BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 63
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Date of Hearing: April 29, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
63 (Bonilla) - As Amended April 22, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill requires the California Department of Education (CDE)
to apply to the DMV to create a specialized license plate
program to fund the purposes of the School Safety and Violence
Protection Act.
AB 63
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FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Potential one-time special fund costs of approximately
$440,000 to DMV to establish the specialized license plate
program, including computer programming changes and updating
forms. Pursuant to current law, DMV will make computer
programming and form changes only after program applications
meet a 7,500-application threshold. Therefore, the DMV will
incur these costs only if it receives enough applications to
require the CDE to implement the program. The DMV will incur
minor ongoing costs to continue issuing specialty license
plates and renewals under the program. All of the DMV's
initial and ongoing costs will be covered by a portion of the
additional $50 fee paid for original specialized license
plates and the additional $40 fee to renew such plates.
2)Minor costs to CDE to submit the program application and
license prototype to DMV, design and print the license plate
application, and collect and hold applications and fees until
7,500 applications are received.
3)Potential ongoing revenue to CDE for grants to school
districts, from a portion of the additional fees for new and
renewed specialty license plates generated after the funding
requirements in (1) are satisfied.
COMMENTS:
1)Specialized License Plates. Prior to 2007, any new special
interest license plate required specific legislative
authorization. This practice was held to be unconstitutional
in that the Legislature approved some of the plates, and
rejected others, using no standardized or objective criteria
for those decisions. Pursuant to AB 84 (Leslie)/Statutes of
2006, the DMV will issue specialized license plates when
AB 63
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sponsored by a state agency, the plate's message and resulting
revenues support that agency's program, and at least 7,500
paid license applications have been received. The
7,500-application threshold attempts to assure that DMV's
startup costs are fully covered, by the portion of the
registration fee surcharge directed to the department, and to
avoid a proliferation of different types of plates, which can
be troublesome from a law enforcement perspective.
2)Purpose. Youth violence is a problem that has serious social,
emotional, physical, and economic consequences. Bullying,
which has been linked to youth homicides and suicides, is also
on the rise in California. In fact, a recent survey
administered by CDE found that one in three middle school and
high school students in California report having been harassed
or bullied at least once in the previous year.
The author indicates that the state had provided categorical
funding for grants to help raise awareness about and prevent
violence, and improve school safety. With enactment of the
local control funding formula, however, these grants are no
longer in existence. AB 63 attempts to fund these violence
prevention programs by creating a new and direct source of
funding derived from the sale of youth violence prevention
specialized license plates.
3)Prior Legislation. AB 544 (DeSaulnier) of 2014, a
substantially similar bill, failed in Assembly Education due
to lack of a motion.
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Over the past five years, 13 bills have been introduced
directing a state agency to sponsor a specialized license
plate for a variety of causes, and eight of these bills were
passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor. Most
recently, in 2014, the following four bills were enacted: AB
49 (Buchanan)/Chapter 351, for breast cancer awareness, AB
1096 (Nestande)/Chapter 353) for Salton Sea restoration, AB
2321 (Gomez)/Chapter 358, for domestic violence prevention,
and AB 2450 (Logue), for kidney disease research.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081