Sen. Leland Yee

The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law, in modified conformity to federal income tax laws, allow a charitable contribution deduction in computing tax liability. This bill would, for a cash contribution made after January 11, 2010, and before March 1, 2010, for the relief of victims in areas affected by the earthquake in Haiti on January 12, 2010, authorize taxpayers to treat that contribution as if it were made on December 31, 2009, and not in 2010. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.

(1) The Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act of 2006, adopted and approved by the voters at the November 7, 2006, statewide general election, authorized the issuance of bonds in the amount of $2,850,000,000 pursuant to the State General Obligation Bond Law. Existing law requires the allocation or availability of specified bond funds to the Construction Liability Insurance Reform Pilot Program and the Innovative Homeownership Program and provides for the reversion of certain funds under specified circumstances. Existing law establishes the Housing-Related Parks Program and the Building Equity and Growth in Neighborhoods (BEGIN) Program, funded by these bonds and administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development, relating to the promotion and support of infill development, housing-related parks, and housing assistance. This bill would make several legislative findings and declarations relating to jobs associated with residential construction and housing bond funds. The bill would delete the required allocation or availability of funds to the Construction Liability Insurance Reform Pilot Program and the Innovative Homeownership Program and instead require that funds be allocated and made available to the California Pollution Control Financing Authority, in consultation with the department, to administer loans or grants under the California Recycle Underutilized Sites (CALReUSE) program. The bill would modify the reversion provisions and make available specified amounts for grants to existing housing trust funds and the Multifamily Housing Program. The bill would appropriate specified amounts from the Regional Planning, Housing, and Infill Incentive Account and the Building Equity and Growth in Neighborhoods Account to the Department of Housing and Community Development for the Housing-Related Parks Program and the BEGIN Program, respectively. The bill would require the department to report on the explanation for the delay if appropriated funds are not awarded within 180 days from the date the act takes effect. (2) The California Constitution authorizes the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and to call the Legislature into special session for that purpose. The Governor issued a proclamation declaring a fiscal emergency, and calling a special session for this purpose, on January 8, 2010. This bill would state that it addresses the fiscal emergency declared by the Governor by proclamation issued on January 8, 2010, pursuant to the California Constitution.

This measure would proclaim January 13, 2010, as Korean-American Day.

Existing law establishes the Regional Planning, Housing, and Infill Incentive Account within the Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund of 2006 and allocates $200,000,000 for the creation, development, or rehabilitation to encourage infill development. Existing law establishes the Habitat Conservation Fund for, among other things, the acquisition of habitat, including native oak woodlands, necessary to protect deer and mountain lions, and to protect rare, endangered, threatened, or fully protected species. Existing law establishes the State Coastal Conservancy Fund for the support of coastal conservation, and establishes the San Francisco Bay Area Conservancy Program Account within the State Coastal Conservancy Fund, for the purpose of depositing and disbursing funds, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the administration and implementation of the San Francisco Bay Area Conservancy Program. This bill would require the state to loan $10,000,000, $2,500,000 from the Regional Planning, Housing, and Infill Incentive Account within the Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund of 2006, $2,500,000 from the Habitat Conservation Fund, $2,500,000 from the State Coastal Conservancy Fund, and $2,500,000 from the San Francisco Bay Area Conservancy Program Account within the State Coastal Conservancy Fund, to the City of Half Moon Bay to purchase certain property known as the Beachwood Property to assist the city relating to its settlement of a specified case, which would result in an appropriation.

This bill would require the BART board to create an Office of Citizen Complaints to investigate complaints and allegations of police misconduct by the BART police department. The bill would provide for the nomination of the director of that office by the district attorneys of the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco, subject to confirmation by the board. The bill would require the staff of the office to consist of no fewer than one line investigator for every 150 sworn members of the police department. The bill would require the office to investigate complaints of police misconduct or allegations that a member of the police department has not properly performed a duty and would require the office to recommend disciplinary action to the chief of police. The bill would authorize the director of the office to file charges with the board against members of the police department under specified circumstances. The bill would require the office to prepare monthly summaries of the complaints received and quarterly recommendations concerning policies or practices of the police department that could be changed, along with a quarterly report to the board. The bill would require all departments, officers, and employees of the district to promptly produce all records required by the office and to otherwise cooperate with the office, except as specified. The bill would require the district to implement these and other related provisions utilizing existing funds available to the district. Because the bill would impose new responsibilities on the district, it 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 requires the State Board of Education to adopt the content of curriculum frameworks, evaluation criteria, and worksheets developed to supplement curriculum frameworks in accordance with regulations it adopts to govern the development of curriculum frameworks and the adoption of instructional materials. This bill would require the Senate Committee on Rules to inform the State Department of Education regarding each concurrent resolution adopted by the Legislature that proposes changes to curriculum frameworks that are currently under review by the Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Commission. The bill would require the commission, as part of its regular process of developing and revising curriculum frameworks as requested by the state board, to consider each concurrent resolution reported to the department by the Senate Committee on Rules and vote on whether to adopt the resolution. The bill would require the commission to present the resolutions it adopts to the state board. The bill would require the state board to consider each of the resolutions presented by the commission as part of the board's regular process of developing and revising curriculum frameworks. The bill would require the commission and the state board to perform these duties within the existing cycle for developing and revising curriculum frameworks in a manner that does not impose additional costs on the department.

(1) Existing law requires every entity offering or conducting private school instruction on the elementary or high school level to annually verify information by filing with the Superintendent of Public Instruction an affidavit or statement under penalty of perjury setting forth specified information relating to the current year. The affidavit or statement must be made available to any parent or guardian whose child is currently enrolled or is considering whether to enroll his or her child in the school. If the employees of any entities that have a contract with a private school to provide specified services may have any contact with pupils, those employees are required to submit their fingerprints to the Department of Justice for a background check. The Department of Justice is authorized to notify the private school when the employee has a pending criminal case, or a criminal conviction, of specified crimes. Private schools contracting with an entity for construction or other related services where employees of the entity will have other than limited contact with pupils, are required to ensure the safety of the pupils by utilizing one or more methods. This bill would apply a substantially identical verification requirement to heritage schools, which is a school for children that serves children who are at least 4 years and 9 months of age to 18 years of age and who attend a public or private full-time school, and which offers foreign language education or tutoring and cultural education relating to a foreign country. The heritage school would also be required to maintain membership in a state or national cultural or language association, comply with relevant applicable local regulations, and not operate out of a residential home. (2) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

The Donahoe Higher Education Act sets forth, among other things, the missions and functions of California's public and independent segments of higher education, and their respective institutions of higher education. The act applies to the University of California only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by appropriate resolution, act to make the act applicable. Existing law requires that a person, other than a nonimmigrant alien, as defined, who has attended high school in California for 3 or more years, who has graduated from a California high school or attained the equivalent thereof, who has registered at or attends an accredited institution of higher education in California not earlier than the fall semester or quarter of the 2001–02 academic year, and who, if he or she is a person without lawful immigration status, has filed a prescribed affidavit relating to obtaining lawful immigration status, is exempt from paying nonresident tuition at the California Community Colleges and the California State University. Existing law also requires the waiver of student fees charged by community college districts for students who demonstrate financial need or are otherwise eligible for the waiver. Existing law requires the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges to allocate, to community college districts for determining financial need and delivering student financial aid services, an amount based on the amount of fees waived. This bill would amend the Donahoe Higher Education Act to require the Trustees of the California State University and the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, and to request the Regents of the University of California, to establish procedures and forms that enable persons who are exempt from paying nonresident tuition under that provision, or who meet equivalent requirements adopted by the regents, to be eligible to receive institutional financial aid awards. The bill would define institutional financial aid as financial assistance offered by a campus of the California Community Colleges, California State University, or University of California, including grant, scholarship, workstudy, and loan programs. The bill would specify that institutional financial aid does not include a specified board of governors fee waiver. The bill would declare that it is a state law within the meaning of a federal statute that permits a state to provide an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States with eligibility for a state or local public benefit only through the enactment of a state law affirmatively providing for that eligibility. The bill would apply to the University of California only if the regents, by appropriate resolution, act to make it applicable.

Existing law states the policy of the state that all youth confined in a facility of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of Juvenile Justice have the right to maintain frequent and continuing contact with parents, guardians, siblings, children, and extended family members through visits, telephone calls, and mail. This bill would expand this right to include contact with the other parent of a child, and the child's caregiver, social worker, teacher, physician, and other service providers involved in the upbringing and caregiving of the child. The bill also would require local juvenile detention facilities to consider the well-being of the children of parents who are in the custody of those facilities, and for visitation policies to provide opportunities for meaningful contact between incarcerated parents and children. The bill would provide that a juvenile who is a parent, who is involved in caring for his or her child, and who is authorized for telephone communication, shall be permitted to place telephone calls to his or her child, and to the child's other parent, caregiver, social worker, teacher, physician, other service providers for the child, and any other individuals who are involved in the upbringing and caregiving of the child, within the restriction policy for telephone use at the local juvenile detention facility. By imposing new and additional duties on local juvenile detention facilities, this bill would create a state-mandated local program. Existing law provides that a ward confined in a facility of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Division of Juvenile Facilities, is encouraged to communicate with family members, clergy, and others, and to participate in programs that will facilitate his or her education, rehabilitation, and accountability to victims, and that may help the ward become a law-abiding and productive member of society. This bill would, if the ward has a child and except as specified, authorize the ward to communicate, both over the telephone and in writing, with specified persons, including the ward's child, in order to aid in the attachment and involvement of the ward in his or her child's life, to increase the ward's ability to parent the child, and to reduce the detrimental impact on the ward's child as a result of having an incarcerated parent. 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.