August 27, 2021

Only two weeks remain for the Legislature to act on bills before adjourning for Interim Recess. Yesterday, both the Senate and Assembly Appropriation Committees voted on hundreds of bills sitting in their suspense files, many of which the CSAC Governance, Finance, and Administration team have been monitoring. Below is a summary of the outcomes.

AB 14 (Aguiar-Curry): This bill would extend and modify the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF), including increasing the program’s minimum speed standard to 100/20 mbps, expanding the areas eligible for funding, increasing the amount of funding for the CASF, and establishing an account for securitizing CASF revenues to support bonds deploying broadband infrastructure. CSAC supports AB 14, and the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to pass the bill to the full chamber.

AB 1041 (Wicks): This bill would expand the list of individuals for whom an employee may take leave to care for under the California Family Rights Act and the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014. CSAC is a member of a large coalition that opposes this bill, and the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 5-2 to pass the bill to the full chamber.

SB 28 (Caballero): This bill would have required the Department of Technology, in collaboration with other state agencies, to compile an inventory of state-owned resources that could be used to assist the deployment of broadband networks in rural, unserved, and underserved communities. The bill would have added teeth to the statewide digital services franchise process (DIVCA), giving local agencies a seat at the table and requiring digital service providers to live up to their service obligations, especially to rural areas and poor neighborhoods. However, the bill was gutted in the Assembly Appropriations Committee and now contains none of those provisions. CSAC supported the previous version of SB 28. 

SB 270 (Durazo): This bill authorizes, as of July 1, 2022, an unfair labor practice charge to be filed with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) against a public employer who violates current law requiring the provision of public employee information to the representative or employee organization of a bargaining unit. To use this option, an employee representative must give written notice of the alleged violation and that the public employer fails to cure the violation. The bill subjects a public employee found to have violated the law to pay a penalty, not to exceed $10,000, to the General Fund. The bill also authorizes the recovery of attorneys’ fees and costs in connection with the claim. CSAC is a member of a coalition of public agencies opposed to SB 270, which the Assembly Appropriations Committee passed to the full chamber.

SB 278 (Leyva): This bill requires a public employer to cover the cost difference between a retiree’s pension as originally calculated and as reduced by California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) in situations where CalPERS reduces a retiree’s pension post-retirement due to CalPERS determining that inclusion of compensation agreed to under a collective bargaining agreement is non-pensionable, also known as “disallowed compensation.” The bill specifies that a retiree is eligible only if they were not aware that the compensation was disallowed at the time it was reported. CSAC joins a coalition of public agencies and schools opposed to SB 278, which the Assembly Appropriations Committee passed to the full chamber.

SB 284 (Stern): This bill expands an existing industrial injury rebuttable presumption for a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to additional firefighters and public safety officers. CSAC joins a coalition of public agencies opposed to SB 284, which the Assembly Appropriations Committee passed as amended to the full chamber.

SB 504 (Becker): This bill requires county election officials to make conditional voter registration (CVR) available to military and overseas voters and voters with disabilities via a certified remote accessible vote- by-mail (RAVBM) system. Additionally, this bill requires the Secretary of State (SOS) and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to share identifying information for persons imprisoned for the conviction of a felony and persons on parole or otherwise released from imprisonment for purposes of determining voter eligibility. CSAC supports this bill, which the Assembly Appropriations Committee passed to the full chamber.

SB 606 (Gonzalez): This bill would enhance the Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s (DOSH) enforcement powers and establishes a rebuttable presumption that a violation is enterprise-wide if the employer has a written policy or procedure in conflict with DOSH standards or DOSH has evidence of a pattern of violations across the employer’s worksites. CSAC joins a large coalition of organizations opposed to SB 606, which the Assembly Appropriations Committee passed as amended to the full chamber.