BILL ANALYSIS
AB 20
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Date of Hearing: March 3, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Anthony Portantino, Chair
AB 20 (Solorio) - As Introduced: December 1, 2008
SUBJECT : University of California: contracts.
SUMMARY : Requests the University of California (UC) and
requires the Department of General Services (DGS) to establish
standard contract provisions for research contracts between UC
and the state. Specifically, this bill :
1)Codifies legislative findings that it is unnecessarily costly
and time consuming for UC and the state to develop research
contracts, and it would be more cost effective and efficient
if the state and UC established "boilerplate" provisions that
would apply to all research contracts between the two,
allowing for variations only in unusual situations.
2)Requests the UC Regents and requires DGS, acting for the
state, to establish standard provisions for research contracts
undertaken by UC for the state, including, but not limited to,
the following:
a) Liability;
b) Intellectual property;
c) The right to undertake additional research;
d) The right to publish;
e) Hiring and other personnel-related matters;
f) Invoicing;
g) Payments;
h) Dispute resolution;
i) Travel;
j) Termination, and,
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aa) Administrative overhead and indirect costs.
3)Authorizes DGS and UC to determine those types of contracts
for which the use of the model contract would be
inappropriate.
4)Requires that any and all agreed upon standard provisions be
used in research contracts between UC and the state unless
either UC, DGS, or the contracting state agency with DGS'
concurrence determines, on a case-by-case basis, that the
standard provisions are inappropriate for a specific contract.
5)Requires DGS to seek the participation of state agencies and
departments that have contracts with UC.
6)Clarifies that it is not the intent of the Legislature that
the model contract provisions waive the requirements of the
law.
EXISTING LAW establishes UC as the state's research body.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown but potential administrative savings
for UC and the state.
COMMENTS : Background : UC is the state's research arm.
According to UC, in 2006-07, it entered into more than 1,250 new
contracts or contract amendments with 102 state agencies and
programs for a total of more than $321 million.
What is the problem ? The current process for negotiating
contracts is lengthy and time consuming as each provision of
each contract must be negotiated. Many of these contracts have
similar provisions yet may take a considerable amount of time to
negotiate and complete-some as long as six months to a year.
Considering that UC and the state entered into 1,383 contracts
in 2007-08, for a total of $21 million in services, this is an
inefficient use of UC's and the state's time and resources.
According to the author, it is an inefficient use of state
resources for attorneys from two publicly funded entities to
negotiate the same terms for each contract in each department.
Standard contract provisions or "boilerplate" language should
result in cost savings for both the state and UC and should
reduce the time to enter into contracts, thereby speeding the
delivery of the research product. This system has worked very
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well for federal research contracts and should serve as a model
for California.
State v. federal contracting process : The federal government
issues grants and contracts under pre-determined and mutually
agreeable terms and conditions, as set forth under the federal
demonstration partnership and the federal acquisition
regulations. Therefore, almost all federal grants and contracts
can be accepted by a university campus without further delay to
negotiate terms with the agency. In comparison, each state
contract is negotiated on an individual basis between the state
agency program and the university campus, causing significant
delays to negotiate each provision of the award.
Author's amendments : The author will propose amendments
requested by UC that require the standardized terms be completed
by 2010, allow deviation from these terms when both the State
and UC are in agreement, and express legislative intent that
variations will be made only in cases where state or federal law
or regulation requires a variance from the standard contract
provisions.
Previous legislation : An identical measure, AB 3033 (Laird),
was vetoed by the Governor last year because it was not
considered a priority at that time, as follows:
"The historic delay in passing the 2008-2009 State Budget
has forced me to prioritize the bills sent to my desk at
the end of the year's legislative session. Given the
delay, I am only signing bills that are the highest
priority for California. This bill does not meet that
standard and I cannot sign it at this time."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)
AB 20
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