BILL ANALYSIS
AB 424
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Date of Hearing: January 21, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 424 (Torres) - As Amended: January 13, 2010
Policy Committee: Business and
Professions Vote: 7 - 4
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill requires the office of the state Chief Information
Officer (CIO) to develop and implement a public education
campaign to instruct the public on appropriate and inappropriate
uses of the 911 system.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)One-time costs in the range of $1 million special fund for
consulting services to develop the media campaign. (State
Emergency Telephone Number Account)
2)On-going special fund costs in the range of $2 million to $4
million for a statewide public information campaign, including
television and print media. (State Emergency Telephone Number
Account)
Recent statewide campaigns of this kind have ranged from $5
million to $15 million for BabyCal and tobacco prevention
media campaigns. BabyCal communicated the importance of early
and ongoing prenatal care, practicing healthy behavior during
pregnancy, and the availability of state programs that can
help pay for prenatal services. Various statewide tobacco
education and prevention campaigns funded by Proposition 99
have been conducted in recent years. The most recent tobacco
prevention campaign exceeded $15 million.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to the author, her experience as a 911
operator has shown that many wireless phone users do not
AB 424
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understand their emergency call using a wireless handset may
not provide a dispatcher with the caller's location
automatically and that the caller will have to tell the
dispatcher where they are calling from. "Knowing the
capability of the phone [service] to provide location
automatically is crucial, often life-saving information for
the caller and for the dispatcher."
2)Background . On May 10, 2009, the Governor's Information
Technology Reorganization Plan consolidated statewide
information technology functions under CIO. The Department of
General Services Telecommunications Division became the Public
Safety Communications Division within the CIO.
3)State Emergency Telephone Number Account . This account was
created to fund the costs of planning and implementing the
"911" emergency telephone system. The uses for the fund
include payments to service suppliers or communications
equipment companies for installation and ongoing
communications services supplied local agencies in connection
with the "911" emergency phone system. The fund also pays for
the administrative costs of the Public Safety Communications
Division within the office of the CIO and the administrative
costs of incurred by State Board of Equalization in making
payments to local agencies for approved incremental costs.
Funding for this account comes from a surcharge on both
intrastate telephone calls and emergency calls. According to
the governor's 2009-2010 budget proposal, approximately
one-half of the $250 million in the fund will be spent during
2009-2010 and the fund will maintain a reserve of $125
million.
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081