recreation programs to improve the quality of life

Comprehensive Legislative Update 1-13-2012 (34 pages - 827Kb pdf document)

CARPD Legislative Update Summary - October 2011
By Ralph A. Heim

Legislature in Interim Recess

The 2011 legislative year ended at approximately 2 a.m. on September 10, with the Legislature scheduled to commence the 2012 legislative year on January 4, unless the Governor calls the Legislature back to address anticipated revenue shortfalls in the current state budget.

The state budget was adopted with numerous overly optimistic revenue assumptions, including, but not limited to, $4 billion in new revenues this fiscal year and $1.7 billion from redevelopment agencies, the latter issue pending before the California Supreme Court.

The California Redevelopment Association, League of California Cities and scores of individual cities have sued the state over the “taking” of $1.7 billion of redevelopment monies, arguing Proposition 22 prohibits the state from shifting any local revenues, including those from redevelopment agencies, for a “state purpose.” The Supreme Court has announced it will hear oral arguments this fall with a decision rendered on or before January 15, 2012. Should the state lose this case, add $1.7 billion to the state’s growing budget deficit.

Additionally, it’s hard to find anyone in the Brown Administration or within the Legislature that believes the state will, in fact, realize $4 billion in new revenues this fiscal year. Given the state budget contains language that would require automatic and significant cuts to education and other state programs, the automatic cuts, or “triggers,” most certainly will be pulled in December or January 2012. Depending on the state’s revenues next year, the state budget requires additional “triggers” to be pulled at specified points during 2012, which has given some credibility to the rumors the Governor may call the Legislature back into session before January 4, 2012, to considered alternative to the first round of cuts should the “trigger’ be pulled in December. Stay tuned…

PENSION REFORM
Back in January, Assembly Speaker Perez and Senate President Steinberg declared 2011 as the “year of pension reform.” Some weeks later, Governor Brown delivered to the Legislature a list of “reform” he supports and encouraged the Legislature to enact them before this year’s session adjourns.

Scores of pension “reform” measures were introduced this year, some containing modest reforms, while others were more comprehensive, including, but not limited to elimination of pension “spiking;” elimination of employees purchasing “air time;” increasing the retirement age; requiring employees to contribute more to their pension; and caps on the amount of a pension.

In the final week of this year’s session, Governor Brown informed the Legislature that he will be releasing a revised list of his pension “reform” concepts and hinted that he may veto any of the pension reform bills that reach his desk, preferring to address the subject next year in “a comprehensive manner.” This caused numerous pension reform authors to place their bills on hold, making them 2-year bills and avoiding possible vetoes.

Assembly Speaker Perez and Senate President Steinberg in responding to the Governor’s comments, have announced they will convene a pension reform conference committee in January and, as the Governor urged, to address the subject in a comprehensive manner instead of running numerous separate bills on the subject.

Finally, in addition to legislative activity on the pension reform issue, there are a number of “reform” initiatives pending, including a number that have been cleared for circulation. Too early to determine if any will obtain the necessary signatures to qualify for next year’s ballot, or if the sponsors of these initiative have the financial ability to qualify the measures, let alone fund a ballot campaign that will certainly be strongly opposed by a coalition of labor and education interests. We will keep the CARPD membership current on the status of those initiatives that have been filed and/or qualified for the signature gathering phase of the initiative process.

LEGISLATION OF INTEREST
Governor Brown has until midnight, September 9th to act on approximately 600 bills that were sent to him during the final weeks of this year’s session. Cited below is a number of bills interest to CARPD:

Assembly bill 587(Gordon): This measure extends the current repeal date for the use of public works volunteers to January 1, 2017. Status: Signed by the Governor; CARPD supported Assembly Bill 587;
Assembly Bill 646(Atkins): This is a major revision to the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act and would require a local agencies to utilize a mediator if management and labor are unable to reach a settlement, thereby, requiring the mediator to submit the issues in controversy to a factfinding panel. The factfinding panel would be empowered to issue subpoenas; require attendance and testimony of witnesses; and, the production of evidence. Status: Pending on the Governor’s desk. CARPD remains opposed to Assembly Bill 646;
Assembly Bill 780(Calderon): This measure relates to fixed price public contracts and would require those contracts to be revised each time the state sales tax is increased or decreased. Status: Bill was held on the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s Suspense File and is now a 2-year bill. CARPD adopted an Oppose, Unless Amended position, with request for amendments to allow a public agency to require contractors to submit specific invoices specific to the public works project in the case the state’s sales tax is increased or decreased;
Assembly Constitutional Amendment #4(Blumenfield): The most recent in a long list of constitutional amendments to place before the voters the question of reducing the current 2/3rds vote for bonded indebtedness to 55%. None of the previous measure succeeded in securing the necessary 2/3rds votes in the Assembly and Senate for placement on the ballot. Status: The author placed ACA #4 on the Assembly Inactive File due to lack of obtaining the necessary 2/3rds votes on the Assembly Floor. CARPD supports Assembly Constitutional Amendment #4;
Senate Bill 264(Correa): This bill removed the sunset date of January 1, 2012, for the provision of skateboarding at a public skateboard park as a hazardous recreational activity, thus making that provision permanent. Status: Signed by the Governor. CARPD supported Senate Bill 264;
Senate Bill 386(Harman): This bill proposed to require the Department of Parks and Recreation to post on the Department’s website information relating to any state park subject to closure. The Governor vetoed Senate bill 386 and his veto message reads in part: “This bill would order state park staff to put certain information on the internet and answer inquiries about park closures. A good idea but not one that needs a law. What the parks do need is sufficient funding to stay open—something I feel compelled to note the author and his colleagues refused to let the people vote on.” Clearly a shot at Republican Senator Harman and his Republican colleagues for rejecting the Governor proposal to place on the ballot the continuation of certain taxes for an additional 5-years.

The bills cited above represent only a small number the CARPD Legislative Committee reviewed this year. After the Governor has completed signing and voting the bills before him, I will prepare a final legislative report reflecting the final status of all 2011 bills of interest to CARPD.

Comprehensive Legislative Update January 13, 2012 (34 pages - Word doc)

CARPD California Association of Recreation & Park Districts, P.O. Box 22671, Sacramento, CA 95822

916-446-2098 | 800-773-7275 | Fax 916-446-6095 | calrpds@aol.com