2021-22 Session Comes to a Close
The Legislature has wrapped up its work for the year and for the 2021-22 session. The session will formally end sine die (not scheduled to meet again until the day set by the Constitution for its next session to convene) on November 30. Governor Newsom has until September 30 to sign or veto the bills that have reached his desk. The newly constituted houses – after November elections that will bring major changes to the composition of the Legislature – will meet on December 5 for organizational purposes and to kick off the 2023-24 legislative session. Members will begin legislative activities in earnest in January 2023.
Final Update on Hot Bills
To the Governor
The following bills passed both houses of the Legislature and have moved to the Governor’s desk for his consideration.
SB 1338 (Umberg and Eggman) – Community Assistance, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE) Court Program
SB 1338 would create an opportunity in a civil court setting for developing an individualized care plan for persons with qualifying mental health conditions. Read the Governor’s statement following the Legislature’s final passage of the measure here.
AB 32 (Aguiar-Curry) – Telehealth
This bill would make various changes to Medi-Cal telehealth policy, including permitting DHCS to allow new patients to be established with providers using audio-only synchronous and other modalities, and permits exceptions from requirements to ensure beneficiary choice of modalities.
AB 240 (Rodriguez) – Local Health Department Workforce Assessment
AB 240 would require the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to contract with an appropriate and qualified entity to conduct an evaluation of the adequacy of the local health department infrastructure, and to make recommendations for future staffing, workforce needs, and resources, in order to accurately and adequately fund local public health.
AB 759 (McCarty) – Elections of county officers
AB 759 would require elections for county sheriffs and district attorneys to be held during the presidential primary and specifically affirms that DAs and sheriffs elected in 2022 will serve six-year terms, with the next elections for those offices taking place at the 2028 presidential primary. Other provisions in AB 759 would permit a board of supervisors to determine by ordinance to hold elections for the selection of any other county officer at the presidential primary, as well.
AB 988 (Bauer-Kahan) Mental health: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
This measure, co-sponsored by Contra Costa County, implements a statewide 9-8-8 suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline as required by federal law. As recently amended, the bill requires the California Health and Human Services Agency to convene a state 988 advisory group consisting of various participants, including county representatives, to advise the Agency on a set of recommendations to support a five-year implementation plan for a comprehensive 988 system. Recent amendments also require health plans and insurers to cover medically necessary treatment, as specified, provided by call centers and mobile crisis teams. To support ongoing costs, the measure establishes a new surcharge initially set at $0.08 per access line per month, and beginning January 1, 2025, at an amount specified by formula to be capped at $0.30 per access line per month.
AB 1663 (Maienschein) – Protective proceedings
AB 1663 would revise various procedures in the probate conservatorship process. The bill would require the petition for conservatorship to include alternatives to conservatorship considered by the petitioner or proposed conservator and reasons why those alternatives are not suitable. The bill would also establish a supported decision-making process and a process for entering into a supported decision-making agreement for adults with disabilities, as defined.
AB 1686 (Bryan) – Child Welfare Agencies: Enforcement
AB 1686 establishes a presumption that, when a child is in foster care, requiring the parent or guardian to pay child support for the child is likely to impose a barrier to the family’s efforts to reunify.
AB 1744 (Levine) – Probation and mandatory supervision: flash incarceration
This bill would extend authorization for the use of flash incarceration for individuals on probation or mandatory supervision until January 1, 2028. AB 1744 would allow for the continued ability to use flash incarceration as a graduated response for individuals on felony probation and mandatory supervision that was previously authorized via AB 597 (Levine), Chapter 44, Statutes of 2019, and SB 266 (Block), Chapter 706, Statutes of 2016. Further, AB 1744 would maintain current requirements in statute to allow an individual to decline flash incarceration and request a court revocation hearing as well as includes notification for example to the court and public defender upon imposition of flash incarceration. Graduated responses such as flash, allow for violations of court-ordered conditions to be addressed in a way that balances safety considerations while maintaining continuity and engagement in rehabilitative services and supports. CSAC supports AB 1744.
AB 1951 (Grayson) – Sales and use tax: exemptions: manufacturing
AB 1951 would expand – for a five-year period – the existing partial sales and use tax exemption for manufacturing and research and development to a full exemption, incorporating the local components of the sales and use tax.
AB 2306 (Berman) – Foster Care: Independent Living Program
AB 2306 would expand and modernize the Independent Living Program (ILP) to include current and former foster youth up to 22 years of age, and, subject to an appropriation and federal approval, up to age 23, and expands the services for which counties can provide stipends to assist youth with specified independent living needs to include former foster youth up to 25 years of age, as specified.
AB 2449 (Rubio) Open meetings: local agencies: teleconferences
This bill, until January 1, 2026, would authorize members of a legislative body of a local agency to use teleconferencing without complying with the teleconferencing requirements that each teleconference location be identified in the notice and agenda and that each teleconference location be accessible to the public if at least a quorum of the members of the legislative body participates in person from a singular physical location clearly identified on the agenda that is open to the public and situated within the local agency’s jurisdiction. Under this exception, the bill would authorize a member to participate remotely under specified circumstances, including participating remotely for just cause or due to emergency circumstances. The emergency circumstances basis for remote participation would be contingent on a request to, and action by, the legislative body. This bill would also impose prescribed requirements for this exception relating to notice, agendas, the means and manner of access, and procedures for disruptions, among other changes. CSAC remains neutral on this measure.
SB 846 (Dodd and Cunningham) – Extension of Diablo Canyon Powerplant Operations.
SB 846 would require the California Public Utilities Commission to set new retirement dates for the Diablo Canyon powerplant not to exceed five years for each unit. Further, the bill establishes the intent of the Legislature to make available to the Department of Water Resources no more than $1.4 billion for the purpose of loaning funds to facilitate the extension of the operating period of the Diablo Canyon power plant.
SB 929 (Eggman) – Community Mental Health Services: Data Collection
SB 929 would expand DHCS’ existing responsibility to collect and publish information about involuntary detentions under the Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act to include additional information, such as clinical outcomes, services provided, and availability of treatment beds, and requires DHCS to convene a stakeholder group with specified membership to make recommendations on the methods to be used for efficiently providing the department with this information.
SB 964 (Wiener) – Behavioral Health
SB 964 would require the Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) to commission consultants to prepare a report for the Legislature, on or before January 1, 2024, that provides a landscape analysis of the current behavioral health workforce and the state’s behavioral health workforce needs, and to make recommendations on how to address the state’s behavioral health workforce shortage.
SB 966 (Limón) – Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics: Visits
SB 966 would authorize federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and rural health clinics (RHCs) to include face-to-face service provided by an associate clinical social worker (ACSW) or associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT) in the definition of a “visit,” and prohibits the DHCS from requiring an FQHC or RHC to process the addition of services by an ACSW or AMFT as a change in scope of service.
SB 970 (Eggman) – Mental Health Services Act
SB 970 would establish, in the California Health and Human Services Agency, the California Mental Health Services Act Outcomes and Accountability Review (MHSAOAR), with a dedicated workgroup tasked with assisting county mental health programs improve MHSA-funded activities.
SB 1054 (Ochoa Bogh) – Public Social Services: Records: Confidentiality: Multidisciplinary Personnel Teams
SB 1054 would specify that confidentiality provisions relating to applications and records concerning any form of public social services includes protective services provided through public social services agencies. This bill also authorizes employees of a county’s adult protective services agency (APS) or a county’s child welfare agency to disclose information with each other for the purpose of multidisciplinary teamwork in the prevention, intervention, management, or treatment of child abuse or neglect or the abuse or neglect of an elder or dependent adult, and makes technical and conforming changes.
SB 1090 (Hurtado) – Family Urgent Response System
SB 1090 would expand the definition of "current or former foster youth" for purposes of accessing the Family Urgent Response System (FURS) to include youth who have exited foster care for any reason, including, but not limited to, emancipation, a child or youth who is the subject of a voluntary placement agreement, a child or youth who is placed in foster care and is the subject of a petition filed pursuant to reports of abuse and neglect, and a child or youth placed in California pursuant to the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children.
SB 1131 (Newman) – Address confidentiality: public entity employees and contractors
SB 1131 would establish an address confidentiality program for public entity employees and contractors, and includes additional protections for election workers and reproductive health care providers. SB 1131 contains an urgency clause.
SB 1186 (Wiener) – Medicinal Cannabis Patients’ Right of Access Act
SB 1186 would enact the Medicinal Cannabis Patients’ Right of Access Act, which would prohibit a local jurisdiction from adopting or enforcing any regulation that prohibits the retail sale by delivery within the local jurisdiction of medicinal cannabis, as specified.
SB 1143 (Roth) – Acute Psychiatric Hospital Loan Fund
SB 1143 would establish the California Acute Care Psychiatric Hospital Loan Fund to provide zero-interest loans to qualifying county applicants for the purpose of constructing or renovating acute care psychiatric hospitals or psychiatric health facilities, or renovating or expanding general acute care hospitals in order to add or expand an inpatient psychiatric unit.
SB 1449 (Caballero) – Office of Planning and Research: grant program: annexation of unincorporated areas
SB 1449 would require the Governor's Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to establish, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the Unincorporated Area Annexation Incentive Program to fund projects related to the proposed or completed annexation of an unincorporated area into the city.
SB 1186 (Wiener) Medicinal Cannabis Patients’ Right of Access Act
This bill was written with the intent of improving access to medical cannabis, however, CSAC has serious concerns about the preservation of local control. The language would require all jurisdictions to allow for delivery sales of medicinal cannabis and prohibit regulations that would impose “unreasonable restrictions” on the sale of medicinal cannabis. Recent amendments provide exemptions for jurisdictions that allow cannabis retails as of January 1, 2022. CSAC opposes this measure.
Bills authored by Senator Skinner that are on the Governor's desk include:
SB 301 Online Marketplaces: Retail Theft:
As more and more goods are bought online, organized retail theft also uses the internet to sell stolen goods. SB 301 helps protect against stolen goods being sold on web marketplaces.
SB 641 CalFresh for College Students Act:
Federal law creates a lot of red tape for low-income college students to obtain food through CalFresh. SB 641 removes many application barriers so college students don't go hungry.
SB 905 Carbon Removal (Joint Author):
SB 905 jumpstarts the use of carbon capture while safeguarding our environment and public health.
SB 960 Expanding Eligibility for Peace Officers:
SB 960 removes the rule that prevents CA law enforcement from hiring noncitizens who have full legal work authorization and meet all other requirements to serve as peace officers.
SB 1063 Flexibility for Energy Innovation:
Heat waves and drought stress CA's electricity and water supplies. But new technology and appliance standards can reduce water and electricity demand. SB 1063 allows new efficiency rules to take effect more quickly.
SB 1075 Green Hydrogen:
Long-haul trucking, air travel and port operations are challenging to decarbonize. SB 1075 boosts CA's use of green hydrogen, a multi-faceted renewable energy source that can also safeguard good-paying jobs. The state budget also includes $100 million to speed up CA's transition to hydrogen.
SB 1083 Helping Families Avoid Homelessness:
SB 1083 will help low-income families avoid homelessness by providing more support and cutting red tape to homelessness prevention services.
SB 1142 Expanding Access to Abortion Services (Joint Author):
SB 1142 creates an internet website for reproductive and abortion services in CA. The state budget also includes $20M to expand access to abortion services for residents and those who seek abortion care here.
SB 1200 Relieving Legal Debt:
Families burdened with debt are vulnerable to court judgments that require a 10% interest rate, on top of interest already accrued. SB 1200 caps interest on legal judgments at 5% for consumer and medical debt under a specified amount and prevents these judgments from being renewed indefinitely.
SB 1206 HFCs:
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the coolants commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners, are a powerful climate pollutant. Although HFCs are short-lived in the atmosphere, they are thousands of times more damaging than CO2. SB 1206 accelerates the move to less harmful HFCs and alternatives.
Bills authored by Assemblymember Wicks for the Governor's consideration and signature include:
- AB 2011 - The Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act. This bill will pair new opportunities to build 100% affordable housing and mixed-income housing on underutilized commercial sites with requirements that developers meet a range of responsible wage and training standards.
- AB 2334 - Double Density Bonus for Affordable Housing. This bill will provide density bonuses to location-efficient, 100% affordable housing developments. It will increase the sites available for higher-density affordable housing developments to include areas with low vehicle travel — helping California address both our climate crisis and housing crisis.
- AB 2244 - Reduction of Parking Requirements for Religious Institutions. This bill will reduce parking requirements for newly built religious institutions to instead allow for construction of housing developments on that space. It was signed into law by Governor Newsom on July 19.
- AB 1041 - Leave for Chosen Families. This bill will allow Californians to take time off to care for a designated “chosen” family member, taking into account the diversity of families in our state, especially those in the LGBTQ+ community.
- AB 1965 - California Anti-Hunger Response and Employment Training (CARET) Act. This bill ensures that Californians who rely on CalFresh won’t be punished by harmful federal time limits when unemployed. It will support people who lose CalFresh eligibility by providing benefits to ensure access to food and by allowing them to continue to access CalFresh Employment & Training programs. No one looking for a job should be forced to go hungry.
- AB 2223 - Decriminalization of Abortion and Pregnancy Loss. This bill will ensure that no one will ever again be prosecuted or imprisoned for ending a pregnancy or suffering a miscarriage or stillbirth in California.
- AB 2199 - The Birthing Justice for California Families Pilot Project. This bill will advance birth equity by funding doulas who work with communities that suffer from high rates of negative birth outcomes, including people in jails and those who are not eligible for Medi-Cal. It will establish a three-year pilot program to provide grants to fund organizations who provide doula care to these communities.
Bills that Died
AB 1608 (Gipson) – Deconsolidation of Coroner-Sheriff Functions
AB 1608 would have repealed boards of supervisors’ authority to consolidate, by ordinance, the duties of county sheriff and coroner offices. The measure also specified that if those offices were consolidated prior to January 1, 2023, they would have to be separated effective upon the conclusion of the term for the person elected or appointed to the consolidated offices on or before January 1, 2023. Under the provisions of AB 1608, 48 counties would be required to separate the sheriff and coroner functions by January 2027. The bill was taken up in the Senate on August 30 and failed to secure sufficient votes for passage (13 ayes, 14 noes, and 13 abstentions); the bill was moved to the inactive file on August 31.
AB 1881 (Santiago) – Animal welfare: Dog and Cat Bill of Rights
AB 1881 would have required each public animal control agency, shelter, or rescue group to provide a notice related to essential needs and care for dogs and cats and establishes penalties for non-compliance.
AB 2402 (Rubio) – Medi-Cal: Continuous Eligibility
AB 2402 would have established continuous Medi-Cal eligibility for children ages 0-5. This was included in the 2022-23 state budget. AB 2402 was moved to the Senate Inactive File on August 30 and never came up for a vote.
AB 2493 (Chen): County employees’ retirement: disallowed compensation: benefit adjustments and calculations
AB 2493 would have made changes to the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (’37 Act or CERL) regarding pension calculation adjustments arising from erroneous inclusion of disallowed compensation, including requiring participating county employers to do the following: (1) reimburse their respective retirement system for pension overpayments made to peace officer and firefighter retirees arising from erroneous employer reporting of disallowed compensation and (2) pay affected retirees a lump sum amount equal to 20 percent of the present value of a retiree’s “lost” pension going forward due to the system’s recalculation of the retiree’s benefit to exclude the disallowed compensation.
SB 17 (Pan) – Racial Equity Commission
SB 17 would have established the Racial Equity Commission as division within the Office of Planning and Research. The bill was moved to the Assembly Inactive File on August 31.
SB 262 (Hertzberg) – Bail Reform
SB 262, which had been placed on the Assembly inactive file last September, was revived in the last weeks of the session and substantively amended. In its revised form, the bill would have required a court to order the return of money or property paid to a bail bond company when the action or proceeding against an arrestee is dismissed or when no charges are filed within 60 days of arrest. Additionally, the measure would have prohibited the imposition of costs relating to conditions of release on a person released on bail or their own recognizance. The bill did not gain passage off the Assembly floor in the closing hours of session.
SB 866 (Wiener) – Minors: Vaccine Consent
SB 866 would have allowed a minor 15 years of age or older to consent to receive a federally approved vaccine without parental consent. Senator Wiener acknowledged in a press statement he did not have the votes.
SB 1014 (Hertzberg) – Enhanced Clinically Integrated Program for Federally Qualified Health Centers
SB 1014 would have required DHCS to authorize a new and voluntary supplemental payment program known as the Enhanced Clinically Integrated Program (ECIP) for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), or, pursuant to DHCS' discretion, another type of payment program that DHCS determines will best meet the clinical and financial goals of ECIP and is permissible under federal law. SB 1014 was moved to the Assembly Inactive File on August 30 and never came up for a vote.
SB 1178 (Bradford) – Elimination of Proposition 47 Records Relief Sunset
SB 1178 would have permitted otherwise eligible individuals to petition a court to seek resentencing and records reclassification for old felonies beyond the current sunset date of November 4, 2022. It failed to secure the requisite 2/3 vote in the Assembly on the last night of session.
Chaptered
AB 2374 (Bauer-Kahan) – Crimes Against Public Health and Safety: Dumping
Governor Newsom signed AB 2374 into law this week. This bill was sponsored by Contra Costa County. The measure increases the maximum fine for the dumping of commercial quantities of waste by a business that employs more than 10 employees from $3,000 to $5,000 for the first conviction, from $6,000 to $10,000 for the second conviction, and from $10,000 to $20,000 for the third and any subsequent convictions. The law requires a court, when imposing a fine, to consider the defendant's ability to pay.
SB 872 (Dodd) – Pharmacies: Mobile Units
Governor Newsom signed SB 872 (Chapter 220, Statutes of 2022) into law on August 29. The measure authorizes a county or a city and county to operate a licensed mobile unit to provide prescription medication to individuals within the county’s jurisdiction and specifies certain criteria that a mobile unit must meet.
SB 1100 (Cortese) Open meetings: orderly conduct
This bill, which was co-sponsored by CSAC, authorizes the presiding member of a legislative body conducting a meeting, or their designee, to remove an individual for actually disrupting the meeting, and defines “disrupting” for these purposes. This important change to the Brown Act will help local agencies ensure that public meetings are safe and accessible to all members of the public. This bill was signed by the Governor on August 22.
AB 2645 (Rodriguez) – Local Emergency Plans: Integration of Access is now law. The bill directs that counties integrate emergency evacuation and transportation plans to account for local community resilience centers. Those centers are defined as: “a hydration station, cooling center, clean air center, respite center, community evacuation and emergency response center, or similar facility established to mitigate the public health impacts of extreme heat and other emergency situations exacerbated by climate change, such as wildfire, power outages, or flooding, on local populations.”
Budget Bill, Jr. / Health Omnibus Trailer Bill
AB 179 (Ting) – Amendments to Budget Act of 2022 (Budget Bill Jr.) / AB 204 (Committee on Budget) Health omnibus trailer bill
Monkeypox (MPX) Funding: AB 179 includes a total of $41.5 million ($25.7 million for state operations and $15.8 million for local assistance) to the Department of Public Health (DPH) for purposes related to the MPX state of emergency proclaimed on August 1. Legislative intent language specifies that the Director of DPH consult with local health jurisdictions on how to most effectively distribute MPX vaccines, tests, outreach and education, and treatments, to communities most at risk, including marginalized and disadvantaged communities. The bill authorizes funding to be transferred up to specified amounts between state operations and local assistance needs at DPH’s request, subject to Department of Finance approval and Joint Legislative Budget Committee notification.
CARE Court: AB 179 appropriates $57 million General Fund to DHCS for allocation to counties to support initial planning and implementation costs for the CARE Act, as detailed in the summary of SB 1338 above.[JO1]
AB 179 reduces the $64.7 million in one-time funding initially provided in the Budget to state departments and the Judicial Council by a net $33.7 million to account for a phased implementation approach, with $31 million remaining for CARE Act implementation costs incurred by state departments and the courts, contingent on enactment of statutory changes codifying the program.
Healthcare Workforce - Clinic Workforce Stabilization Retention Payments: AB 179 includes $70 million to implement a clinic workforce stabilization retention payment program to provide funds to eligible qualified clinics, including but not limited to federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and rural health clinics (RHCs), to provide retention payments to clinic employees. AB 204, the Health omnibus trailer bill, specifies retention payments of up to $1,000 per eligible clinic employee to support the public purposes of providing stability in the California qualified clinic workforce and retaining qualified health care workers. The retention payment program would only be implemented to the extent DHCS determines that federal financial participation under the Medi-Cal program is not jeopardized.
AB 207 (Committee on Budget) – Human services omnibus
This human services trailer bill contains several provisions significant to counties. First, this bill outlines the requirements of the $150 million for family finding, engagement, and support that was included in the 2022-23 budget to assist counties in identifying permanent connections for foster children and youth. The funding will be distributed through an allocation schedule and counties that elect to receive the funding will be required to provide a local match for 50% of the funding. Further, it specifies the type of services and supports that counties can provide with this funding. For the child support pass through, AB 207 includes statutory changes to implement a full pass through for formerly assisted families, a proposal that was included in the Governor’s January budget. It also outlines legislative intent to implement and provide a General Fund augmentation for a full pass through for currently assisted families starting January 1, 2025. Finally, this trailer bill contains a positive change related to the methodology for the state to fund the CalWORKs single allocation and CalFresh county administration. For each program, the state will be required to revisit the funding methodology every three years to account for the increased county costs to operate the programs.
The County's Master List of Bills of Interest is Attachment A. |