BILL ANALYSIS Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair 1062 (Strickland) Hearing Date: 05/24/2010 Amended: 05/18/2010 Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Public Safety 7-0 _________________________________________________________________ ____ BILL SUMMARY: SB 1062 is the public safety omnibus bill of non-controversial changes to statute that are primarily technical and corrective. This bill also changes requirements on county probation departments with regard to the State Authorized Risk Assessment Tool for Sex Offenders (SARATSO), and requirements on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to maintain additional information. _________________________________________________________________ ____ Fiscal Impact (in thousands) Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund State mandate: probation Potentially significant reimbursable costs General Technical/clarifying code Minor cost reduction from streamlining tasks/code General _________________________________________________________________ ____ STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Existing law requires probation departments to administer a SARATSO assessment on every eligible person for whom it prepares a probation report. This bill would require a probation department to perform an assessment on all eligible persons under its jurisdiction whether or not it prepares a probation report on that person, and would require that the assessment be done prior to the person's sentencing. By requiring additional SARATSO assessments by probation departments, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This mandate would be prospective, and the extent of the expense to county probation departments for specifically administering a SARATSO to eligible persons for whom a report will not be prepared is unknown. To a large extent, this change is consistent with the current practices of probation departments, but requiring the change in statute imposes a reimbursable local mandate on county probation, even if the departments were already administering SARATSO assessments to the same individuals. This bill also expands the requirement that DOJ maintain files of specified existing information to include information in possession of the Department of Mental Health (DMH) and county probation departments. This bill would require DMH and probation departments, in addition to the agencies already subject to the requirement, to provide criminal histories, Facts of Offense Sheets, sex offender registration records, police reports, probation and presentencing reports, judicial records and case files, juvenile records, psychological evaluations and psychological hospital reports, and sexually violent predator treatment program reports to DOJ, upon request. Law enforcement agencies generally have broad authority to share information, and do share information with DOJ. By creating a new mandate, as previously noted, the state could be required to reimburse county probation departments for tasks they are already completing Page 2 SB 1062 (Strickland) without a mandate. Additionally, requiring DOJ to maintain additional information would likely result in additional requests to county probation to share the information. Existing law requires DOJ to provide a summary profile of a sexual habitual offender to each law enforcement agency when an individual registers in, or moves to, the area in which the law enforcement agency is located. This bill would delete this requirement and instead require DOJ to provide a bulletin to law enforcement agencies on each high risk sex offender via the California Sex Offender Registry and the California Law Enforcement Web (CLEW). This change would likely result in minor administrative savings to DOJ. Other technical and clarifying changes enacted by this bill do not appear to have a significant fiscal impact on the state.