On May 20, 2021, the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees acted on hundreds of bills that had been held on the suspense file due to their significant fiscal impacts. Bills are generally held on the suspense file before each fiscal deadline to allow the respective house to evaluate the total impact they can have on the state. For the bills that moved out of suspense, they now head over to the Assembly Floor or Senate Floor, and bills that were held in suspense become known as two-year bills and can proceed forward in the next legislative session.
Bills that move out of their respective house of origin will go through the Appropriations Committee process in the second house as well. The following report lists CASBO’s active bill portfolio.
Two-Year Bills
AB 34 (Muratsuchi): Broadband for All Act of 2022. This bill would require that voters be asked to authorize the issuance of $10 billion in general obligation (GO) bonds to fund the 2022 Broadband for All Program for purposes of providing financial assistance for projects to deploy broadband infrastructure and broadband internet access services.
CASBO Position: Support
AB 1179 (Carrillo): Employer provided benefit: backup childcare. This bill would require an employer with 1,000 or more employees, including the state and any local government, to provide an eligible employee with up to 60 hours of paid backup childcare benefits.
CASBO Position: Oppose
SB 364 (Skinner): Pupil meals: Free School Meals for All Act of 2021. This bill would require local education agencies (LEAs) to provide two free nutritiously adequate school meals each school day, regardless of the pupil’s eligibility for free or reduced-price meals. This bill would also require the California Department of Education (CDE) to administer a non-competitive grant for LEAs to cover costs incurred in purchasing food produced or grown in California and award competitive grants of up to $30,000 per school site every year for their non-recurring expenses incurred. Further, this bill would establish the Better Out of School Time Nutrition EBT Program to provide benefits to students during school breaks and campus closures during a state of emergency.
CASBO Position: Concern
Active Bills
AB 22 (McCarty): Childcare: preschool programs and transitional kindergarten: enrollment: funding. This bill would expand eligibility for transitional kindergarten (TK) incrementally to achieve universal TK eligibility, adds specific requirements for TK and identifies a funding stream.
Amendments: The amendments would specify an incentive allocation of 14.5%.
CASBO Position: Support if Amended
AB 75 (O’Donnell): Education finance: school facilities: Kindergarten-Community Colleges Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2022. This bill will place the Kindergarten-Community College Public Education Facilities Bond Act on the 2022 statewide election (primary or general to be determined). K-12 Programs: New Construction, Modernization, Career Technical Education, Charters, Disaster Assistance, Lead in Water Remediation Program, Small School Districts Assistance, Replacement of 75+ year old buildings, Supplemental Grant for Support Facilities (gymnasium, multipurpose room, library, kitchen).
Amendments: The amendments would add an urgency clause and appropriate a GObond amount of $12 billion.
CASBO Position: Support
AB 388 (Medina): Certificated school employees: probationary employees. This bill would require a certificated employee of a school district or a county superintendent of schools, regardless of the average daily attendance of the school district or county superintendent of schools, who completes two consecutive school years and is so re-elected to become, and be classified as, a permanent employee.
CASBO Position: Oppose
AB 438 (Reyes): School employees: classified employees: layoff notice and hearings. This bill would revise and recast provisions relating to the layoff of classified employees of school and community college districts to require certain notices and opportunities for a hearing when a classified employee’s services will not be required for the ensuing year due to lack of work or lack of funds. The bill would express the intent of the Legislature in enacting the bill to provide classified school employees with the same rights to notice and hearing with respect to layoffs as is provided to certificated employees of school districts, including teachers and administrators, and academic employees of community college districts. If, after January 1, 2021, the Legislature provides certificated or academic employees with any additional rights to notice or hearing as to layoffs, the bill would require the respective classified employees to be afforded the same rights by the school or community college district.
CASBO Position: Oppose
AB 570 (Santiago): Dependent parent health care coverage. This bill would allow specified dependent parents or stepparents to be covered under a child’s health care coverage. The parent or stepparent must meet the definition of a qualifying relative under the federal tax code, including having a relationship to the taxpayer and relying on the taxpayer for over 50% of the parent’s or stepparent’s support.
Amendments: The amendments would limit the bill to apply to the individual market.
CASBO Position: Oppose
AB 967 (Frazier): Special education: COVID-19 Special Education Fund. This bill would create, subject to an appropriation of federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds, the COVID-19 Special Education Fund to support a grant program to assist LEAs with providing interventions and services to students with disabilities who suffered harm from the COVID-19 school disruptions. The bill requires grantees to provide a one-to-one local match to receive a grant from the fund.
Amendments: The amendments would make the bill subject to an appropriation and prohibit funding from being used for attorneys’ fees.
CASBO Position: Support
AB 995 (Gonzalez): Paid sick days: accrual and use. This bill would modify the employer’s alternate sick leave accrual method to require that an employee have no less than 40 hours of accrued sick leave or paid time off by the 200th calendar day of employment of each calendar year, or in each 12-month period.
CASBO Position: Oppose
SB 4 (Gonzalez): Communications: California Advanced Services Fund: Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program: surcharges. This bill would extend the California Advanced Services Fund from December 31, 2022 to December 31, 2032, and make various program modifications including changes to the revenue cap.
Amendments: The amendments would set a cap on the total annual amount, up to $100,000,000 per year until January 1, 2025, of surcharge revenue that can be collected for the Deaf and Disabled Telecommunications Program.
CASBO Position: Support
SB 205 (Leyva): School and community college employees: absences due to illness or accident. This bill would require a certificated or classified school employee and an academic or classified community college employee who exhausts all available sick leave and continues to be absent from duties on account of illness or accident for an additional period of five months to receive the employee’s full salary during those five months.
CASBO Position: Oppose
SB 237 (Portantino): Special education: dyslexia risk screening. This bill would require LEAs serving students in kindergarten to grade 2 to annually screen all students for risk of dyslexia using state-approved instruments, unless objected to in writing by a student’s parent or guardian, beginning in the 2022-23 school year.
Amendments: The amendments would add grade 3 to the bill’s requirement for LEAs to annually screen students for risk of dyslexia; require LEAs to provide students at risk for dyslexia with appropriate instruction, progress monitoring and early intervention in the regular general education program; make clarifying changes; and add coauthors to the bill.
CASBO Position: Oppose Unless Amended
SB 270 (Durazo): Public employment: labor relations: employee information. This bill, commencing July 1, 2022, would authorize an exclusive representative to file a charge of an unfair labor practice with the board, as specified, alleging a violation of the above-described requirements only if specified conditions are met, including that the exclusive representative gives written notice of the alleged violation and that the public employer fails to cure the violation. The bill would limit a public employer’s opportunity to cure certain violations.
CASBO Position: Oppose
SB 488 (Rubio): Teacher credentialing: reading instruction. This bill would authorize candidates who have been unable to take the Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) due to the COVID-19 pandemic to take a California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC)-approved assessment in reading instruction, and requires the CTC to update the Teaching Performance Assessment to replace the RICA by July 1, 2025. This bill also requires the CTC to revise their teacher preparation program standards and teaching performance expectations for literacy.
CASBO Position: Support
SB 545 (Wilk): Pupil retention: COVID-19 impact. This bill, an urgency measure, requires school districts to offer specific interventions and supports upon request by a parent to retain their student in the same grade level for the 2021-22 school year.
CASBO Position: Monitoring
Bills In The Second House
SB 328 (Portantino): LEAs: before and after school programs: middle school and high school start time. This bill would require the CDE and California Department of Social Services to review all after school program funding and provide flexibility to school districts to use up to 20% of funds provided for after school programs for before school programs; define “rural” for purposes of the rural school district exemptions from the provisions regarding school start times and extends those exemptions to rural charter schools; and prohibit a city, county, city and county, county office of education (COE), or school district from imposing any rule, regulation, ordinance or condition, or from taking any action, that would prohibit or restrict a school district, COE or charter school from complying with any state law or regulation.
CASBO Position: Oppose Unless Amended
AB 104 (Gonzalez): Pupil instruction: retention, grade changes and exemptions. This bill would, for the 2021-22 academic year, require an LEA to implement a supplemental policy regarding the retention of pupils who, in the 2020-21 academic year, received deficient grades, as specified, for at least one half of the pupil’s coursework, except for pupils enrolled in grade 12 during the 2020-21 academic year. It would also require, as part of that policy and within 30 days of receiving a retention request from a parent, offering the parent a consultation with the parent, the pupil, the administrator and a teacher, and would require the consultation to include a discussion of all available learning recovery options, research on the effects of retention and the benefits of particular interventions and supports, and consideration of the pupil’s academic data and any other information relevant to whether retention is in the pupil’s best interests academically and socially. The bill would require a retention decision to be consistent with a pupil’s individualized education program. The bill would require the pupil to be offered specific interventions and supports, regardless of the retention decision.
CASBO Position: Concern