CAO - Legislative Affairs

Legislative Summaries

Year: 2011 Previous Year Next Year

Support

Elections: Payment of Expenses This legislation provides state financial responsibility for expenses incurred for elections proclaimed by the Governor to fill a vacancy in the office of State Senator, Member of the Assembly, or to fill a vacancy in the United State Congress.

SB 733 (Leno)

Crime Victims: Trauma Center Grants This legislation establishes a grant program to be administered by the Victims Compensation and Government Claims Board (VCGCB) which will provide for the creation and funding of Trauma Recovery Centers (TRCs) which will offer rapid, integrated health treatment to victims of violent crime.

SB 69 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review)

In-Home Supportive Services: Program Changes Implementation This legislation is urgently needed to ensure that In-Home Supportive Services recipients can receive services they need to keep them safely at home rather than institutionalized in nursing homes and to ensure that important program integrity efforts are effective. This urgent legislation will ensure that the process approved by the Legislature is properly implemented, while allowing IHSS recipients to receive needed services the County has authorized.

SB 1324 (Negrete McLeod)

Public Records Commerical Use Fee This legislation authorizes state and local governments to recover costs associated with complying with public record requests pursuant to the Public Records Act.

SB 1265 (Dutton)

Sponsor: Forensic Conditional Release Program This legislation authorizes programs providing services pursuant to Forensic Conditional Release Program to inform local enforcement agencies of the names and addresses of program participants in the law enforcement agency's jurisdiction.

SB 1185 (Maldonado)

Pet Adoption Income Tax Deduction This legislation would allow a deduction, in computing adjusted gross income, for the costs, not to exceed $250, paid or incurred during the taxable year for food and supplies purchased for an animal adopted during the taxable year from a qualified animal rescue organization.

AB 2645 (Chesbro)

Mental Health Skilled Nursing Facility Reimbursement Rate This legislation conforms the reimbursement rates for services in Institutions for Mental Disease (IMDs) to the nursing home rates that were frozen in the Budget Act of 2009.

AB 2477 (Jones)

Medi-Cal: Continuous Eligibility This legislation would permanently eliminate the requirement that children on Medi-Cal file a Mid-Year Status Reports (MSR), and reinstate 12 months of continuous eligibility for these children.

AB 223 (Ma)

Safe Body Art This legislation establishes minimum statewide health and oversight standards for the regulation of practitioners engaged in the business of tattooing, body piercing, and the application of permanent cosmetics in California.

AB 1908 (Cook)

Sponsor: Vehicles: Specialized License Plates This legislation would authorize the California Department of Veterans Affairs (CDVA) to modify the design of the existing veteran special license plate to make it more marketable to California citizens.

AB 1906 (Cook)

Sponsor: Additional Grand Juries AB 1906 would allow for the impanelment of up to two additional grand juries, augmenting necessary and independent governmental oversight over county operations, allowing for more thorough investigations, exposing opportunities for the betterment of public service and alleviating the burden of grand jury service.

AB 1905 (Cook)

Sponsor: Foster Care: Funding Placement Approvals AB 1905 would provide that relative caregivers approved by the county continue to remain eligible for federal funding while the county is processing their annual reassessments. This bill would ensure the state does not expend vital resources to comply with a policy that exceeds federal requirements.

AB 1717 (De Leon)

Ballot Materials: Electronic Access This legislation permits voters the ability to opt-out of receiving their sample ballots, voter pamphlets, and notice of polling place by mail and instead obtain them electronically.

AB 1653 (Jones)

Medi-Cal: Hospitals Quality Assurance This legislation builds on the recently enacted AB 1383, which established quality assurance fees on hospitals, except for public hospitals and requires revenue from the fee to be used only to make increased Medi-Cal payments to hospitals, pay for health care coverage for children and fund grants to the state public hospitals.

AB 1600 (Beall)

Health Care Coverage: Mental Health Services This legislation would require health plans and insurers to cover the diagnosis and medically necessary treatment of a mental illness and substance abuse addictions of a person of any age under the same terms and conditions applied to other medical conditions.

Oppose

SB 1141 (Negrete Mc Leod)

Airports: Land Use Commissions This legislation repeals current law allowing counties to employ alternative processes in lieu of establishing an Airport Land Use Commission.

SB 1124 (Negrete Mc Leod)

Land Conservation This bill would require that all grantees of funds from Section 5907(b)(3) of Proposition 70 to record an easement by July 1, 2011 on all property acquired, developed, rehabilitated, or restored, if the grantee committed to place that easement. The conservation easement must be approved by DPR and must provide that the property will be maintained and operated in perpetuity.

SB 1109 (Cox)

Children and Families Programs This legislation would eliminate existing allocations of tobacco tax revenue under Proposition 10 to state and local county children and families commission accounts and instead requires those funds to be allocated and appropriated to the California Children and Families Commission (CCFC) to provide health care services to children. SB 1109 will hurt our local children's programs already in place and will undermine the accomplishments of our county commission, San Bernardino County First 5.

AB 2456 (Torrico)

Emergency Medical Services Regulation This legislation would modify the EMS Act to specify that guidelines issued by the California Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA)-- including those dealing with medical control -- will require mandatory compliance by local EMS agencies when establishing local policies and procedures. AB 2456 would negate local control over the Inland Counties Emergency Medical Authority (ICEMA), which provides emergency medical services to both urban areas and the many remote areas of San Bernardino, Inyo and Mono counties.

AB 2153 (Lieu)

Emergency Room Crowding This legislation would require every licensed general acute care hospital with an emergency department to determine the range of crowding scores that constitute each category of the crowding scale for its emergency department. The bill would require every licensed general acute care hospital with an emergency department to calculate and record a crowding score every four hours to assess the crowding condition of its emergency department. The bill would require, by January 1, 2012, every licensed general acute care hospital with an emergency department to develop and implement a full-capacity protocol for each of the categories of the crowding scale.

AB 1994 (Skinner)

Hospital Employees: Presumption This legislation would provide, with respect to hospital employees who provide direct patient care in an acute care hospital, that the term "injury" includes a blood-borne infectious disease, neck or back impairment, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), or H1N1 influenza virus that develops or manifests itself during the period of the person's employment with the hospital. Under AB 1994, the employer, in this case the County of San Bernardino, would be placed with the burden to prove that an injury did or did not occur in the workplace.

AB 155 (Mendoza)

Local Government Bankruptcy Proceedings This legislation requires local agencies to seek approval from the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC) prior to seeking bankruptcy protection in federal court.