BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  SB 647
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   August 17, 2011

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

           SB 647 (Committee on Judiciary) - As Amended:  August 15, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              
          JudiciaryVote:10-0 (Consent)
                        Revenue and Taxation                    9-0 
          (Consent)

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill makes numerous non-controversial, technical and 
          clarifying changes to various Civil Law statutes, including:

          1)Authorizing the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) to collect fees 
            associated with the costs incurred by the county or court for 
            the appointment of counsel to represent parents or minors in 
            dependency proceedings.

          2)Deleting a reference to "delinquent reimbursements" and 
            instead allowing courts to recover costs associated with 
            implementing the program for cost reimbursement of counsel 
            appointed to represent parents and minors in dependency 
            proceedings.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          1)Likely minor revenue increase to courts and counties from 
            increased collections. Any additional administrative costs to 
            the FTB will be reimbursed from amounts collected.

          2)The cost impacts of all other provisions are negligible.

           COMMENTS  

           Purpose  . This is the Senate Judiciary Committees' omnibus civil 
          law bill. In order to be included in the bill, each provision 
          must be non-controversial and not so substantive as to be more 
          appropriate for a stand-alone bill.








                                                                  SB 647
                                                                  Page  2


          The Judicial Council, in sponsoring the tax-related provisions 
          of this bill, states that this proposal "would improve the 
          ability of the court to generate revenues for court appointed 
          counsel in dependency matters by . . . providing courts that use 
          FTB for other court ordered debt collections with the ability to 
          use their services for this court-ordered debt as well."  

           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081