BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
52 (Portantino)
Hearing Date: 8/12/2010 Amended: 8/9/2010
Consultant: Katie Johnson Policy Vote: Health 5-3
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 52, an urgency measure, would request the
University of California to develop a plan to establish and
administer the Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Program on or
before July 1, 2011, and would increase the fee for birth
certificate copies by $2 to provide funds to implement the
program. The bill would also extend the sunset on the program
from January 1, 2015, to January 1, 2018.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
Operating funds unknown, but cost pressure to
fund Special/*
more than $3,000 annually Federal/
Private/
General
$2 fee revenues Approximately $3,000
annually,Special*
commencing January 1, 2011
Potential loss of HRSA grant $471 $0 $0Federal
*Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Fund
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Existing state law, AB 34 (Portantino), Chapter 516, Statutes of
2007, requires the California Department of Public Health
(CDPH), on or before January 1, 2010, and until January 1, 2015,
to establish the Umbilical Cord Blood Collection Program
(UCBCP), to the extent that public or private funds or grants
are identified and secured for these purposes. Existing law
provides that no state funds, unless specifically appropriated,
may be used for implementation of the program and establishes
the Umbilical Cord Blood Collection (UCBC) Fund, from which
moneys would be available upon appropriation by the Legislature.
CDPH was awarded $471,000 in federal grant funds to implement
the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Public
Cord Banking in California. The proposed FY 2010-2011 Budget Act
would appropriate the funds to the department; however, it has
yet to be passed by the Legislature or signed into law by the
Governor.
This bill would shift the administration of UCBCP from CDPH to
the University of California (UC), if UC elects to administer
the program, and would extend the sunset on the program from
January 1, 2015, to January 1, 2018, as well as recast and
augment the program. This bill would request that UC develop a
plan to establish and administer UCBCP for the purpose of
collecting units of umbilical cord blood for public use, as
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AB 52 (Portantino)
defined, in transplantation and providing nonclinical units for
research pertaining to biology and new clinical utilization of
stem cells derived from the blood and tissue of the placenta and
umbilical cord. The HRSA grant mentioned above could be put in
jeopardy because UC is not the grantee; this would be a loss of
$417,000 in federal funds in FY 2010-2011 in the event the
appropriation is included in the final budget as expected.
This bill would permit UC to accept public and private funds for
the purpose of implementing these provisions and would clarify
that the UCBC Fund would be created in the State Treasury, not
within the General Fund. While the existing prohibition on the
use of state funds for this program would be deleted, this bill
would continue to require that moneys in the fund would be
available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Additionally,
this bill would provide that nothing would preclude UC from
establishing and administering an additional fund independent of
the State Treasury in support of the program. Staff recommends
that this provision be removed; it would be unnecessary to have
dual funds and could complicate state oversight of the program.
This bill would assess an additional $2 onto the fee paid by
individuals obtaining birth certificates. The current fee is $14
and is collected by local agencies. This bill would provide that
a local agency could not withhold up to 15 percent of these
additional $2 to cover administrative costs. There could be cost
pressure to local agencies in the event that they incur
additional administrative costs in collecting and remitting this
additional revenue to the state. However, this would not
constitute a reimbursable mandate. There are approximately
550,000 births in the state annually and an additional 1 million
birth certificates are requested each year. Thus, annual
revenues would be approximately $3.1 million. Revenues would
vary depending on the number of births and the number of
individuals requesting birth certificates annually. The fee,
along with the program, would sunset January 1, 2018. In
addition to the $2 revenue per birth certificate, the UCBC Fund
would be permitted to contain additional federal, state, and
private moneys.
This bill would state that it is the intent of the Legislature
that UC implement the program when the Controller determines by
an unspecified date that at least an unspecified amount of
money, including both federal and private moneys and the fee
revenue collected pursuant to these provisions, is available in
the UCBC Fund. Since this provision indicates that the program
would need more funds than that provided by the fees in this
bill, there would be cost pressure in the hundreds of thousands
to millions of dollars annually in federal, private, and General
Funds to fund this program.
Additionally, this bill would provide that if the Controller has
not made a determination on or before an unspecified date that
an unspecified amount of money is available to implement the
program, the amount in the fund would be immediately distributed
to each private contributor or the federal government in the
amount contributed and that the UCBC Fund would cease to exist.
Staff recommends that this bill be amended to delete the
provisions regarding the unspecified amounts and dates mentioned
above and to provide that the moneys in the UCBC Fund be
available upon appropriation by the Legislature.