This measure would proclaim the month of May 2011 as Small Business Month to raise awareness of the contributions made by outstanding entrepreneurs and small business owners.
(1) Existing law prohibits an employer from issuing in payment of wages due certain instruments, including an order, check, draft, note, memorandum, scrip, coupon, card, or other acknowledgment of indebtedness or redeemable instrument, unless specified requirements are satisfied. This bill would authorize an employer to pay an employee's wages by means of a payroll card, as defined, provided that specified requirements are satisfied. In addition, the bill would make a violation of its provisions a misdemeanor and would subject a violator to specified civil penalties. By creating new crimes, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law requires an employer to provide employees, at the time wages are paid, with an itemized statement containing specified items regarding the wages earned. This bill would extend the requirement for an itemized statement of wages to an employer who pays his or her employees via payroll cards. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, which are administered by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges. The governing board of any community college district is authorized, without approval of the board of governors, to establish and maintain community service classes in civic, vocational, literacy, health, homemaking, technical, and general education, as specified. This bill would establish the California Community Colleges Extension Pilot Program to permit the governing board of a community college district that meets specified requirements to establish and maintain an extension program offering credit courses. The bill would require an extension program to, among other things, be self-supporting, open to the public, and developed and conducted in conformance with specified statutory and regulatory guidelines. The bill would require the Office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to determine whether an extension program meets specified requirements and to annually review extension programs. The bill would require that governing boards not expend any General Fund moneys to establish and maintain the courses except program revenues generated by these provisions. The bill would prohibit districts from allowing extension credit courses to supplant courses funded with state apportionments and from reducing certain state-funded course sections with the intent of reestablishing those course sections as part of an extension program. The bill would also prohibit extension credit courses from being conducted in a manner that supplants the use of district instructional space for courses funded with state apportionments. This bill would allow community college districts to establish fees not to exceed the actual costs of the courses, as defined, and would require administrative costs to be minimized to the greatest extent possible. The bill would also require state and federal financial aid to be available to eligible students participating in the program and would require a district governing board to provide for fee waivers, as specified. Each participating district would be required to collect and keep records relating to the extension program and submit them, and a schedule of course fees, to the chancellor by October 1 of each year. This information would, in turn, be submitted by the chancellor to the Legislative Analyst by November 1 of each year. The bill would require the Legislative Analyst to submit a written report on the pilot program to the Legislature by January 1, 2015, summarizing the information provided by the chancellor, assessing compliance of the program with the Legislature's intent, and suggesting any needed statutory improvements. The bill would make the requirement for a report to the Legislature inoperative on July 1, 2016. This act would remain operative only until July 1, 2016, unless that date is deleted or extended.
Under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, a seller may accept the return of beer from a retailer only if the beer is returned in exchange for the identical quantity and brand of beer. An exception to that provision permits a seller to accept the return of beer from a seasonal or temporary licensee, as specified. This bill would expand that exception to provide that an alcoholic beverage licensee may accept the return of unsold and unopened beer from organizations that obtain a particular license, as specified.
(1) Existing law provides that when developing and adopting objective evaluation and assessment guidelines for certificated employees, a school district may, by mutual agreement between the exclusive representative of the certificated employees of the school district and the governing board of the school district, include certain standards. This bill would encourage these evaluation and assessment guidelines to include specific information relating to current best teaching practices in all subject areas, as well as information relating to objectively training evaluators on current best teaching practices in all subject areas. (2) Existing law requires the governing board of a school district to evaluate and assess the performance of certificated employees as it reasonably relates to the progress of pupils towards the standards of expected pupil achievement established by the governing board, the instructional techniques and strategies used by the employee, the employee's adherence to curricular objectives, and the establishment of a suitable learning environment. This bill would authorize school districts to incorporate additional criteria into the evaluation of certificated employees, including: (A) pupil progress during a school year or, as applicable, during multiple school years, toward statewide academic content standards or common core academic standards in language arts and mathematics, comprising no more than 25% of the evaluation; and (B) pupil and parent or guardian input, comprising no more than 5% of the evaluation. The bill would authorize a school district, prior to issuing a final evaluation, to conduct multiple observations by trained evaluators and peers with the opportunity for constructive feedback and professional development.
Existing law requires a local government agency letting a public transit service contract out to bid to give a bidding preference for contractors and subcontractors who agree to retain, for a period of at least 90 days, certain employees who were employed to perform essentially the same services by the previous contractor or subcontractor. Under this law, contractors or subcontractors who agree to retain employees must offer employment to those employees except for reasonable and substantiated cause. Additionally, the law provides that if a successor contractor or subcontractor determines that fewer employees are needed than under the prior contract, qualified employees must be retained by seniority within the job classification. Further, the existing contractor, when required by the awarding authority, must provide employment information relating to wage rates, benefits, dates of hire, and job classifications of employees under the existing service contract to the awarding authority or a successor contractor. This bill would add employees of solid waste handling and recycling contractors and subcontractors to those provisions. By requiring local agencies to give a bidding preference to such contractors and subcontractors, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.
Under existing law, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act is administered by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Existing law requires the department to make an annual report to the Legislature on the department's activities, on or before March 1 of each year. This bill would extend the due date of that report to April 1 of each year.
The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act regulates the provision of signs and other advertising matter to licensed retail premises by manufacturers and others. The act provides that nothing in the act prohibits any alcoholic beverage manufacturer, manufacturer's agent, winegrower, or wholesaler from furnishing electronic data services, which are limited to transmission by telephone line, microwave, or other electronic means, to a licensed retail premises. This bill would revise the description of electronic data services transmissions to include those transmissions by internet or other wireless means of data transmission.
Existing law authorizes the members of multidisciplinary teams engaged in the prevention, identification, and control of juvenile crime to share certain information with each other, as specified. This bill would, in addition, authorize counties, for purposes of providing evidence-based practices and supervision, to convene community corrections multidisciplinary teams engaged in providing community corrections supervision and evidenced-based rehabilitation programs, as specified. The bill would require each community corrections multidisciplinary team to maintain an informed consent policy in order to authorize the sharing of confidential, privileged, or protected information among members of the team, as specified. The bill would additionally require the county probation officer in each county utilizing a community corrections multidisciplinary team to develop and implement a memorandum of understanding between the agencies participating in the community corrections multidisciplinary team that includes, among other things, a description of the types of information and writings that may be shared between team members.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations and gas corporations, as defined. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility, and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law, relative to electrical restructuring, requires the commission to authorize and facilitate direct transactions between electricity suppliers and retail end-use customers. Existing law, enacted during the energy crisis of 2000–01, authorized the Department of Water Resources, until January 1, 2003, to enter into contracts for the purchase of electricity, and to sell electricity to retail end-use customers at not more than the department's acquisition costs and to recover those costs through the issuance of bonds to be repaid by ratepayers. That law suspended the right of retail end-use customers, other than community choice aggregators and a qualifying direct transaction customer, as defined, to acquire service through a direct transaction until the Department of Water Resources no longer supplies electricity under that law. Existing law continues the suspension of direct transactions except as expressly authorized, until the Legislature, by statute, repeals the suspension or otherwise authorizes direct transactions. Existing law requires the commission to authorize direct transactions for nonresidential end-use customers subject to a reopening schedule adopted and implemented by July 1, 2010, that will phase in over a period of not less than 3 years and not more than 5 years, and subject to an annual maximum allowable total kilowatthour limit established for each electrical corporation. The annual maximum allowable total kilowatthour limit is required to be established for each electrical corporation at the maximum total kilowatthours supplied by all other providers to distribution customers of that electrical corporation during any sequential 12-month period between April 1, 1998, and October 11, 2009. This bill would modify the annual maximum allowable total kilowatthour limit for each electrical corporation to include the total kilowatthours of new load previously authorized and implemented by the commission pursuant to a specified statute. The bill would require the commission to adopt a specified schedule to phase in the allowable amount of increased kilowatthours by July 1, 2012, instead of July 1, 2010. The bill would change an existing requirement that the commission review and modify its currently effective rules governing direct transactions to instead authorize the commission to perform such review and modification.
Read. Amended. Adopted. (Page 2178.).
Existing law governs the seizure, rescue, adoption, and euthanasia of abandoned and surrendered animals by animal shelters and rescue organizations. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to those provisions by replacing references to a "pound" with references to an animal shelter and by replacing references to destroying an animal with references to humanely euthanizing the animal.
