BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 948|
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CONSENT
Bill No: SB 948
Author: Senate Veterans Affairs Committee
Amended: 3/10/14
Vote: 21
SENATE VETERANS AFFAIRS COMMITTEE : 6-0, 4/8/14
AYES: Hueso, Knight, Block, Lieu, Nielsen, Roth
NO VOTE RECORDED: Correa, Vacancy
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
SUBJECT : Active militia
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill recasts and revises specified
qualifications for state active duty (SAD) service members, to
include retired or separated members of the federal reserve
component of any branch of the United States Armed Forces or the
federally recognized National Guard of any state or U.S.
territory, with current membership in the State Military Reserve
(SMR). This bill requires a service member already serving on
SAD who retires federally from the California National Guard
(CalGuard) to assess into the SMR in order to maintain
eligibility for continued SAD.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
CONTINUED
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1.Establishes, within the Military Department (CMD), the SAD
program, providing both temporary and permanent uniformed
positions funded by the state.
2.Provides that permanent positions be filled by a military
competitive selection process and that applicants for those
positions meet specified eligibility criteria.
This bill:
1.Makes changes to the eligibility criteria for permanent
positions so that they more accurately reflect the original
intent of the author of SB 807 (Correa, Chapter 355, Statutes
of 2012).
2.Clarifies that federally recognized retirement from other
states' national guards and the federal reserve components
(Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, Marine Corps
Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve) confers the same SAD hiring
eligibility as already provided under existing law by
retirement from the CalGuard and federal active military
components.
3.Clarifies that a current SAD member, who retires from active
service with the CalGuard, must maintain "gubernatorial
call-up" eligibility for continued SAD employment by assessing
into the SMR.
Background
The CMD is a state department located within the executive
branch. The CMD is comprised of several components and contains
a mix of personnel. The mix includes both paid employees and
volunteers, both uniformed military and civilian workers, both
full-time and part-time, and both federal and state.
CalGuard . The CMD's 24,000-person roster is dominated by its
largest component, the CalGuard. The CalGuard is the largest of
the 54 "state-level" National Guards located in U.S. states and
territories.
The CalGuard is split into two components, the larger Army
National Guard (ARNG) and the Air National Guard (ANG). Each of
these is commanded by a federally recognized Guard general
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officer from the appropriate branch of service. The ARNG is an
official component of the U.S. Army.
The ARNG joins with its "sister" reserve component, the purely
federal U.S. Army Reserve, and the full-time Active Component
Army to form the total U.S. Army. Similarly, the ANG joins with
its sister reserve component, the purely federal U.S. Air Force
Reserve and the branch's Active Component Air Force to form the
total U.S. Air Force.
The National Guard system does not contain sister elements
associated with the other branches of the national armed forces
- the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, or U.S. Coast Guard. Those
military branches have only one reserve component each and all
are purely federal.
Individual service members of all federal active components,
federal reserve components, and federally recognized national
guards must meet the same military combat readiness standards
and receive the same training, federal pay (pro-rated for
part-time service) and federal pensions (also pro-rated).
Under existing law, the Governor may call members of the
CalGuard onto SAD for various purposes, including disaster
response, so long as it does not conflict with the
contemporaneous imperatives of federal duty.
Other federally-funded personnel . The remaining tiny slice of
uniformed CalGuard troops work full-time as Guard members. They
constitute a cadre that provides dedicated administrative and
training support of the part-time force. Both full-time and
part-time uniformed Guard members are federally trained and
paid.
The CalGuard's administrative and training support cadre also
includes a modest number of full-time, federally paid,
non-uniformed civilian technicians. Some have dual status,
laboring in civilian status during the standard work week, but
also serving as a part-time uniformed Guard troop with the same
military unit on drill weekends and for federal mobilization
purposes. Other administrative technicians are not dual status
and work only as civilians. They have no additional uniformed
military association with the Guard.
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State-funded personnel . In addition to the personnel provided
by the federal government, the CMD contains approximately 750
personnel funded by California taxpayers.
About 500 of these are full-time uniformed personnel serving
full-time on SAD. These SAD positions are not federally
recognized and place the employee at no risk of being mobilized
federally as part of the national defense force. However,
existing state law provides that, in order to be eligible for
"mobilization" by the state into a full-time SAD job, a person
must fit one of the following profiles, which cross-link
different CMD components:
A current member of the CalGuard; or
Retired or otherwise honorably separated from federal active
military or CalGuard service with current membership in the
SMR; or
A current member of the SMR volunteer component with a minimum
of two years of service.
The primary rationale for SAD employment requiring active
membership in either the CalGuard or the SMR is that both the
Guard and SMR components fall under the "active state militia"
defined in California statutes. Since members of the active
militia may be called onto SAD by the Governor, active
membership in one or the other places the SAD applicant in the
position of being eligible for "call up" into the SAD full-time
job.
In addition to the uniformed SAD personnel, about 250
non-uniformed state civil servants provide administrative
support to the CMD.
SMR . Finally, the CMD includes the SMR, a purely volunteer
component with approximately 1,000 active members.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
AL:k 4/29/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED
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