BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 641|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 641
Author: Rendon (D), et al.
Amended: 7/10/13 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE LABOR & INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE : 3-1, 6/26/13
AYES: Monning, Leno, Yee
NOES: Wyland
NO VOTE RECORDED: Padilla
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : 5-2, 8/30/13
AYES: De Le�n, Hill, Lara, Padilla, Steinberg
NOES: Walters, Gaines
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 51-25, 5/30/13 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Child care: family child care providers:
bargaining representative
SOURCE : American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees
Service Employees International Union
DIGEST : This bill authorizes family child care providers to
form, join, participate in, and to seek the certification of, a
provider organization (PO) to act as their exclusive
representative on matters related to child care subsidy
programs. This bill establishes a Family Child Care Parent
(FCCP) Advisory Committee, as specified. This bill requires the
state Department of Social Services (DSS) and the California
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Department of Education (CDE), with the assistance of specified
state departments and agencies, and their contractors and
subcontractors, to make specified information regarding family
child care providers available to POs, as specified. This bill
further requires all resource and referral agencies to provide,
without charge, specified workshops to family child care
providers. This bill further establishes a stakeholder work
group, and requires the DSS to consult with the group, as
specified.
ANALYSIS : Existing law requires that all day care centers and
family child care homes, with certain exceptions, be licensed
and registered with the state. The licensing fee is dependent
on the number of children that the centers or homes take care
of. Family child care homes, where the child care is provided
by someone who resides in the home where the care is provided,
may only take care of up to 14 children, while day care centers
may be licensed for more.
Existing law exempts family child care providers from the
licensing requirement for any of the following reasons:
1.The family day care home is providing care for only one family
in addition to the provider's own children;
2.Parents have come together for a cooperative arrangement to
combine their efforts for the care of all of their children
and no payment is involved;
3.The provider is taking care of a relative's child;
4.The family child care program operates only one day per week
for no more than four hours.
Existing law allows the Superintendent of Public Instruction to
develop standards for quality child care programs and to enter
into contracts with child care centers and family child care
homes. Existing law also authorizes CDE to create alternative
payment providers in each county to establish a reimbursement
system for subsidized child care in which:
1.Eligible parents can choose a licensed day care center or
family child care home, and the state reimburses the provider
the same rate that the provider charges a family that is not
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subsidized, up to a ceiling established by the state;
2.Eligible parents can choose a provider that is exempt from the
licensing requirements, and the state reimburses that provider
at a rate set within each county, based on the mean cost of
licensed care in the county;
3.Eligible parents can enroll their children in a center or
network of family child care homes that has a direct contract
with CDE. Child care in these programs is reimbursed at a
daily rate established in the contract. For most contractors,
the daily rate is the Standard Reimbursement Rate, set in
statute and adjusted by the Legislature to reflect changes in
the cost of living;
4.The daily rate for providers that contract directly with the
state is adjusted by a statutory formula for infants,
school-aged children, children with disabilities, children
at-risk of abuse or neglect, children who have limited English
proficiency, and children who spend less than six hours per
day in care or more than eight-and-one-half hours per day in
care.
This bill gives licensed and unlicensed child care providers the
right to form a single, statewide child care PO to negotiate
collectively with the state. Specifically, this bill:
1. Extends the state action antitrust exemption to the
activities of the family child care providers and their
representatives;
2. Creates a right for family child care providers to form
provider organizations. Child care providers would retain
the right to join or not join such an organization;
3. Requires the DSS to, within 10 days of receipt of a request
from a PO, make available to that PO information regarding
licensed family child care providers, including each
provider's contact information;
4. Requires the CDE, within 30 days of receipt of a request
from a PO, with the assistance of the relevant organization,
to collect information regarding family child care providers,
including each provider's contact information, and whether or
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not the provider has participated in a child care subsidy
program in the previous six months. The CDE must make that
information available to the PO, and the requesting PO must
bear the reasonable costs of collecting the information;
5. Creates a certification process, and requires the Public
Employee Relations Board (PERB) to conduct an election to
certify the provider organization as the exclusive bargaining
representative;
6. Requires the PERB to receive and act upon challenges,
petitions for unit certification, and other representation
issues, and provides that all POs on the ballot must share
equally in the cost of the election;
7. Authorizes the PERB to contract with a neutral third party
to conduct all necessary elections and other representation
requests filed with PERB;
8. Creates a representation process, including providing that
the child care PO would represent all child care providers in
negotiations with the Governor and state agencies on issues
that fall within the PO's scope of representation;
9. Specifies that the PO's scope of representation includes:
a) the administration of laws and regulations governing
licensing of providers; b) joint labor-management committees;
c) contract grievance arbitration; d) expanded access to
professional development and training opportunities for
providers; e) benefits for providers; f) payment procedures
for child care subsidy programs; g) reimbursement rates and
other economic matters; h) expanded access to food and
nutrition programs; i) the deduction of membership dues, fair
share fees, and other authorized voluntary deductions; j)
building connections between the family child care system and
the educational system; k) expanded access to the subsidized
family child care system for families in need; and, l) any
changes to current practice that would improve recruitment
and retention of child care providers, quality of child care
programs, additional education of qualified child care
providers, and the promotion of the health and safety of
providers and the children in their care;
10.Requires that the Governor, through the the Department of
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Human Resources (CalHR), in consultation with the SPI, other
state agencies that administer programs of publicly funded
child care, and their contractors, must meet and confer in
good faith regarding on all matters within the scope of
representation with representatives of a certified PO, as
specified;
11.Requires the Governor, CalHR, and the certified PO to
jointly prepare a written memorandum of understanding (MOU),
if an agreement is reached between all parties, and specifies
this MOU is binding on all state departments and agencies
involved in the administration of child care subsidy
programs;
12.Prohibits the child care provider organization from
directing or calling a strike;
13.Authorizes the parties to submit unresolved issues to the
California State Mediation and Conciliation Service within
the Department of Industrial Relations for mediation or
binding arbitration, as specified;
14.Establishes the FCCP Advisory Committee to advise the
Governor, or his or her designee, and any certified PO
regarding issues related to the quality, affordability, and
accessibility of child care offered through child care
subsidy programs of the state. Specifies membership and
reimbursement limitations;
15.Requires the DSS to consult with a stakeholder workgroup
comprised of child care providers selected by the statewide
PO, parents/guardians of children attending family child care
selected by the FCCP Advisory Committee, and the CDE, as
specified.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
Subsidized child care costs: Potentially substantial increase
in state costs, primarily in the CalWORKs program, to the
extent that the representation authorized by this bill results
in increased salary and benefits for child care providers. At
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a minimum, annual costs will likely be tens of millions of
dollars (General Fund) more than existing state child care
costs.
PERB: Significant upfront administrative costs to determine
the bargaining unit, including holding an election; this bill
specifically provides that the election costs will be
reimbursed by participating POs. Potentially significant
costs if the PO and state are unable to reach agreements in
the future.
Data collection and fair share calculation: One-time costs of
$7 million to 9 million (General Fund) to collect necessary
data from the 33,847 providers, calculate fair share
contributions, and build a system to store the information and
calculate future payments. Potentially significant ongoing
costs for CDE staff to administer the system and manage
changes in provider participation.
State negotiations: Significant new workload for the CDE to
negotiate with the PO on behalf of the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI) negotiations, and potentially to the
DSS and the Department of Finance. Ongoing costs will likely
be in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars (General Fund)
for negotiations, depending on the scope of the bargaining and
the entities involved, and the development of required MOUs
when agreements are reached.
FCCP Advisory Committee: Annual costs likely in excess
$100,000 (General Fund) for the CDE to convene and staff the
committee, and to reimburse the committee members as required.
Potentially significant ongoing cost pressure to expand
services.
Provider workshops: Significant ongoing cost pressure on the
CDE to allocate additional funds to resource and referral
agencies for the free workshops this bill requires them to
provide.
DSS work group: Potentially significant ongoing workload to
the DSS; the DSS may incur additional costs if travel and
other expenses are to be reimbursed to participants (who will
be selected by the PO and the FCCP Advisory Committee).
Potentially significant ongoing cost pressure to expand
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services.
SUPPORT : (per Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee
analysis of 6/26/13 - unable to reverify at time of writing)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(co-source)
Service Employees International Union (co-source)
California Correctional Peace Officers Association
California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO
DREAM Team Los Angeles
United Auto Workers, Local 4123
OPPOSITION : (per Senate Labor and Industrial Relations
Committee analysis of 6/26/13 - unable to reverify at time of
writing)
Professional Association for Childhood Education
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : This bill is jointly sponsored by the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and
the Service Employees International Union. The sponsors state
that our current system of child care is fragmented, standards
vary greatly, and it is plagued by high turnover among
providers, as approximately 40% of providers are leaving the
profession each year. In addition, with low net income and no
employer-provided health care, many family child care providers
struggle to gain and maintain health insurance needed to stay
healthy and care for children. All of these problems directly
contribute to the high turnover in the profession, and what this
ultimately means is that children are not receiving the quality
of care they need and deserve.
The sponsors argue that this bill aims to improve access and to
improve the quality of child care by creating a more stable
workforce and allowing family child care providers to join
together on matters that affect their profession. These matters
include developing joint marketing programs, developing a
substitute provider pool, purchasing group health benefits, and
the ability to meet with state licensing agencies to address
areas of common concern and improve consistency in the
enforcement of regulations affecting licensed family providers.
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION : The Professional Association of
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Childhood Education is in opposition to this bill. They believe
that AB 641 will have an adverse impact on low income families
receiving State child care subsidies and support, on eligible
families on the waiting list for State child care subsidies and
support, on the preschool readiness efforts of CDE, and on the
current system of locating and reimbursing subsidized child
care.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 51-25, 5/30/13
AYES: Alejo, Ammiano, Atkins, Bloom, Blumenfield, Bocanegra,
Bonilla, Bonta, Bradford, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon,
Campos, Chau, Chesbro, Cooley, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong,
Fox, Frazier, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gray, Hall,
Roger Hern�ndez, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Lowenthal, Medina,
Mitchell, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, Pan, Perea, Quirk,
Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Salas, Skinner, Stone, Ting, Weber,
Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, John A. P�rez
NOES: Achadjian, Allen, Bigelow, Ch�vez, Conway, Dahle,
Donnelly, Beth Gaines, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Harkey, Jones,
Linder, Logue, Maienschein, Mansoor, Melendez, Morrell,
Nestande, Olsen, Patterson, Wagner, Waldron, Wilk
NO VOTE RECORDED: Gordon, Holden, V. Manuel P�rez, Vacancy
PQ:nl 9/3/13 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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