BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1661
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Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
1661 (McCarty) - As Amended April 11, 2016
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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
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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:
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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
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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.
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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