BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 174 (Gray) - University of California: medical education.
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|Version: June 1, 2015 |Policy Vote: ED. 7 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 17, 2015 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill makes an annual General Fund appropriation
of $1.255 million to the University of California (UC) to
support the expansion of UC Merced's San Joaquin Valley (SJV)
Program in Medical Education (PRIME). This bill makes
legislative findings and declarations relative to health care
needs in the San Joaquin Valley.
Fiscal
Impact:
$1.255 million annually, beginning in 2016-17. Additional
cost pressure of up to $600,000 to fund an additional 18
students under the program's existing funding structure.
(General Fund)
Potentially significant cost pressure to expand PRIME programs
at other UC campuses.
Background: UC Programs in Medical Education (PRIME) is a medical
AB 174 (Gray) Page 1 of
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education program focused on meeting the needs of California's
underserved populations in both rural communities and urban
areas by combining specialized coursework, structured clinical
experiences, advanced independent study, and mentoring. Each
new program has an area of focus that is selected based upon
faculty expertise, the populations served by each school and its
medical center, and other local considerations. Each PRIME
program is designed to educate and train future physician
leaders, researchers, and advocates for the communities they
will serve. For example, PRIME in San Joaquin Valley (SJV)
emphasizes improving the health of people in the Central Valley
region. As of 2014-15, there are an estimated 333 medical
students in PRIME.
SJV PRIME was established in 2010 as a partnership between UC
Merced, UC Davis School of Medicine, and UCSF Fresno to train
medical students in the region. The first class of students
entered the program in the fall of 2011. There were 27 students
enrolled in the program for the 2014-15 school year.
Proposed Law:
This bill appropriates $1.255 million from the General Fund to
the University of California (UC) annually, beginning with the
2016-17 fiscal year to support expansion of the San Joaquin
Valley PRIME program to admit up to 12 students per year and
operate the program with up to 48 student participants from
across the four-year curriculum annually.
This bill provides Legislative findings and declarations that,
among other things, medical education and a possible future UC
Merced School of Medicine will further contribute to the
economic growth of the San Joaquin Valley and the state, and
will further support UC Merced's trajectory toward becoming a
top-tier university. It also provides that UC Merced's SJV
PRIME is providing a key interim resource for training valley
health care providers.
Related Legislation: SB 131 (Cannella, 2015) and SB 841
(Canella, 2014) are substantially similar to this bill, but
instead appropriated $1.855 million to the UC from the General
Fund for the SJV PRIME program. These bills were held in this
AB 174 (Gray) Page 2 of
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Committee.
Staff
Comments: This bill appropriates funding to support a total of
30 students in the San Joaquin Valley PRIME across the four
years based on the program's current cost structure. To support
total enrollment above 30 students, an additional appropriation
will be needed or the program will have to absorb the costs of
increased enrollment. This bill creates a cost pressure of up
to $600,000 to fund an additional 18 students, for total program
enrollment of 48 and costs of $1.855 million. An additional
cost pressure could potentially arise to expand other PRIME
programs.
Staff notes that efforts have been made in recent budgets to
support the development of two UC medical schools. The Budget
Act of 2015 includes provisional language requiring the UC to
continue planning for a school of medicine at the Merced campus,
and requires the UC to allocate up to $1 million from its budget
appropriation or other funds available to the university for
this purpose. The Budget Act of 2013 included trailer bill
language requiring UC to allocate $15 million for planning and
startup costs associated with academic programs to be offered by
the School of Medicine at UC Riverside.
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