BILL ANALYSIS ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1585| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ THIRD READING Bill No: AB 1585 Author: Assembly Accountability & Administrative Review Committee Amended: 1/6/10 in Senate Vote: 27 - Urgency SENATE GOVERNMENTAL ORG. COMMITTEE : 9-0, 1/12/10 AYES: Wright, Calderon, Denham, Florez, Negrete McLeod, Oropeza, Padilla, Price, Wyland SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8 ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 77-0, 9/2/09 - See last page for vote SUBJECT : State government: reporting requirements SOURCE : Author DIGEST : This bill deletes hundreds of obsolete reports and revises the procedure for mandatory reporting requirements by state agencies. ANALYSIS : Existing law requires or requests various state and local agencies to submit reports on specified topics to the Legislature, the Governor, or both. Existing law requires a report that is to be made to the members of either house of the Legislature to instead be submitted to the Legislative Counsel, the Secretary of the Senate, and Chief Clerk of the Assembly and a hard copy CONTINUED AB 1585 Page 2 summary sent to each member of the Legislature. Each of these reports is required to include a summary of its contents, which the Legislative Counsel is required to provide to each member of the appropriate house of the Legislature. Existing law also requires the Legislative Counsel to prepare and publish a list of all the reports that state and local agencies are required to submit, and upon request, to provide aid and assistance to any member of the Legislature with respect to a bill, resolution, or measure, including drafting a bill into its proper form. This bill: 1.Provides that any bill introduced or amended in either house of the Legislature requiring a state agency to submit a report on any subject to either house of the Legislature, a committee or office of either house of the Legislature, or Legislative Counsel must include a provision repealing or making inoperative the operating requirement no later than a date four years following the operative date of the bill or four years after the date of any report required every four or more years. (Reports are due on different schedules [e.g., two, three, four or even five and ten year cycles]. This sunset requirement is intended to ensure that a report due, for example, every five years will not be repealed until four or more years after the due date in order to provide ample time to effect obtaining the information via budget or legislative means. 2.Requires Legislative Counsel, in drafting a bill that imposes a reporting requirement to include a provision that repeals or makes obsolete the reporting requirement, four years after the date on which the requirement becomes operative, unless the person requesting the bill or amendment directs Legislative Counsel to do otherwise, as specified. 3.Modifies an existing provision of law that requires Legislative Counsel to prepare and publish annually a list of all reports that state and local agencies are AB 1585 Page 3 required or requested by law to prepare and file with the Governor or the Legislature to, instead, require Legislative Counsel to annually prepare and maintain an "electronic list" (list) of all such reports, including updating the list by removing obsolete or duplicate reports, as directed by this bill, or a subsequent statute that further requires Legislative Counsel to remove reports included in the list. 4.Provides that any report required or requested by law to be submitted by a state or local agency to the members of either house of the Legislature must, instead, be submitted as a printed copy to Legislative Counsel and to both the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Clerk of the Assembly as "electronic copies." Also requires an agency to provide a one-page electronic summary directly to each m ember of the Legislature rather than a full copy now that reports are available electronically. 5.Declares that the requirement to delete a report pursuant to this bill shall not prohibit Legislative Counsel from including the report on a future publication of the list, if the report is required by law to be listed. 6.Defines "obsolete report" to mean a report that has not been completed and filed and for which the date that report was required to be completed and filed was four or more years after the initial report is submitted. 7.Authorizes Legislative Counsel to direct public inquiries for reports to the appropriate state agency or to the California State Library as the final repository of public information. 8.Contains a listing of existing reports, as specified, identified as obsolete to be deleted by Legislative Counsel. Comments According to the Senate Governmental Organization Committee analysis, this bill (1) deletes nearly 1,500 obsolete reporting requirements from the list of over 2,800 reports maintained by Legislative Counsel, (2) revises the method AB 1585 Page 4 for receiving and cataloging mandated reports, and (3) requires any new report requirement to include a sunset date, as specified. More than 160 government entities, including commissions and boards, are included in this bill. This bill is a result of a hearing held by the Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee in February of 2009, examining reporting requirements of state agencies and compliance in fulfilling those requirements. At the time of the hearing, the Committee noted that there were nearly 3,000 mandated reported due to the Legislative Counsel site. As a result of the Committee's review, staff discovered that reports had been completed and submitted in accordance with the law, yet Legislative Counsel had no record. The Committee also found reports that were deferred during funding moratoriums listed as due. Additionally, the Committee found duplicate listings for the same reports. Furthermore, the Committee encountered reports listed as due annually that have not been done for years because the program is no longer in existence or it is not funded, or the responsible department knows it is no longer wanted but the requirement remains so they are doing the reports. An example of an obsolete report is one required annually by the Secretary of State to report to the Governor disclosing all expenditures and activities from the previous year. The last time the report was completed was in 1936 and it lists the number of reams of colored voting paper purchased, and other elements no longer considered relevant. There are also reports still required relative to Y2K. There are reports still required relative to the 1976 spike in gas prices. The Committee estimates a savings of $5 - $8 million that can be redirected into the core mission of the affected agencies. NOTE: Please refer to the Senate Governmental Organization Committee analysis for additional information regarding this subject. AB 1585 Page 5 FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: No ASSEMBLY FLOOR : AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield, Brownley, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore, Duvall, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gilmore, Hagman, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber, Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Krekorian, Lieu, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava, Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, John A. Perez, V. Manuel Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson, Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, Bass NO VOTE RECORDED: Buchanan, Hall, Vacancy TSM:cm 1/20/10 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED **** END ****