Harbors and ports: Monterey Bay and the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun: pilotage rates: continuing education.

(1) Existing law provides for the regulation and licensing of pilots for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, Suisun, and Monterey by the Board of Pilot Commissioners for the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun. Existing law requires the board to adopt standards and a training program for pilots, inland pilots, and pilot trainees. This bill would instead require the board to adopt training standards and a training program for pilot trainees, and continuing education standards and a continuing education program for pilots and inland pilots. The bill would require that fees from the surcharge for each movement of a vessel using pilot services used for a training program for pilots and inland pilots be used instead to fund a pilot and inland pilot continuing education program. (2) Existing law provides that all records of the board relating to the personal information of a pilot are confidential and shall not be open to public inspection. This bill would include within that provision personal information of an inland pilot, a pilot trainee, and an applicant to the pilot training program. The bill would also revise the information that is required to be in a pilot's or inland pilot's record of account to exclude the name of the vessel's master and where the vessel is registered. (3) Existing law specifies the rates of pilotage for vessels entering or leaving Monterey Bay and the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun through the Golden Gate Bridge. Existing law establishes the mill rate chargeable to those vessels and authorizes that rate to be changed under certain circumstances, including when the number of licensed pilots is reduced to 60 pilots or falls below 60 pilots. This bill would eliminate the general requirement to change the rate under certain circumstances and instead require that the mill rate in effect on January 1, 2006, be changed, as provided, if the number of pilots licensed by the board is fewer than 60. The bill would also provide that these new requirements would become inoperative if on or after January 1, 2010, the number of pilots licensed by the board is equal to or greater than 60. (4) Existing law also imposes an incremental rate of additional mills per high gross registered ton as is necessary and authorized by the Board of Pilot Commissioners to recover the pilots' costs of obtaining new pilot boats and of funding design and engineering modifications for the purposes of extending the service life of existing pilot boats, excluding costs for repair or maintenance. This bill would also require, until January 1, 2011, a movement fee as is necessary and authorized by the board to be paid as a navigation technology surcharge in order to recover the pilots' costs for the purchase, lease, or maintenance of navigation software, hardware, and ancillary equipment purchased after November 5, 2008, and before January 1, 2011. Existing law requires that all moneys received by the Board of Pilot Commissioners pursuant to the provisions of any law shall be paid into the State Treasury to the credit of the Board of Pilot Commissioners' Special Fund and are continuously appropriated to the board for the payment of the compensation and expenses of the board and its officers and employees. By increasing the amount of revenue deposited into a continuously appropriated fund and by authorizing the expenditure of money in that fund for a new purpose, the bill would make an appropriation. (5) The bill would also make technical changes.