Sen. Loni Hancock

The Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 provides, among other things, that an employee who, on or after July 1, 2015, works in California for 30 or more days within a year from the commencement of employment is entitled to paid sick days for prescribed purposes, to be accrued at a rate of no less than one hour for every 30 hours worked. Existing law provides that an employee under the act does not include a provider of in-home support services, as described. This bill would revise the definition of an employee under the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 to, as of July 1, 2016, include providers of in-home support services, as described.

The Corporation Tax Law imposes taxes according to or measured by net income at a rate of 8.84%, or for financial institutions, at a rate of 10.84%, as specified. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on and after January 1, 2015, revise that rate for taxpayers that are publicly held corporations, as defined, and instead impose an applicable tax rate from 7% to 13%, or for financial institutions, from 9% to 15%, based on the compensation ratio, as defined, of the corporation. This bill would increase the applicable tax rate by 50% for those taxpayers that have a specified decrease in full-time employees employed in the United States as compared to an increase in contracted and foreign full-time employees, as described. 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. This act provides for a tax levy within the meaning of Article IV of the Constitution and shall go into immediate effect.

Existing law, with certain exceptions, establishes 8 hours as a day's work and a 40-hour workweek, and requires payment of prescribed overtime compensation for additional hours worked. Existing law establishes the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement in the Department of Industrial Relations for the enforcement of labor laws, including wage claims. Existing federal law provides for the allocation of federal funds through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant program to eligible states, with California's version of this program known as the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program. Under the CalWORKs program, each county provides cash assistance and other benefits to qualified low-income families and individuals, and is prohibited from applying sanctions upon a recipient of CalWORKs for a failure or refusal to comply with program requirements for reasons related to employment, an offer of employment, an activity, or other training for employment for specified reasons, including, but not limited to, that the employment, offer of employment, or work activity does not provide workers' compensation insurance. Existing law establishes a statewide program to enable eligible low-income persons to receive food stamps under the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , known in California as CalFresh, and requires counties to implement the program. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations relating to work hour scheduling for employees of food and general retail establishments. The bill would require a food and general retail establishment, as defined, to provide its employees with at least 2 weeks' notice of their schedules. The bill would require a food and general retail establishment to pay those employees additional pay, as specified, for each previously scheduled shift that the food and general retail establishment moves to another date or time or cancels and each previously unscheduled shift that the food and general retail establishment requires an employee to work, and would also require a food and general retail establishment to pay those employees a specified amount for each on-call shift for which the employee is required to be available but is not called in to work. The bill would specify that these provisions do not apply in certain circumstances, including, but not limited to, when operations cannot begin or continue due to causes not within the food and general retail establishment's control. The bill would also require a food and general retail establishment to allow an employee to, upon request, be absent from work without pay for up to 8 hours twice a year to attend any required appointments at the county human services agency, provided that the employee gives reasonable advance notice to the employer of his or her intention to take time off, unless advance notice is not feasible. The bill would prohibit an employer from taking any action against an employee when an unscheduled absence occurs due to a required appointment at the county human services agency if that employee provides specified documentation from the county human services agency. The bill would require the Labor Commissioner to promulgate all regulations and rules of practice and procedure necessary to carry out these provisions. The bill would also prohibit sanctions from being applied upon a recipient of CalWORKs for failure or refusal to comply with CalWORKs program requirements if the employment or offer of employment fails to comply with these provisions. Existing law continuously appropriates moneys from the General Fund to defray a portion of county costs under the CalWORKs program. This bill would instead provide that the continuous appropriation would not be made for purposes of implementing the bill.

Existing law establishes the Oil Spill Response Trust Fund, a continuously appropriated fund, for, among other purposes, providing funds to cover promptly the costs of response, containment, and cleanup of oil spills into waters of the state, including damage assessment costs and wildlife rehabilitation. Existing law establishes the Hazardous Materials Response and Restoration Subaccount, a continuously appropriated subaccount in the Fish and Wildlife Pollution Account in the Fish and Game Preservation Fund, for, among other purposes, the protection, preservation, and restoration of fish and wildlife impacted by discharges of hazardous materials into the environment of the state. This bill would authorize the administrator for oil spill response, upon making a specified finding, to loan moneys from the Oil Spill Response Trust Fund to the Hazardous Materials Response and Restoration Subaccount in an amount, not exceeding $500,000 annually, necessary to reimburse organizations providing wildlife rescue and rehabilitation services for expenses incurred by rescue and rehabilitation operations for wildlife injured by spill events of nonoil materials, thereby making an appropriation. The bill would prohibit the administrator from making a loan if the total amount of moneys made from these loans that has not been repaid exceeds $2,500,000. The bill would require the administrator to notify the Joint Legislative Budget Committee of the loan. The bill would require the administrator, through a public process, to develop and adopt guidelines identifying expenses eligible for reimbursement.

Title IX of the federal Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) prohibits discrimination based on sex, including sexual harassment, rape, and sexual assault, in an educational institution's programs or activities. Existing law requires the State Department of Education to post on its Internet Web site, in both English and Spanish and at a reading level that may be comprehended by pupils in high school, the information set forth in the federal regulations implementing Title IX. This bill, to the extent that one-time funding is made available in the Budget Act of 2016, would require the State Department of Education to apportion funds to a designated county office of education, selected from applicant county offices of education, that would be the fiduciary agent for, and responsible for the creation of, an instructional video to train school administrators, designated Title IX coordinators, and other school personnel on comprehensive Title IX compliance and a Title IX pupils' rights video designed for pupils and parents. The bill would require that these 2 videos be available on the department's Internet Web site and available for download to individual schoolsite and school district Internet Web sites. The bill would also require the department to analyze the relevant data on the success of the comprehensive Title IX compliance instructional video at the state level, as specified.

Existing law requires the Department of Justice to collect specified criminal justice information from local law enforcement agencies and prepare an annual report presenting the data to the Governor and certain public officials. Existing law requires this report to include the annual number of fitness hearings held in the juvenile court and the annual number of minors whose cases were filed directly in adult criminal court, as well as the outcomes of those proceedings, cross-referenced with the age, gender, ethnicity, and offense of the minors subject to these court actions. Existing law also requires the department to include in the report information regarding certain administrative actions taken by law enforcement, prosecutorial, judicial, penal, and correctional agencies in dealing with minors who are the subject of a petition or hearing in the juvenile court to transfer their cases to adult criminal court or whose cases were directly filed or otherwise initiated in adult criminal court. This bill would require the annual report to include both statewide and county level information, and would expand the scope and level of detail in the information reported, by requiring, among other things, information about the county of referral, and the age at the time of referral. The bill would also require the department to post on its Internet Web site additional information, including the number of people under 21 years of age at the time of their offense who were sentenced to the state prison, and, beginning July 1, 2017, all data that was compiled to prepare the report provided to the Governor and other public officials, as specified. The bill would require the department to post the information in a format that allows a user to query and download the information for the most recent reporting year and for prior years or reporting cycles, as specified, beginning July 1, 2018, for the preceding calendar year. The bill would also provide that the information regarding certain administrative actions regarding juvenile offenders whose cases were transferred to, or directly filed or originated in, criminal court would be reported beginning with the report due on July 1, 2017, as specified, thereby suspending the requirement to make that report for one year.

(1) Existing federal law, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, regulates, among other things, the quality and packaging of foods introduced or delivered for introduction into interstate commerce and generally prohibits the misbranding of food. Existing federal law, the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, governs state and local labeling requirements, including those that characterize the relationship of any nutrient specified in the labeling of food to a disease or health-related condition. Existing state law, the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law, generally regulates misbranded food and provides that any food is misbranded if its labeling does not conform with the requirements for nutrient content or health claims as set forth in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the regulations adopted pursuant to that federal act. Existing law requires that a food facility, as defined, make prescribed disclosures and warnings to consumers, as specified. A violation of these provisions is a crime. Existing state law, the Pupil Nutrition, Health, and Achievement Act of 2001, also requires the sale of only certain beverages to pupils at schools. The beverages that may be sold include fruit-based and vegetable-based drinks, drinking water with no added sweetener, milk, and in middle and high schools, an electrolyte replacement beverage if those beverages meet certain nutritional requirements. This bill would establish the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Safety Warning Act, which would prohibit a person from distributing, selling, or offering for sale a sugar-sweetened beverage in a sealed beverage container, or a multipack of sugar-sweetened beverages, in this state unless the beverage container or multipack bears a safety warning, as prescribed. The bill also would require every person who owns, leases, or otherwise legally controls the premises where a vending machine or beverage dispensing machine is located, or where a sugar-sweetened beverage is sold in an unsealed container to place a specified safety warning in certain locations, including on the exterior of any vending machine that includes a sugar-sweetened beverage for sale. (2) Under existing law, the State Department of Public Health, upon the request of a health officer, as defined, may authorize the local health department of a city, county, city and county, or local health district to enforce the provisions of the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law. Existing law authorizes the State Department of Public Health to assess a civil penalty against any person in an amount not to exceed $1,000 per day, except as specified. Existing law authorizes the Attorney General or any district attorney, on behalf of the State Department of Public Health, to bring an action in a superior court to grant a temporary or permanent injunction restraining a person from violating any provision of the Sherman Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Law. This bill, commencing July 1, 2016, would provide that any violation of the provisions described in (1) above, or regulations adopted pursuant to those provisions, is punishable by a civil penalty of not less than $50, but no greater than $500. This bill would also create the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Safety Warning Fund for the receipt of all moneys collected for violations of those provisions. The bill would allocate moneys in this fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the department for the purpose of enforcing those provisions. The bill would make legislative findings and declarations relating to the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, obesity, and dental disease.

Existing law establishes various public social services programs to provide protection, care, and assistance to the people of the state in need of those services, by providing appropriate aid and services to the needy and distressed. Existing law establishes homeless youth emergency service pilot projects in the Counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, and San Francisco. This bill would require, from moneys appropriated by the Legislature, as specified, for the purposes of the program, the State Department of Social Services to establish and operate a Homeless Youth Basic Material Needs Assistance Program for homeless youth in California. The bill would require the department to solicit proposals from, and contract with, nonprofit organizations for the purpose of providing basic material needs assistance to homeless youth as directed by the department. The bill would require contracted nonprofit organizations to, among other things, provide a minimum of 100% matching funds, as specified. The bill would require each contracted nonprofit organization to prepare a report for the department including, among other information, the number of homeless youth assisted. The bill would require, after the program has been operating for 3 years, each contracted nonprofit organization to issue and provide to the department, and the department to collect and issue, a report including, among other information, the number of homeless youth assisted each year, and a description of the assistance provided.

Existing law subjects an employer who is, or wishes to become, a contractor with the state for public works, or for goods or services, to various nondiscrimination requirements. Existing law authorizes requiring an employer to submit a nondiscrimination program to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing for approval and certification, prior to becoming a contractor or subcontractor with the state, as well as requiring the provision of periodic reports of contractor or subcontractor compliance with that program. This bill would enact the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act of 2015. The bill would require an employer with 100 or more employees in state, as specified, and a contract of 30 days or more, prior to becoming a contractor or subcontractor with the state, to submit a nondiscrimination program to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing and to submit periodic reports no more than annually of its compliance with that program. The bill would authorize the department to require approval and certification of the program. The bill would permit the department to require an employer with fewer than 100 employees in state or a contract of less than 30 days to submit a nondiscrimination report. The bill would require the department to define an employee for these purposes. The bill would require the nondiscrimination program to include policies and procedures designed to ensure equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees, an analysis of employment selection procedures, and a workforce analysis, as specified. The bill would specify that its provisions are not to be construed to negate certain exemptions established by regulation that predate its enactment or to require the department to reevaluate the validity of these exemptions, as specified. The bill would make a statement of legislative findings.

Existing law requires the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to implement a literacy program in every state prison. In implementing these programs, existing law requires the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to give strong consideration to computer-assisted training and other innovations that have proven to be effective in reducing illiteracy among disadvantaged adults. This bill would require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to also give strong consideration to the use of libraries and librarians for that literacy program. Existing law permits the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to establish and maintain classes for inmates. Existing law provides for funding of this program, upon appropriation by the Legislature, at a rate of $40 per inmate. Existing law requires this rate to increase or decrease in the same proportion as the median salaries for full-time high school teachers in the public schools of the state have increased or decreased since the 1956–57 fiscal year. This bill would repeal the provisions regarding the setting of the rates for funding of these classes. Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to determine and implement a system of incentives to increase inmate participation in, and completion of, academic and vocational education including, but are not limited to, a specified literacy level, a high school diploma or equivalent, or a particular vocational job skill. This bill would add completion of a community college or 4-year academic degree to the list of included academic and vocational education.