BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 270 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 15, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Jimmy Gomez, Chair AB 270 (Nazarian) - As Amended March 16, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Transportation |Vote:|16 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill requires the Department of Public Health (DPH) to apply to the DMV to sponsor a diabetes awareness, education, and research specialized license plate program, and to deposit net proceeds from the program into the newly-established Diabetes AB 270 Page 2 Awareness Fund. 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 DPH 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 DPH 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 DPH for diabetes awareness and education, 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 AB 270 Page 3 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 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. The author has introduced this bill to increase the state's effort regarding diabetes awareness. Recent studies cited in a 2014 California State Auditor (CSA) report found that the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in California has jumped 50 percent from 2001 to 2012. DPH's spending on diabetes prevention, however, has declined over time due to reductions in its federal funding. In 2012-13-the most recent year for which nationwide data is available-California had the lowest per capita funding for diabetes prevention in the nation. 3)Prior Legislation. 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. AB 270 Page 4 Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081