BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 1108 (Perea) - Sex offenders: community care facilities for
children.
Amended: June 19, 2013 Policy Vote: Public Safety 7-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: August 30, 2013
Consultant: Jolie Onodera
SUSPENSE FILE.
Bill Summary: AB 1108 would enact a new misdemeanor prohibiting
any person who is required to register as a sex offender based
upon the commission of an offense against a minor from residing
(except as a client), working, or volunteering in a licensed
foster home or facility, a certified home of a foster family
agency, or a home or facility that receives placement of a
dependent child, as specified.
Fiscal Impact:
Potential ongoing court-related costs for new misdemeanor
filings of $24,000 (General Fund*) for every 50 additional
filings per year. To the extent existing provisions of the
Health and Safety Code provide a similar prohibition on
registered sex offenders, the increase in the number of
filings is estimated to be minor.
Potential costs to the Department of Justice (DOJ) related
to enforcement of up to $150,000 (General Fund) per year to
update sex offender registrant information, record retrieval
and analysis, and workload associated with increased
enforcement-related inquiries from various agencies.
Annual non-reimbursable local law enforcement costs, offset
to a degree by fine revenue.
While the impact of this bill independently on local jails
is likely to be minor, the cumulative effect of new
misdemeanors could create General Fund cost pressure on
capital outlay, staffing, programming, the courts, and other
resources in the context of criminal justice realignment.
*Trial Court Trust Fund
Background: Existing law enacts the Sex Offender Registration
Act (the Act) which requires persons convicted of certain sex
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offenses to permanently register with local law enforcement
within five working days of coming into or changing his or her
residence, place of employment or enrollment in an institution
of higher education, and requiring the individual to update
registration annually. Any person who is required to register
under the Act based on a misdemeanor or felony conviction or
juvenile adjudication and who willfully violates any requirement
of the Act is guilty of a misdemeanor or felony, depending on
the underlying offense.
Existing law prohibits the issuance of a license to operate or
manage a community care facility to a person required to
register as a sex offender, as specified. In addition to the
applicant, the prohibition applies to any person other than a
client residing in the facility, any staff person, volunteer, or
employee who has contact with the clients, or any adults
responsible for administration or direct supervision of staff.
Any person who violates the California Community Care Facilities
Act (CCFA) or who willfully or repeatedly violates any rule or
regulation promulgated under the CCFA is guilty of a
misdemeanor, as specified.
A report released by the California State Auditor, Bureau of
State Audits (BSA) entitled Child Welfare Services: California
Can and Must Provide Better Protection and Support for Abused
and Neglected Children (October 2011), noted that the Department
of Social Services (DSS) could make better use of the DOJ sex
offender registry to ensure that sex offenders are not living or
working among children in the child welfare services system. The
BSA compared the addresses of sex offenders in the DOJ registry
with the addresses of DSS- and county- licensed facilities, as
well as the addresses of child welfare services placements, and
found over 1,000 address matches, nearly 600 of which were high
risk and in need of immediate investigation.
Proposed Law: This bill seeks to strengthen existing laws to
ensure that registered sex offenders do not reside, work, or
volunteer in community care facilities or in the homes or
facilities of child welfare services placements, except as
specified. Specifically, this bill:
Provides that it is a misdemeanor for a person required to
register as a sex offender based upon the commission of an
offense against a minor to reside (except as a client), work, or
volunteer, in any of the following:
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o A foster home or facility that is licensed by the DSS or a
county child welfare services agency.
o A certified home of a foster family agency.
o A home or facility that receives a placement of a child
who has been, or may be, declared a dependent child of the
juvenile court, as specified.
Prior Legislation: AB 493 (Perea) 2012 would have created a new
misdemeanor for a registered sex offender to reside, work, or
volunteer in specified community care facilities for children,
and required the DSS to cross-check residence and employment
addresses of registered sex offenders against the addresses of
specified community care facilities for children. This bill was
held on the Suspense File of this committee.
Staff Comments: The courts may incur additional costs for
increased misdemeanor filings that could result in increased
costs of approximately $24,000 (General Fund) statewide for
every 50 new misdemeanors filed annually. To the extent existing
provisions of the Health and Safety Code provide a similar
prohibition on registered sex offenders, the increase in the
number of filings is estimated to be minor.
The creation of new misdemeanors has historically been analyzed
by this Committee to result in non-reimbursable state mandated
costs for local law enforcement and incarceration. Staff notes,
however, that the creation of new misdemeanors taken
cumulatively could increase the statewide adult jail population
to a degree that could potentially impact the flexibility of
counties to manage their jail populations recently exacerbated
under 2011 Public Safety Realignment. While the provisions of
this bill are likely to be minor, the cumulative effect of all
new misdemeanors could create unknown General Fund cost pressure
on capital outlay, staffing, programming, the courts, and other
resources.
While the extent of additional workload associated with
enforcement of the bill's provisions are unknown at this time,
the DOJ has indicated the provisions of this bill could result
in increased workload costs of up to $150,000 (General Fund) per
year. To the extent the provisions of this bill result in
increased inquiries from law enforcement agencies as well as
state and local agencies could require increased staff time to
perform additional research to obtain information needed to
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update sex offender registrant information, field additional
service calls from agencies, as well as require additional
records retrieval and analysis to determine if a sex offense was
committed upon a minor.