BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
110 (Liu)
Hearing Date: 05/18/2009 Amended: 05/05/2009
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Public Safety
6-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 110 makes numerous technical and substantive
changes regarding provisions of laws relating to crimes against
individuals with disabilities. Specifically, this bill:
1) Requires DOJ to electronically send a bulletin to the
executive of each state and local law enforcement agency
and each district attorney which quotes legislative
findings written in this bill. This bulletin must also
contain specified information encouraging specific training
courses and materials for law enforcement officials and
district attorneys.
2) Requires domestic violence death review teams to add
information about whether or not a victim had a disability.
3) Requires existing multiagency child death review teams
to include subject matter experts in their teams.
4) Requires the Department of Social Services (DSS) to
track and maintain disability information about children
who died as the result of abuse or neglect.
5) Allows counties to add dependent adult cases to any
elder death review teams and protocols they may already
have.
6) Requires the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and
Training (POST) and DOJ to create a two-hour "Crime Victims
with Disabilities" telecourse for law enforcement officers.
Requires that every law enforcement agency that complies
with POST training, provide this telecourse training for
its officers.
7) Extends the sunset of the Domestic Violence Advisory
Council until July 1, 2015.
8) Provides a process for a criminal background check of a
non-licensed service provider in a vendor relationship with
a regional center. Allows DOJ to charge a fee that covers
all of its costs.
9) Creates the Abuse Victims with Disabilities Think Tank
under the management of the California Emergency Management
Agency (Cal-EMA), as specified.
10) Makes numerous legislative findings and
declarations.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
State Mandated Local Program Unknown, substantial costs
General
POST and DOJ Unknown, potentially
significant costs General
Sunset extension $100
$100 $100 Special*
DSS tracking Unknown, potentially
significant General
Cal-EMA Think Tank Uknown, potentially
significant costs General
*Federal and Victims Services Account
Page 2
SB 110 (Liu)
STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Several provisions of this bill are vague, and may create
substantial additional workload on departments, depending upon
how they are implemented. For example, various provisions of
this bill place additional requirements on DOJ to participate in
new activities and tasks.
This bill mandates that POST and DOJ create a new training
telecourse and mandates that virtually all law enforcement
officials receive this new 2-hour training. This is a
reimbursable mandate on local law enforcement officials. Two
hours of the work time of ever law enforcement official will be
substantial, and simple for counties and cities to price and
request reimbursement.
Staff recommends the author amend this bill to make the
telecourse program participation optional. As currently written,
in one provision of the bill it is required, and in another it
is "strongly encouraged".
This bill requires DSS to track additional information. Existing
law requires DSS to track and maintain certain data on child
deaths from abuse or neglect. This bill requires a child's
disability information to be part of the data maintained and
tracked. DSS has indicated that this would require a new field
in the existing database system, which would cost more than
$100,000 to create. The bill itself, however, does not specify a
new field, but rather a plan (developed by DSS and stakeholders)
for how to best track this information. It is possible that such
a plan would not involve a new field in the system, and avoid
system change costs. The bill requires that "the plan to track
and maintain data shall be updated shall be updated by January
1, 2011." It is unclear if a plan for future implementation must
be drafted by that date, or whether the data itself must be
updated. Updating the data, regardless of deadline, to account
for all previous cases, will involve a potentially substantial
backlog. The numbers are unknown because DSS does not currently
track disabilities in these cases.
This bill extends the sunset of the existing Domestic Violence
Advisory Council, which received finding and administrative
support from Cal-EMA. Extending the sunset would extend the
funding to this program.
This bill requires Cal-EMA to establish the Abuse Victims with
Disabilities Think Tank, and for this working group to convene
once. All other goals and duties of the think tank specified by
this bill are optional. There may be costs for Cal-EMA to create
working group procedures and to recruit participants from
departments, as well as specified "subject matter experts".
Staff recommends that the "Abuse Victims with Disabilities Think
Tank" be replaced by encouraging Cal-EMA to create a work group.
This bill describes a body more often described as a work group,
and a "think tank" conveys the impression of an extensive
research institution and implies future funding. Encouragement
language is appropriate, instead of mandating the creation,
because only one meeting is required and every other aspect of
the group is permissive, including its goals and future
meetings.