BILL NUMBER: SCR 98 ENROLLED
BILL TEXT
ADOPTED IN SENATE AUGUST 11, 2016
ADOPTED IN ASSEMBLY JUNE 30, 2016
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JUNE 30, 2016
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 31, 2016
INTRODUCED BY Senators Beall and De León
(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Thurmond)
(Coauthors: Senators Allen, Anderson, Bates, Block, Cannella,
Fuller, Galgiani, Glazer, Hancock, Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Lara,
Leno, Liu, McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Moorlach, Pan, Roth,
Stone, Wieckowski, and Wolk)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Baker, Cristina Garcia, Hadley, Kim,
Lackey, Maienschein, Olsen, Patterson, Salas, Waldron, Achadjian,
Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom, Bonta, Brown,
Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines,
Gallagher, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gonzalez, Gordon, Grove,
Harper, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Lopez,
Low, Mathis, Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian,
Obernolte, O'Donnell, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Ting, Wagner, Weber, Wilk, Williams,
and Wood)
JANUARY 15, 2016
Relative to developmental services.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SCR 98, Beall. California's community-based developmental services
system: 50th anniversary.
This measure would recognize the year of 2016 as the 50th
anniversary of California's community-based developmental services
system, and would reaffirm the commitment of the Legislature to
support this system. This measure would declare the importance of
ensuring a sustainable system that protects the rights of individuals
with developmental disabilities.
WHEREAS, Fifty years ago, the State of California piloted a new
approach to serving individuals with developmental disabilities by
enacting a bold new direction in public-private partnership that
fundamentally changed and dramatically improved the quality of life
for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families,
and that would become a model for the nation; and
WHEREAS, That partnership model was based on the premise that the
services required of a regional center are of such a special and
unique nature that they could not be satisfactorily provided by state
agencies and thus required private nonprofit entities to contract
with the state to meet the unique needs of the different geographic
regions; and
WHEREAS, In 1965, Assembly Bill 691 established a pilot program
that created two regional centers in 1966, one at Children's Hospital
Los Angeles, later named Frank D. Lanterman Regional Center, and
another at San Francisco Aid Retarded Children, Inc., later named
Golden Gate Regional Center, with the Regional Center of the East Bay
formed later from the latter project's eastern region; and
WHEREAS, The pilot program was so successful that it was turned
into a permanent statewide program in 1969 by Assembly Bill 225,
known as the Lanterman Mental Retardation Services Act; and
WHEREAS, In 1973, Assembly Bill 846 recast the act as the
Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act and proposed
expansion of eligibility for regional center services to individuals
with cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and autism, among other developmental
disabilities; and
WHEREAS, In 1977, the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities
Services Act was passed, enumerating various rights to individuals
with developmental disabilities, enshrining the role of regional
centers as advocates for those rights, and creating an individualized
planning process that forms the core of the uniquely tailored
services and supports that each participating individual receives;
and
WHEREAS, Regional centers provide service coordination to ensure
that the needs of individuals with developmental disabilities are met
using a combination of natural supports, generic services, and the
purchase of vendored services; and
WHEREAS, Community-based service providers offer an array of
services in each community to meet the unique needs of every
individual with a developmental disability, doing so at significant
cost savings to the State of California when compared to the cost of
institutional care; and
WHEREAS, California's network of regional centers and service
providers serve nearly 300,000 individuals with developmental
disabilities who, as a result of the service, are able to live, work,
grow, and thrive in the community; and
WHEREAS, Years of underfunding have reduced access to needed
services and supports, have threatened the sustainability of the
system as a whole, have strained families, and have reduced the
quality of life for individuals with developmental disabilities; and
WHEREAS, The active support and leadership of the Legislature is a
critical component of any and all efforts to reinvigorate and renew
the community-based developmental services system; now, therefore, be
it
Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Legislature hereby recognizes the year
of 2016 as the 50th anniversary of California's community-based
developmental services system; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature declares the importance of ensuring
a sustainable system that protects the rights of individuals with
developmental disabilities and their full inclusion into community
life; and be it further
Resolved, That the Legislature reaffirms its commitment to defend,
support, and advance the community-based developmental services
system; and be it further
Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this
resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.