BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2192
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
2192 (Salas)
As Amended August 15, 2016
2/3 vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |80-0 |(May 31, 2016) |SENATE: |30-8 |(August 18, |
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Original Committee Reference: B. & P.
SUMMARY: Extends to January 1, 2020, the provisions
establishing the Court Reporters Board (CRB), its executive
officer, the Transcript Reimbursement Fund (TRF), and raises the
statutory fee limit for the license renewal fee, as recommended
by the legislative sunset review committee. This bill also
requires the CRB to report, by November 1, 2018, on the fund
condition, among other things, of the TRF and the Court Reporter
Fund. Specifically, this bill:
1) Extends the sunset date for the CRB to January 1, 2020; and,
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2) Extends the sunset date for its Executive Officer (EO) to
January 1, 2020.
The Senate amendments:
1) Extend the sunset date for the TRF to January 1, 2020;
2) Recast the Pro Per Pilot Project as a permanent part of the
TRF;
3) Raise the expenditure limit of the Pro Per Pilot Project
from $30,000 to $75,000;
4) Require the CRB to report to the Legislature by November 1,
2018, specified details of the TRF and the Court Reporter
Fund, as follows:
a) Expenditures and claims relating to the TRF and the
Court Reporter Fund, including the initial balance of the
TRF as of January 1, 2017;
b) Funds received, including the amount of, and reason for,
any refunds;
c) Claims received, including the type of case, court
involved, service for which reimbursement was sought,
amount paid, and amount denied, if any, and the reason for
denial;
d) Efforts to publicize the availability of the funds in
the TRF to prospective applicants.
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e) Administrative fees;
f) An analysis of the condition of the TRF, including a
five-year projection of its fiscal solvency based on the
licensee fee level for those years;
g) Whether the amount transferred annually to the TRF is
sufficient to maintain the fund at a level that is
sufficient to pay all qualified claims;
h) If the amount transferred annually is not sufficient to
pay all qualified claims, the CRB must investigate and
recommend alternative sources of funding, if any; and,
i) If the amount transferred annually is not sufficient to
pay all qualified claims, the CRB must investigate and
recommend alternate sources of funding, if any.
5) Raise the statutory limit for the license renewal fee from
$125 to $250.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, this bill will result in:
1)Ongoing costs of $1.2 million per year for the continued
operation of the CRB (Court Reporters Fund). Operations of
the CRB are fully funded with license fee revenues.
2)Ongoing costs of $100,000 to $300,000 per year for the
continued operation of the TRF. This fund is supported by
transfers from the Court Reporters Fund. Current law requires
$300,000 to be transferred annually for the purposes of the
fund. However, in the budget year, only $100,000 in
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expenditures is projected.
3)Increased fee revenues of about $870,000 per year due to the
increase in the renewal fee from $125 to $250 (Court Reporters
Fund).
COMMENTS:
Background. Court reporters are highly trained professionals
who stenographically preserve the words spoken in a wide variety
of official legal settings such as court hearings, trials, and
other pretrial litigation-related proceedings, namely
depositions. Court reporters work in courtrooms as official
reporters or in the private sector as freelance reporters who
provide deposition services. These transcripts, which include
testimony given under oath, are relied upon by the consumer as
an accurate source of information. The CRB carries out its
mission by testing, licensing and disciplining court reporters,
who use the title CSR, and by recognizing the schools of court
reporting that meet state curriculum standards.
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
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.
Joint Oversight Hearings and Sunset Review of Department of
Consumer Affairs (DCA) Licensing Boards. In March of 2016, the
Assembly Business and Professions Committee and the Senate
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Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee
(Committees) conducted multiple joint oversight hearings to
review 11 regulatory boards within the DCA and one regulatory
entity outside of the DCA. The sunset bills are intended to
implement legislative changes recommended in the respective
background reports drafted by the Committees for the agencies
reviewed this year. During the sunset review hearings, the
Committees take public testimony and evaluate the eligible
agency prior to the date the agency is scheduled to be repealed.
An eligible agency is allowed to sunset unless the Legislature
enacts a law to extend, consolidate, or reorganize the eligible
agency.
In the Committee's background paper on the CRB, issues were
raised regarding the CRB's ability to maintain long-term fiscal
solvency, administer the TRF, and enforce court reporting
statutes against foreign court reporting corporations.
Statutory Fee Limit. The CRB's license fee reached the
statutory limit of $125 in July 2010. This fee cap has not
changed since the CRB was established in 1951 and is no longer
viable today. As such, the CRB is facing a structural deficit,
which will lead to a decreasing reserve of 4.7 months at the end
of Fiscal Year 2016-17. While there is no statutory mandatory
reserve level for the CRB, the TRF cannot be funded when the CRB
reaches less than six months of operating expenses in reserve.
In addition, the DCA Budget Office has historically recommended
that smaller programs maintain a contingency fund slightly above
the standard three to six months of reserve.
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 CRB'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. The TRF consists of
the Pro Bono program and the Pro Per program that differ in who
may apply and how much monetary assistance is available to
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individual cases and all cases overall. The total amount of
annual funding for the Pro Per program is $30,000, which is
quickly exhausted each year as there are enough unpaid claims at
the end of the year to appropriate the full $30,000 at the
beginning of the next year, creating an ever-growing backlog of
applications. The remaining $270,000 in the TRF is allocated to
the Pro Bono program. This program runs on a fiscal year basis
and typically does not expend the full amount.
This bill extends the operation of the CRB, its executive
officer, and the TRF by three years and raises the renewal fee
cap from $125 to $250.
Analysis Prepared by:
Gabby Nepomuceno / B. & P. / (916) 319-3301 FN:
0004746