BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 334
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Date of Hearing: April 17, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 334 (Gomez) - As Introduced: February 13, 2013
Policy Committee: PERSSVote:5-2
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill specifies when a state agency provides a copy of a
contract for the employment of outside counsel to the Department
of General Services (DGS), if it fails to provide a copy to the
designated representative of State Bargaining Unit (BU) 2,
California Attorney's, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing
Officers in State Employment (CASE), this failure shall be an
independent basis for the State Personnel Board (SPB) to
disapprove the contract.
FISCAL EFFECT
Negligible fiscal impact to state agencies.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . According to the author, current law requires state
agencies who wish to use private, non-civil service attorneys
to give notice of the contract to CASE, however, it provides
no penalty for failing to do so. The author contends,
unfortunately many agencies routinely shirk their
responsibility to provide notice to the union. The author
states this bill provides a consequence in the event an agency
fails to notice the union, SPB could use that failure as basis
to invalidate the contract. This bill came about, the author
explains, because in a recent contract challenge case, SPB was
powerless to invalidate the contract when a state agency
failed to provide the statutorily required notice.
2)Support . According to the sponsor, California Attorneys,
Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State
(CASE), AB 334 provides an incentive to departments and
AB 334
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agencies to follow through with their notice obligations, and
also provides SPB with a remedy in those cases where state
agencies continue to violate the law. CASE contends AB 334 is
a modest bill that allows for more transparency by providing
early notice to CASE of its legal outsourcing contracts so the
state and the union can work together to identify legal work
for which an outside firm is genuinely necessary, as opposed
to legal work that can be performed far less expensively by
some of the talented lawyers already employed by the State of
California.
3)Background . Existing law requires, with certain exceptions,
the consent of the Attorney General prior to state agencies
employing outside counsel for representation in a judicial
proceeding. Existing law also requires these state agencies
to provide the designated representative of BU 2, CASE, with a
written notice when seeking approval from the Attorney General
or when submitting a contract for outside counsel to DGS. The
notice must contain specified information, including a copy of
the complaint or other pleadings, justification for the
contract, nature of the legal services, estimated hourly wage
to be paid under the contract, estimated length of the
contract and identity of the person or party entering into the
contract.
SPB is authorized under existing law to review personal
service contracts to ensure that civil service rules are being
followed.
4)There is no registered opposition to this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Roger Dunstan / APPR. / (916) 319-2081