BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 1661 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Lorena Gonzalez, Chair AB 1661 (McCarty) - As Amended April 11, 2016 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Local Government |Vote:|9 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill requires local agency officials to receive sexual harassment training and education if the local agency provides any type of compensation, salary, or stipend to a local agency official. Specifically, this bill: 1)Requires each local agency official, or employee who receives any type of compensation, salary, or stipend, to receive at AB 1661 Page 2 least two hours of sexual harassment training and education within the first six months of taking office or commencing employment, and every two years thereafter. 2)Requires an entity that develops sexual harassment training curricula to consult with the Attorney General regarding the sufficiency and accuracy of the proposed content. 3)Requires the training to include information regarding the federal and state statutory provisions against sexual harassment. 4)Requires the training and education to include practical examples intended to instruct the officials in the prevention of sexual harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. 5)Allows a local agency to offer online or self-study training courses to meet the provisions of this bill. 6)Requires the local agency to maintain records, for at least a period of five years, the dates that the local agency's officials satisfied their training requirements and documentation of the entity that provided the training. FISCAL EFFECT: AB 1661 Page 3 1)Significant costs to the Department of Justice of up to $1 million (GF) to consult and review all proposed training materials regarding sexual harassment training for local agencies across the state, and to provide any resulting training, or statutory and regulatory provision updates. 2)Potentially significant reimbursable costs to local agencies to develop materials and provide sexual harassment training to local agency officials. COMMENTS: 1)Purpose. According to the authors, "In 2004, AB 1825 (Reyes) established requirements for sexual harassment prevention training in the workplace. Specifically, it required that employers of 50 or more employees must provide training of a (minimum) of two hours on sexual harassment prevention training to all supervisors and mandated that training needed to be renewed every two years in order to keep employers/employees updated and refreshed on how to report, prevent, and recognize sexual harassment. However, this existing law does not explicitly require city or county elected officials to take (a) sexual harassment prevention training course. Some cities have interpreted AB 1825 to not apply to city council members, while some cities have found that it does apply. This loophole has caused significant confusion. The cost to cities to litigate and/or settle claims for sexual harassment suits is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which results in a significant loss of revenue and diverts funds from essential constituent AB 1661 Page 4 services." This bill requires local agency elected officials to receive sexual harassment prevention training and education within six months of taking office. 2)Background. Current law requires employers who have 50 or more employees to provide at least 2 hours of sexual harassment prevention training every 2 years. However, existing statute does not explicitly require city, county, or special district officials to take sexual harassment prevention training. During the past few years, California has witnessed a number of high-profile cases in which elected local government officials were accused and/or found guilty of sexually harassing their staff or other employees. This bill is modeled after current law governing ethics training for local agency officials, in an attempt to clarify that local agency officials are, indeed, required to complete training and education in sexual harassment. 3)Previous Legislation. a) AB 2053 (Gonzalez), Chapter 306, Statutes of 2014, expanded on existing law on sexual harassment training for supervisory employees to also include training on the prevention of abusive conduct. AB 1661 Page 5 b) SB 1087 (Monning), Chapter 750, Statutes of 2014, prohibited a farm labor contractor (FLC) who engages in sexual harassment from being issued an FLC's license or renewing the license, as specified. c) AB 1234 (Salinas), Chapter 700, Statutes of 2005, established provisions for ethics training for local government officials and designated employees. d) AB 1825 (Reyes), Chapter 933, Statutes of 2004, required employers who have 50 or more employees to provide sexual harassment training and education to all supervisory employees. Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081