BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 1773
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   April 30, 2014

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                  Mike Gatto, Chair

                    AB 1773 (Allen) - As Amended:  March 13, 2014 

          Policy Committee:                               
          AccountabilityVote:11-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program:  
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill requires the Judicial Council's semiannual reports to  
          the Legislature regarding judicial branch contracting to be  
          available electronically in a format enabling the data to be  
          searched, sorted, extracted, organized, or filtered, and to  
          include the following additional information:

          1)A list of all new contracts and the complete history of  
            contracts amended during the reporting period, including the  
            date and duration of the amendments.

          2)Information on whether each contract was competitively bid,  
            the justification for contracts that were not competitively  
            bid, and whether the contract was with a disabled veteran  
            business enterprise, or, in the case of an information  
            technology contract, with a small business.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          1)One-time information technology costs to purchase and  
            integrate software for the competitive bidding reporting  
            requirements would be at least $1.7 million, based on  
            estimates from 2011, when the Judicial Council considered  
            acquiring this capability (Trial Court Trust Fund).

          2)There would be ongoing costs to enter contract data, including  
            contract amendments. The Judicial Council indicates the  
            judiciary has about 21,000 annual contracts statewide.  
            Workload would depend in part on how many contracts are  
            amended during each reporting period. If 25% to 50% of the  
            contracts were amended each year, data entry costs would be at  








                                                                  AB 1773
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            least several hundred thousand dollars annually (Trial Court  
            Trust Fund).

           COMMENTS  

           Purpose  . Current law requires the Judicial Council to submit  
          reports twice a year to the Legislature and the Bureau of State  
          Audits (BSA) containing specified information on contracts for  
          the judicial branch. In reports from March and December 2013,  
          the BSA found the semiannual reports were of limited usefulness  
          and recommended various improvements to the judicial branches  
          procurement practices. The BSA in part recommended the  
          Legislature require the Judicial Council reports to include  
          information on new contracts and the complete history of amended  
          contracts; information on whether or not a contract was  
          competitively bid; information on the state's small business  
          preference for information technology procurements; and, require  
          the reports to be available in a user-friendly electronic  
          format.  This bill implements these recommendations. 

          According to the author, this bill is intended to create  
          transparency in judicial branch contracting activities and  
          ensure that contracting information is fully available and  
          easily accessible to the public.

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