintains any of grades 9 to 12, inclusive, and that does not otherwise offer a standards-based ethnic studies curriculum to offer, beginning in the school year following the adoption of the model curriculum, a course of study in ethnic studies based on the model curriculum. This bill would add the completion of a one-semester course in ethnic studies, meeting specified requirements, to the graduation requirements commencing with pupils graduating in the 2029–30 school year, including for pupils enrolled in a charter school. The bill would expressly authorize local educational agencies, including charter schools, to require a full-year course in ethnic studies at their discretion. The bill would require local educational agencies, including charter schools, to offer an ethnic studies course commencing with the 2025–26 school year, as specified. The bill would authorize, subject to the course offerings of a local educational agency, including a charter school, a pupil to satisfy the ethnic studies course requirement by completing either (A) a course based on the model curriculum in ethnic studies developed by the commission, (B) an existing ethnic studies course, (C) an ethnic studies course taught as part of a course that has been approved as meeting the A–G requirements of the University of California and the California State University, or (D) a locally developed ethnic studies course approved by the governing board of the school district or the governing body of the charter school. The bill would prohibit a course that does not use ethnic studies content as the primary content through which the subject is taught from being used to satisfy the ethnic studies course requirement. The bill would require a pupil who completes a course described above to also accrue credit for coursework in the subject that the course is offered, including, if applicable, credit towards satisfying a course required for a diploma of graduation from high school. These provisions would become operative only upon an appropriation of funds by the Legislature for these purposes in the annual Budget Act or another statute. Because the bill would add new duties to local educational agencies, it would constitute a state-mandated local program. (2) 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.