BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2192
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 27, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
AB
2192 (Salas) - As Amended April 6, 2016
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Policy |Business and Professions |Vote:|16 - 0 |
|Committee: | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------|
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill extends the sunset date of the Court Reporters Board
of California (Board), within the Department of Consumer
Affairs, and its authority to appoint an executive officer (EO)
until January 1, 2021.
FISCAL EFFECT:
AB 2192
Page 2
On-going annual Special Fund costs of approximately $1.0 million
(Court Reporters Fund) to extend the Board beyond the January 1,
2017, sunset date. This fund is self-supporting with fee
revenue.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. In March of 2016, the Assembly Business and
Professions Committee and the Senate Business, Professions and
Economic Development Committee conducted multiple joint
oversight hearings to review 11 regulatory boards within the
DCA. The Board is due to sunset January 1, 2017, and was among
the boards under review. This bill extends to January 1, 2021,
the provisions establishing the Board, as recommended by the
legislative sunset review committee.
2)Background. Established in 1951 by the Legislature, the
Certified Shorthand Reporters Board, now known as the Court
Reporters Board of California, tests, licenses, regulates,
investigates and disciplines members of the court reporting
profession. Court reporters are trained professional
stenographers who preserve the words spoken in a wide variety
of official legal settings. Court reporters work in courtrooms
as official reporters or in the private sector as freelance
reporters who provide deposition services. Transcripts, which
include testimony given under oath, are relied upon by the
consumer as an accurate source of information.
In California, a person must be licensed to work as a court
reporter in state courts (official reporter) or to act as a
deposition officer (freelance reporter). Freelance reporters
provide services as individual contractors or through court
AB 2192
Page 3
reporting firms.
There are approximately 6,800 licensed court reporters in
California, of which approximately 5,800 work independently or
for court reporting agencies, and approximately 750 to 1,000
work as employees of the state court system. The initial
license fee is $125 or half that amount, prorated according to
the last day of the birth month of the applicant. Thereafter,
the annual renewal fee on the licensee's birth month is $125.
In FY 2014-15 the Board issued 96 licenses and 6,864 renewals.
The Board's annual operating budget was $978,000 in FY
2014-15. Of that, each year by statute, $300,000 is assigned
to the TRB, a fund designated to reimburse transcript costs
incurred by the profession when representing indigent clients.
Ninety-one percent of the Board's revenue is from licensing
fees, with the remainder from examination fees and payments
from fines. The Board receives no General Fund support. The
greatest expenditure for the Board is its enforcement program
(38%), followed by examinations (30%).
3)Sunset Review. In the Committee's background paper on the
Board, issues were raised regarding the Board's ability to
maintain long-term fiscal solvency, administer the TRF, and
enforce court reporting statutes against foreign court
reporting corporations. These issues are not addressed in this
bill. The Board will need to continue to focus on its fee
structure and the impending sunset of the TRF.
a) Statutory Fee Limit. The Board's license fee reached the
AB 2192
Page 4
statutory limit of $125 in July 2010. This fee cap has not
changed since the Board was established in 1951 and is no
longer viable today. As such, the Board is facing a
structural deficit, which will lead to a decreasing reserve
of 4.7 months at the end of Fiscal Year 2016-17. This
issue remains unaddressed.
b) TRF Sunset. In 1981, the legislature created the TRF to
fund payment of court transcripts for indigent litigants in
civil matters. By law, a minimum of $300,000 of the
Board's total revenue must go to the TRF annually on July
1. The TRF is scheduled to be repealed on January 1, 2017,
at which time all unencumbered funds remaining in the TRF,
as of that date, will be transferred to the Court Reporters
Fund.
c) Foreign Court Reporting Corporations. According to the
Board, foreign corporations offering court reporting
services are operating in California without authorization.
SB 270 (Mendoza) of 2015 attempts to address this issue but
has been met with heavy opposition from foreign court
reporting corporations. While the bill initially sought to
clarify the Board's authority over foreign professional
corporations and increase penalties for violations of law,
the author proposed amendments that would instead require
these corporations to register with the Board. That bill is
under reconsideration in the Assembly Business and
Professions Committee.
1)Prior Legislation. SB 1236 (Price), Chapter 332, Statutes of
2012, extended the operation of the Board, among other boards
and bureaus under the jurisdiction of the DCA, until January
1, 2017.
Analysis Prepared by:Jennifer Swenson / APPR. / (916)
AB 2192
Page 5
319-2081