BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1726
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 27, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
1726 (Bonta) - As Amended March 1, 2016
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Policy |Higher Education |Vote:|10 - 2 |
|Committee: | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------|
| |Health | |13 - 3 |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: YesReimbursable:
Yes
SUMMARY:
This bill places specified requirements regarding the collection
of demographic data, by the state's public segments of
postsecondary education and by state health-related departments,
pertaining to tabulation categories of Native Hawaiian (NH),
Asian, and Pacific Islander (API) groups. Specifically, this
bill:
AB 1726
Page 2
1)Requires the Board of Governors (BOG) of the California
Community Colleges (CCC) and the Trustees of the California
State University (CSU), and requests the Regents of the
University of California (UC), on or after July 1, 2017, when
collecting demographic data on students for a report that
includes student admission, enrollment, completion, or
graduation rates, to use the following separate collection
categories and tabulations, in addition to the categories
required by existing law:
a) Major Asian groups, including, but not limited to,
Bangladeshi, Hmong, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sri
Lankan, Taiwanese, and Thai; and,
b) Major Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander groups,
including, but not limited to, Fijian and Tongan.
2)Exempts UC from compliance with (1) with respect to UC
graduate or professional schools.
3)Requires the Department of Public Health (DPH) and the
Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), when collecting
patient demographic data for reports, on or after July 1,
2017, on the level of health care coverage, amount of health
care coverage, rates for major diseases, leading causes of
death per demographic, subcategories for leading causes of
death in California overall, pregnancy rates, and housing
numbers, to also collect and tabulate data for the groups in
(1)(a) and (1)(b).
4)Requires all of the entities described in (1) and (2) to post
the information collected on their respective websites, but
requires the CCC, CSU, and UC to comply with the Family
Educational Rights and Privacy Act, and to observe criteria
AB 1726
Page 3
for ensuring statistical significance of data collected and
published.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)CCC. A similar bill last year would have required that the
additional demographic data be collected within 18 months
following release of the next census, using any additional NH
and API as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. This provided
community college districts with sufficient lead time to make
the required changes within existing resources. Since AB 1726
requires the additional data collection almost immediately
districts will incur costs in the range of $8,000 to $12,000
on average to review their Student Basis Date Elements. These
would be one-time state reimbursable costs (GF-Prop 98) of
about $560,000 to $860,000. The Chancellor's Office would also
incur one-time GF costs, likely at least $150,000 to collect,
track and report the additional data, commencing by July 1,
2107.
2)UC. The system already collects the additional data for
undergraduate students, as required in the bill.
3)CSU. Minor absorbable costs.
4)DPH will be impacted in several areas, incurring total costs
of about $600,000 for two years and $80,000 every 10 years
following release of a new census.
a) The Center for Health Statistics and Informatics would
need two additional research positions to include vital
records data currently collected but not reported and to
AB 1726
Page 4
ensure statistical reliability and privacy of individuals.
The workload includes the need for development of new
statistical coding of data to produce the strata specified
for the data files, and to ensure the integrity and quality
of the data produced. In addition, staff will need to
determine if the disaggregated data produced is
statistically reliable and ensure that re-identification of
individuals was not possible for confidential data. This
work applies to County Health Status Profiles, Death Data
Trend Summaries, Birth Profiles and other statistical
tables derived from birth and death data prepared with
breakdowns by race/ethnicity. According to the department,
the analysis to prevent re-identification of individuals is
rigorous and becomes complex and time-consuming at the
level of detail proposed by this bill.
b) The California Reportable Disease Information Exchange
(CalREDIE) system would require additional staff time to
modify the system and update paper forms to collect the
additional race/ethnicity data. The Division of
Communicable Disease Control (DCDC) would require one
position over two years to modify the CalREDIE system, work
with the CalREDIE vendor to populate the race sub-category
information, update and publish the Electronic Laboratory
Reporting (ELR) specification guide to reflect that the
race sub-category information is required/mandatory,
canvass ELR submitters to comply with the new standard, and
update approximately 60 paper forms in order to comply with
the bill's.
c) The Office of AIDS (OA) would require on position to
lead the reprogramming of OA data systems and the
production of statistical reports with the required
categories (as allowed under HIV confidentiality laws) and
to provide consultation in the amendment of regulation.
AB 1726
Page 5
d) The Response and Surveillance System for Childhood Lead
Exposures (RASSCLE) blood lead reporting system would
require one-half position ($80,000) initially), within 18
months of the 2020 census, and again within 18 months of
each succeeding census to update the data system.
e) The Maternal Child and Adolescent Health (MCAH) program
data collection system would need to be updated for the
racial/ethnic populations not currently in the system and
required in the bill, which would then be added to reports
from the Adolescent Family Life Program (AFLP) that include
the type and amount of health care coverage, pregnancy
rates, and housing numbers. One-time costs to update these
systems would range between $5,000 and $10,000.
5)DHCS. Based on similar legislation last year, the department
would incur one-time costs of at least $150,000 to make
computer system upgrades. Current computer systems used to
manage enrollment and benefits for the Medi-Cal program do not
allow for the collection of demographic information at the
level of detail required in the bill. The computer systems
that would require modification include three state operated
systems and three county-operated systems used to enroll
individuals in Medi-Cal.
COMMENTS:
AB 1726
Page 6
1)Background. According to the California Commission on Asian
and Pacific Islander American Affairs', data disaggregation is
imperative for uncovering economic, educational, and social
disparities inherent not only in API communities, but in all
ethnic populations. The Commission finds that the need to
disaggregate data is often exemplified by the needs of
Southeast Asian American students; often categorized as
"Asian," their "lower academic achievement rates are
overshadowed by the stereotype that all Asian students excel
in academics."
According to information provided by the author's office, many
of the communities within the API population face similar
challenges in California, such as language barriers and
immigration; however, they differ on many issues. This is
most evident with respect to education and public health,
where the outcomes of some of the largest API groups within
the API population raise the average outcome of the greater
API population as a whole.
2)Purpose. According to the author, "despite the diversity of
California's large API population, state agencies only
disaggregate demographic data for a few of the major API
groups. By failing to measure a large portion of the API
population, California is unable to track the progress of the
most disadvantaged segments of that population."
The author contends that without disaggregated data,
policymakers and researchers have to rely on data in the
aggregate as released by various state and local agencies.
Said data is not consistent and varies in different
jurisdictions.
AB 1726
Page 7
3)Prior Legislation. AB 176 (Bonta) of 2015, a substantially
similar bill, was vetoed. The Governor, while acknowledging
the value of obtaining data a various aspect of identity,
stated, "I am wary of the ever growing desire to stratify.
Dividing people into ethnic or other subcategories may yield
more information, but not necessarily greater wisdom about
what actions should follow. To focus just on ethnic identity
may not be enough."
AB 1088 (Eng)/Chapter 689 of 2011, required the Department of
Industrial Relations and the Department of Fair Employment and
Housing to collect and tabulate data for additional major
Asian groups.
AB 1737 (Eng) of 2010, which would have required certain state
agencies to use additional separate collection categories and
tabulations for major Native Hawaiian and API groups, was held
on this committee's Suspense file.
Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916)
319-2081
AB 1726
Page 8