2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004
STATE LEGISLATION COMMITTEE
Monday, March 23, 2009
3PM
City Hall, Room 288
Meeting Minutes
I . ROLL CALL
MEMBERS - Present
Mayor’s Office (Chair) – Nancy Kirshner-Rodriguez
Supervisor Chiu – David Noyola
Supervisor Alioto-Pier – Sarah Ballard
City Attorney’s Office – MaryJane Winslow
Treasurer’s Office – Pauline Marx
Assessor’s Office – Alissa Pines
Controller’s Office – Peg Stevenson
Other representatives included:
Aging and Adult Services – Sybil L. Boutilier
Department of Children Youth and their Families – Mardi Licich, Sandra Naughton
Department of the Environment – David Assmann
Department of Public Health – Jim Soos
Department of Public Works – Douglas Legg
Human Services Agency – Noelle Simmons
Mayor’s Office – Catherine Dodd
Mayor’s Office – Dar Kayhan
Municipal Transportation Agency – Kate Breen
Public Utilities Commission – Nathan Purkiss
Suter and Associates- Lynn Suter, et al (via phone)
II. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES
The Committee approved the minutes of the February 26, 2009 meeting of the State Legislation Committee.
III. 2009 STATE AGENDA
The Committee reviewed and discussed the draft 2009 State Agenda for the City andCounty of San Francisco. Committee members and representatives made suggested changes for a revised draft for the next meeting of the Committee.
IV. REVIEW OF DEPARTMENT STATE LEGISLATIVE PLANS
The Committee reviewed and discussed the draft State Legislative Plans for the following Departments of the City and County of San Francisco
a. Department of Public Health
b. Human Services Agency
c. Department of the Environment
V. PROPOSED LEGISLATION
The committee voted to support, not support, or take no position on the following state legislation affecting the City and County of San Francisco.
Office of the City Attorney
MaryJane Winslow
AB 10 (Hagman)
Public financing: actions. This bill would bar cities and counties from challenging voter-passed measures, no matter how legitimate the basis for doing so. This prohibition would apply to local initiatives as well as to statewide initiative statutes and constitutional amendments. Removing the right of local governmental officials to challenge illegal initiative measures would permit voter-enacted measures to stand even when the measures violate fundamental constitutional principles or conflict with other provisions of law.
Recommended action: Oppose
Action taken: Oppose
SB 54 (Leno)
Health care coverage: pricing. This bill eliminates gender discrimination in the pricing of individual health insurance policies purchased by millions of Californians each year. Current California law expressly permits insurance companies to charge women more for health insurance based solely on their sex. As a result, women in California who purchase individual health insurance pay monthly premiums up to 39% higher than those paid by similarly situated men.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 119 (Jones)
Health care coverage: pricing. This bill is basically the same bill as SB 54 (Leno) but introduced in the Assembly.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector
Pauline Marx
AB 1342 (Evans)
Existing law authorizes various local governmental entities to impose local taxes for various purposes. This bill would authorize the board of supervisors of any county, by ordinance, to impose either a personal income tax or a vehicle license fee, or both, in accordance with specified requirements.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Continued to next meeting
Office of the Assessor-Recorder
Alissa Pines
AB 103 (de León)
This bill would allow two co-owners of real property to be excluded from a change in ownership – and subsequent reassessment – when one of the co-owners dies. This exclusion from reassessment is a benefit that married couples, domestic partners registered with the state, and other groups enjoy under current California law. This benefit does not exist, however, for others may own property together for years, such as siblings and unregistered domestic partners. The intention of this legislation is to prevent financial hardship for the surviving co-owner.
In Asm Committee on Revenue & Taxation - hearing on 4/13/09
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
Department of Public Health
Jim Soos
AB 217 (Beall)
This bill would provide alcohol and drug screening and brief intervention services (SBIS) as a voluntary benefit for Medi-Cal beneficiaries.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 221 (Portantino)
This bill would allow that HIV counselors be allowed to perform skin punctures for the purpose of withdrawing blood to perform HIV test if they are trained on finger-stick procedures in accordance with California DPH training requirements and are working under the direction of a licensed physician.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 359 (Nava)
This bill would require that digital mammography screening be covered under the CDP:EWC program when analog mammography services are not available from the provider.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
SBX3 24 (Alquist)
This bill would repeal last year's change from annual to semi-annual Medi-Cal eligibility determinations for children in order to comply with federal requirements to draw down the enhanced FMAP rate.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
Human Services Agency
Noelle Simmons
AB 12 (Bass, Beall)
This bill ensures that CA opts into essential federal funding opportunities. AB 12 would: 1) re-enact the state’s existing Kin-GAP program to align it with new federal requirements effective 01/01/10 and 2) provide transitional support to qualifying foster youth until age 21 beginning 10/01/10.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 47 (Ma)
This bill enhances the adoptions tax credit cap from $2500 to $5000 for families that adopt children age 12 or over and children out of group homes.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 295 (Ammiano) and AB 1324 (Bass)
AB 295 (Ammiano). Would (1) make the Child Welfare Wrap pilot program permanent and (2) extend by 6 months the date by which funds appropriated under the Older Youth Adoptions pilot program must be spent and the date by which a report to the Legislature must be made.
AB 1324 (Bass) mirrors the language in AB 295 as relates to the Wrap program, but does not include the OYA provisions.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 631 (Tran) and AB 1193 (Strickland)
Both bills would require that a district attorney investigator visit the home of every CalWORKs applicant and conduct a home walk-through and applicant interview and report the findings of the home visit to the county welfare agency before CalWORKs assistance could be approved. Local DA’s offices would be given 10 days to complete the home visit.
Recommended action: Oppose
Action taken: Continued to next meeting
SB 654 (Leno)
This bill would enable foster youth placed with non-related legal guardians to receive ILP services.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 719 (Lowenthal)
This bill would create a Transitional Food Stamps for Foster Youth Program effective July 1, 2010. Under this program, upon emancipation from foster care, young people would be automatically eligible for Food Stamps without regard to income or assets for a 12-month period.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
SB 114 (Liu, Pavley)
This bill would make independent foster care adolescents categorically eligible for Medi-Cal without submitting a new application, and would exempt them from having to submit annual redetermination paperwork unless their information had changed. These clarifications to existing law are intended to prevent interruptions in coverage for emancipated foster youth.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
SB 179 (Runner)
This bill would:
1. Reduce the time period for birth parents to file a notice of appeal from 60 days to 30 days when the Juvenile Court orders the termination of parental rights (TPR); and
2. Modify the current process of serving notice to birth parents when the court terminates parental rights by allowing notice to be served in person when the parties are present in court; and
3. Add statutory language allowing a TPR order to automatically finalize after 180 days have elapsed from the date of the Court order.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
SB 384 (Benoit)
This bill would require random drug testing of CalWORKs recipients as a condition of retaining eligibility. Recipients who fail the test would have to successfully complete a one year treatment program or be discontinued from aid.
Recommended action: Oppose
Action taken: Oppose
Department of Aging and Adult Services
Sybil L. Boutilier
AB 324 (Beall)
Elder Economic Security Standard Index. Existing law, the Mello-Granlund Older Californians Act, creates the California Department of Aging, with prescribed duties.
This bill would require the department, beginning in 2010, to annually update the Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index), as defined, for each county. Requires the department to use the Index to make calculations and analyses relating to elders living below the Index's poverty threshold. Requires that an area agency on aging plan utilize the Elder Index, specify the cost of meeting basic needs for elders in each service area, and identify which elders are living at or below the Index. Pilot projects are occurring in eight other states—Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Michigan.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
AB 392 (Feuer)
Long Term Health Care Facilities, proposes to provide funding outside of the General Fund by amending section 1417.2 of the Health and Safety Code to allocate at least 50% of the State managed funds accumulated in the Federal & State Health Facilities Citation Penalties Accounts to fund the Local Ombudsman Programs. (Currently $5-6 million, expected to drop to $4 ml by end of 2010)
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Support
Department of the Environment
David Assmann
SB 518 (Lowenthal)
This bill would require that state funds not be used, directly or indirectly, to subsidize parking services, except as specified, for students, employees, or other persons on district-owned or district-leased property on and after January 1, 2011.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Continued to next meeting
Municipal Transportation Agency
Kate Breen
AB 1336 (Eng)
Existing law authorizes the City and County of San Francisco, until January 1, 2012, to enforce parking violations in specified transit-only traffic lanes through the use of video image evidence. This bill would extend that authorization until January 1, 2013. The bill would make a related change with respect to a notice of a delinquent parking violation.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Continued to next meeting
Arts Commission
Luis Cancel
AB 700 (Krekorian)
This bill would establish the Creative Industries and Community Economic Revitalization Act of 2010, which would create, in the State Treasury, the Creative Industries and Community Economic Revitalization Fund.
The bill would require that 20% of all revenues derived from the payment of sales and use taxes that are remitted to the State Board of Equalization by the taxpayers engaged in specified lines of business, as provided, be deposited in the fund. The council would be authorized to expend the moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to issue grants pursuant to the act.
The bill would authorize a city, county, district, including, but not limited to, a regional park district, a joint powers authority, or a nonprofit arts organization deemed eligible by the council, to apply to the council for a local assistance program grant for organizational support. The council would be required, when issuing a grant, to encourage joint partnerships between applicants, and to submit an annual report to the Legislature that includes the status of each grant made pursuant to the act.
Recommended action: Support
Action taken: Continued to next meeting
VI. SET REGULAR SCHEDULE FOR FUTURE COMMITTEE MEETINGS
Next meeting: Monday March 30, 2009 2:00pm Room 288, City Hall
VIII. GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
No public comment.
IX. ADJOURNMENT
