Budget Committee Passes Bill That Includes County Veterans’ Service Officer Funding

The Assembly Budget Committee yesterday passed Senate Bill 95, a budget trailer bill that was amended on Tuesday to include vital funding for county veterans’ service officers (CVSOs).

Funding for CVSOs is shared by counties and the state, with counties currently providing 84 percent of the costs associated with services provided by CVSOs and the State providing the remaining 16 percent. The State’s allocation of funding for CVSOs to counties has not changed in 18 years; as many veterans are, and will be, returning to counties from service in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is important to expand these services by increasing the State’s share of funding for CVSOs.

Counties will recall that CSAC supported a bill introduced this year, SB 296, which would have increased by $9 million the amount of state assistance provided to counties to fund the activities of county veterans service officers. SB 296 has been held in the Senate Appropriations Committee and thus will not be moving forward this year. 

SB 95 will appropriate $2.6 million as pro-rata shares based on 2012-13 audited workload units to those counties for the purposes of implementing best practices and in a manner that best meets local needs. To receive the funds, which will be disbursed directly to counties rather than through the California Department of Veterans’ Affairs (CDVA), counties must agree to:

maintain local funding at or above the levels locally appropriated in the 2012-13 fiscal year, 
report to CDVA how the funds will be used, and 
collect and report metrics related to the use of these funds and implementation of best practices (can be done through VetPro).

SB 95 clarifies that these funds cannot be used to supplant existing county funding for veteran service office operations.

Additionally, SB 95 provides that, once counties have submitted the required information outlined in the bullets above, these funds will be disbursed within 30 days of the bill’s enactment. The bill awaits a vote on the Assembly Floor.

Appropriations Committees Hear Suspense Files

Collective Bargaining

AB 537 (Bonta) - Oppose
As Amended on August 12, 2013

Assembly Bill 537, by Assembly Member Rob Bonta, would prohibit employers from restricting communication between local agency representatives and employee representatives as part of labor negotiation ground rules. This change is contrary to the understood ban on “direct dealing” where a member of a bargaining team communicates directly with the members of the union or the agency. The change is one-sided in that it does not prohibit the union from seeking a ground rule that the employer cannot communicate directly with employees. Additionally, the bill would requires that if a tentative agreement is reached by the authorized representatives of the public agency and a recognized employee organization or recognized employee organizations, that agreement must be presented to the governing body for determination and the governing body then has 30 days to reject the tentative agreement or it will be considered adopted. The MMBA currently states that a tentative agreement is provided to the governing body for review. Again, this change is one-sided in that the bill would not bind the employee representatives to the agreement until ratification by the employees.

The bill makes three changes related to arbitration:

• Applies the provisions of the California Arbitration Act to the enforcement of arbitration agreements under the MMBA;
• Prohibits a rejection of a request for arbitration due to procedural challenges (timelines, failure to exhaust pre-arbitration remedies); and,
• Makes an agreement to arbitrate a dispute enforceable, even if the conduct in question may also constitute an unfair labor practice.

Additionally, AB 537 requires parties to “meet and confer” over local rules rather than “consultation” and subjects an impasse over local rules to factfinding procedures.

AB 537 was passed off of the Suspense File with an amendment to remove the mandatory mediation section of the bill. The amendments are not yet in print, but CSAC will keep counties apprised of the changes to the bill.

AB 616 (Bocanegra) - Oppose
As Amended on June 17, 2013

Assembly Bill 616, by Assembly Member Raul Bocanegra, would allow either an employer or an employee representative to seek a determination from the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) as to whether the parties have reached impasse during labor negotiations and would extend the timeline for an employee representative to submit a dispute to factfinding. 

CSAC is opposed to AB 616. Creating a new process for determining whether impasse has been reached, rather than allowing local rules to dictate, adds an unnecessary administrative layer to the collective bargaining process that will result in delays and costs to both PERB and counties. Additionally, extending the time period from 30 to 60 days for the submission of differences to a factfinding panel will do nothing more than lengthen the negotiating period to the benefit of the party interested in maintaining the status quo.

AB 616 was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Hiring

Assembly Bill 218, by Assembly Member Roger Dickinson, would, beginning July 1, 2014, prohibit state agencies and cities, counties, and special districts from asking an applicant for employment to disclose information regarding their conviction history, including on any initial employment application, until the agency determines that the applicant meets minimum qualifications for the position. The bill would exempt law enforcement positions from this requirement.

Counties will recall that Assembly Member Dickinson carried a substantially similar bill in the 2011-2012 legislative session, AB 1831. That bill, which was held in the Senate Governance and Finance Committee and only applied to cities and counties. Like AB 1831, CSAC opposes AB 218 because it would remove a county’s discretion to design an employment policy that works locally.

AB 218 passed off of the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense File.

Public Safety

AB 1373 (Perez, J.) - Oppose
As Amended on August 27, 2013

Assembly Bill 1373, by Assembly Speaker John A. Perez, would extend from 240 weeks to 480 weeks the statute of limitations for when a claim can be filed for death benefits for dependents of a firefighter or peace officer who dies of certain occupational injuries (cancer, blood-borne infections diseases and tuberculosis). Counties will recall that Speaker Perez last year carried the same bill, AB 2451, which was vetoed by the Governor. A previous version of AB 1373 did not contain a specific time period for the statute of limitations. Sponsors of the bill maintained that this was to allow for discussions between stakeholders regarding time periods that will fairly compensate surviving dependents while maintaining the interests of public agencies to appropriately plan for potential budget obligations. 

At a meeting of the Commission on Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation (CHSWC) in May, a representative from Bickmore Risk Services presented a report on the potential impacts of AB 1373, concluding that, due to a lack of usable data (including data regarding cancer rates of California’s public safety officers versus the general population, survival rates since the cause of the safety officer’s death is not always cancer, and the percentage of safety officers’ cancer diagnoses that are even reported as workers’ compensation claims), any foresight into the impact of this legislation on future death benefit claim rates and, therefore, on benefit payouts made by public agencies, would be a huge assumption at most.

AB 1373 passed off of the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense File.