BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT & RETIREMENT BILL NO: SB 619
Jim Beall, Chair HEARING DATE: April 22, 2013
SB 619 (Yee) as amended 4/15/13 FISCAL: YES
STATE EMPLOYEE CIVICS ORIENTATION
HISTORY :
Sponsor: Author
Other legislation: GRP 1, (2011)
SENATE VOTES :
Senate Education 9-0 4/03/13
SUMMARY :
SB 619 requires the State Department of Education (SDE) to
develop and make available online a state employee civics
orientation on federal and state government by January 1,
2015, and requires state employers to certify to CalHR that
employees hired, promoted, or reclassified after July 1,
2015, have completed the orientation.
In order for the orientation to be developed, funds would
have to be provided by the state and private matching funds.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS :
1) Existing law :
a) establishes the California Department of Human
Resources (CalHR), created on July 1, 2012, by
consolidating the State's two personnel departments: the
Department of Personnel Administration (DPA) and the
administrative programs of the State Personnel Board
(SPB).
b) vests CalHR with responsibility for all issues related
to state employee salaries, benefits, job
classifications, training and recruiting, collective
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bargaining, and other issues related to state employment.
c) requires CalHR to devise plans for, and cooperate with,
appointing powers and other supervising officials in the
conduct of state employee training programs, and requires
that if provisions of this law are in conflict with the
provisions of a memorandum of understanding between the
employee representatives and the state employer, the
memorandum of understanding shall be controlling without
further legislative action.
d) creates the State Department of Education (SDE), which
is led by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, an
elected official, and makes the SDE responsible for
administering K-12 public education programs, including
allocating funds to local education agencies (LEAs),
curriculum and management leadership, assessment and
program review, school improvement intervention, and the
development of policies and practices to close the
State's student achievement gap; reporting to the federal
government; and providing technical assistance to LEAs.
2) This bill :
a) requires SDE, on or before January 1, 2015, to develop
and make available online a state employee civics
orientation on federal and state government with the
following requirements:
i) The orientation must facilitate a basic
understanding of the responsibilities and operation of
the three branches of federal government and the
importance of civic engagement.
ii) The orientation must include practical examples.
iii) The orientation must be updated as necessary.
a) requires state departments and agencies, using existing
processes and resources, to annually certify to CalHR
that employees hired, promoted, or reclassified after
July 1, 2015, have completed employee training based on
the civics orientation developed by SDE.
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b) requires that any moneys or portion of moneys
appropriated to SDE by the Legislature for the
development of the civics orientation shall not be
encumbered unless the total amount encumbered is matched
by private funds, and requires that any moneys not
matched shall revert to the General Fund.
c) specifies that the training shall only be developed by
SDE if the moneys necessary to fund the development are
encumbered, as specified, and employers shall only be
required to provide the training and do the reporting if
the training is developed by SDE.
COMMENTS :
1) Argument in Support :
According to the author:
Even with 22.2 million people working for government
throughout the country only a third of Americans are
able to name the three branches of government, and
recently the Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement
National Task Force reported the United States ranked
139th out of 172 democracies in voter participation and
that only 10% of citizens contacted a public official in
2008-09.
Our government employees are in many ways the backbone
of our state, and there is no better group of
individuals to understand and defend the rights and
obligations afforded by our constitutions.
According to the ACLU:
Since our country's founding, American leaders have
recognized that one of the most important purposes of
educating the nation's residents and citizens is to
protect and strengthen democracy. Our founders believed
that informed residents and citizens were a safeguard
against tyranny and dictatorship and vital to a
functioning democracy.
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The California Chamber of Commerce notes the importance of
educating the nation's residents to protect and strengthen
democracy, and states that "a strong democracy is critical
for free market economics and entrepreneurship that provides
the personal and economic strength for this country."
2) SUPPORT :
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, AFL-CIO (AFSCME)
California Chamber of Commerce
California Council for the Social Studies
California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC)
California Labor Federation (CLF)
Los Angeles County Federation of Labor
Service Employees International Union, Local 1000 (SEIU)
3) OPPOSITION :
None to date
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