BILL ANALYSIS
AB 548
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Date of Hearing: April 15, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Anna Marie Caballero, Chair
AB 548 (Krekorian) - As Introduced: February 25, 2009
SUBJECT : State mandates.
SUMMARY : Deletes the option that permits the Controller, in
specified circumstances, to begin an audit of a reimbursement
claim for actual costs within three years of the initial payment
of a claim rather than the date on which the claim is filed or
last amended.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires the Commission on State Mandates (Commission) to hear
and decide upon a claim by a local agency or school district
that the local agency or school district is entitled to be
reimbursed by the state for costs mandated by the state.
2)Requires the Controller to initiate an audit of a
reimbursement claim for actual costs filed by a local agency
or a school district no later than three years after the date
that the actual reimbursement claim is filed or last amended,
whichever is later, unless no funds are appropriated or no
payment is made to a claimant for the program for the fiscal
year for which the claim is filed, in which case the time for
the Controller to initiate an audit is required to run from
the date of the initial payment of the claim.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)After the Commission issues a decision on the claim, more time
has to pass before the reimbursement funds are free from the
possibility of an audit by the Controller's Office. While
such an audit is required to be initiated within three years,
current law provides two different points in time at which
this three-year period begins to run, depending on whether or
not funds are appropriated or paid out for the fiscal year in
which the claim is filed. Therefore, the local agencies and
school districts hold off on allocating the mandate
reimbursement funds until after the audit period.
AB 548
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2)AB 548 streamlines the mandate audit process by eliminating
the bifurcated method
for determining when the three-year audit period begins to run.
The principle behind this appears to be that, because the
decision to appropriate or pay out funds for an approved
reimbursement claim is not made by the claimant, it seems a
point of basic fairness that the claimant not be kept under
the shadow of a possible audit for an extended period of time
because of a decision made elsewhere.
3)The Controller's Office (CO) states that AB 548's removal of
the authorization for the CO to delay an audit of
reimbursement funds until the local agency has received
payment would mean that in some circumstances the CO would be
required to conduct an audit before a local agency has
received the reimbursement claim funds. For example,
currently the CO has been
auditing up to seven years for the Standardized Testing and
Reporting Program and the Animal Adoption Program because the
Legislature did not fund these programs in a timely manner.
The Committee may wish to consider whether the shortened
timeframe for the CO's audit of reimbursement funds serves the
interests of all local agencies.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Five Star Education Coalition [CO-SPONSOR]
CA Association of School Business Officials [CO-SPONSOR]
Riverside County Advocacy Association [CO-SPONSOR]
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
CA Association of School Business Officials
CA State Association of Counties
County of San Diego
The Education Council
Elk Grove Unified School District
Los Angeles Unified School District
Riverside County Schools Advocacy Association
Opposition
None on file
AB 548
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Analysis Prepared by : Jennifer R. Klein / L. GOV. / (916)
319-3958