BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



          SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                             Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
                            2015 - 2016  Regular  Session

          SB 1090 (Mitchell) - Sexually transmitted diseases:  outreach  
          and screening services
          
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          |Version: April 12, 2016         |Policy Vote: HEALTH 9 - 0       |
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          |Urgency: No                     |Mandate: No                     |
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          |Hearing Date: April 25, 2016    |Consultant: Brendan McCarthy    |
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          This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.

          Bill  
          Summary:  SB 1090 would require the Department of Public Health,  
          upon appropriation of funding, to allocate funds to local health  
          jurisdictions for sexually transmitted disease outreach and  
          screening services. 


          Fiscal  
          Impact:  
           Unknown costs to provide funding to local health jurisdictions  
            (General Fund). The bill requires the Department of Public  
            Health to make funding available, upon appropriation by the  
            Legislature, to local health jurisdictions. The amount of  
            funding available under the bill is unknown at this time and  
            would depend on future budget appropriations. Staff is not  
            aware of any significant source of funding that could be used  
            for this new program other than the General Fund.

           Unknown costs to provide program administration, including  
            developing program guidelines, reviewing applications,  
            awarding grants, and monitoring accountability requirements on  







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            grantees. According to the Department of Public Health, if the  
            amount of funding made available in the future were $10  
            million per year, the Department would need about $1.6 million  
            per year to administer the program. 


          Background:  Under current law, the Sexually Transmitted Disease Branch  
          within the Department of Public Health performs disease  
          surveillance, education, assessment of access to treatment,  
          disease investigation, and policy development. The Sexually  
          Transmitted Disease Branch currently contracts with some local  
          health jurisdictions (including 27 county health departments and  
          1 city health department). The current year budget allocation  
          for these contracts is $3.5 million and the Governor's budget  
          proposal includes $3.3 million for this purpose.


          Proposed Law:  
            SB 1090 would require the Department of Public Health, upon  
          appropriation of funding, to allocate funds to local health  
          jurisdictions for sexually transmitted disease outreach and  
          screening services.
          Specific provisions of the bill would:
           Require the Department of Public Health, upon appropriation of  
            funding by the Legislature, to allocate funds to local health  
            jurisdictions for sexually transmitted disease outreach and  
            screening services;
           Require funding to be targeted and prioritized based on  
            population and disease incidence;
           Require funding to be balanced between the need to spread  
            funding to many counties and the need to provide meaningful  
            services;
           Require recipient counties to demonstrate compliance with  
            specified accountability measures and to comply with  
            Department-developed accountability measures;
           Authorize the Department to solicit proposals from community  
            based organizations if a local health jurisdiction declines a  
            grant;
           Require the Department to authorize specified types of  
            outreach and screening services; 
           Require the Department to monitor program activity to ensure  
            accountability measures are met;
           The bill also makes a variety of technical changes to current  
            law to reflect current terminology and practice with regard to  








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            sexually transmitted diseases.


          Staff  
          Comments:  As noted above, the Department of Public Health's  
          projected costs to administer the bill's requirements are about  
          16% of the assumed program size. This level of administrative  
          cost is relatively high. For example, many bond funded grant  
          programs are limited to using 5% of total funds for  
          administration. It may be possible to reduce administrative  
          costs by streamlining program requirements.


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