BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 790 (Gomez) - Child abuse and neglect reporting: multiple
reporters.
Amended: June 4, 2013 Policy Vote: Public Safety 6-1
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes (See Staff
Comments)
Hearing Date: June 24, 2013
Consultant: Jolie Onodera
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 790 would narrow the provision of law allowing
a "team" of mandated child abuse and neglect reporters to select
one member who files the mandated report to apply only to health
care providers, as specified. This bill would provide that the
person making the report provide the names of the other team
members who are mandated reporters, as specified.
Fiscal Impact:
Ongoing non-reimbursable costs to mandated reporters to
file duplicative reports that previously could have been
filed by one designated member of a team of mandated
reporters.
Unknown; to the extent additional reports are filed,
potential increase in state-reimbursable costs potentially
in excess of $50,000 (General Fund) to local law
enforcement, district attorneys, and child protective
agencies to receive, cross-report, and retain records.
Background: Current law establishes the Child Abuse and Neglect
Reporting Act (CANRA), which is intended to protect children
from abuse and neglect, and enumerates 44 categories of persons
as "mandated reporters" who are required to file reports of
suspected child abuse or neglect to specified law enforcement
agencies or county welfare and probation departments. The CANRA
further requires local law enforcement and child protective
agencies to forward certain reports to the DOJ for entry into
the state's central child abuse and neglect reporting system,
the Child Abuse Central Index (CACI). Since the enactment of
CANRA in 1980, numerous amendments to the law have occurred with
regard to the list of mandated reporters and the reporting and
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investigative requirements of child protective agencies.
Existing law provides that when two or more mandated reporters
jointly have knowledge of a known or suspected instance of child
abuse or neglect, and when there is agreement among the team of
mandated reporters, the telephone report may be made by one
member of the team selected by mutual agreement and a single
report may be made and signed by the selected member of the
reporting team. Under current law, any member who has knowledge
that the member designated to report has failed to do so is
required to thereafter make the report.
Proposed Law: This bill would narrow the provision of law
allowing a "team" of mandated child abuse and neglect reporters
to select one member to file the mandated report to apply only
to health care providers, as defined. Specifically, this bill:
Requires the person who makes the report to provide the
names of all the other members of the reporting team, and
provides that he or she shall not be subject to criminal
penalties or other sanctions for failing to include one or
more names of those persons if the failure to do so is
accidental or inadvertent.
Provides that a "health care provider" means any person
licensed or certified pursuant to Division 2 (commencing
with Section 500) of the Business and Professions Code, or
licensed pursuant to the Osteopathic Initiative Act or the
Chiropractic Initiative Act.
Staff Comments: By narrowing the provision of existing law
allowing a "team" of mandated child abuse and neglect reporters
to select one member who files the mandated report to apply only
to health care providers, the provisions of this bill will
result in additional and potentially duplicative reports
submitted by all members of mandated reporter teams. As the
requirements imposed on individuals as "mandated reporters" are
generally applicable to all persons enumerated in the statute by
virtue of their vocation and professional training, irrespective
of whether they are employed by local government, the
requirement to report does not constitute a state-mandated
program or higher level of service subject to reimbursement by
the state. Therefore, the ongoing costs associated with
reporting on the same incident of suspected child abuse or
neglect are estimated to result in non-reimbursable costs to
local agencies including law enforcement, child protective
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agencies, and school employees.
In December 2007, the Commission on State Mandates (CSM)
determined that several provisions of the CANRA impose a
reimbursable state mandate on local governments. In its draft
parameters and guidelines for reimbursement issued on March 12,
2013, the CSM outlined reimbursable activities including but not
limited to the following activities applicable to this measure:
accepting reports of suspected child abuse from mandated
reporters, cross-reporting to other child protective agencies,
county licensing agencies, and district attorneys' offices, and
retaining records as required. Although investigating reports of
suspected child abuse for purposes of preparing and submitting
reports to the DOJ has been determined to constitute a
reimbursable state-mandated activity, it is assumed the
submittal of duplicative reports for the same incident would not
result in additional investigations being conducted.
To the extent the provisions of this bill result in a larger
number of mandated reports filed due to the restriction on
single reporting to teams of health care providers, ongoing
costs for the state-reimbursable activities of accepting
reports, cross-reporting, and records retention could increase
by an unknown amount. Costs would be dependent on the number of
additional reports and the cost reimbursement determined by the
CSM for each activity. Staff notes that at the time of this
analysis, a statewide cost estimate for the CANRA mandate has
not been completed by the CSM. While costs are not estimated to
be more than $150,000 per year, in the absence of a statewide
cost estimate from the CSM on the reimbursement per activity,
potential costs could be in excess of $50,000 (General Fund) per
year.