BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1561 (Monning)
Hearing Date: 8/17/2009 Amended: 6/26/2009
Consultant: Bob Franzoia Policy Vote: L&IR 5-1
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 1561 would specify that a place of employment
may be deemed dangerous because a particular machine, device,
apparatus, or piece of equipment, as well as a condition or
practice in a place of employment, constitutes an imminent
hazard to employees. This bill would require the Division of
Occupational Health and Safety (DOSH) within the Department of
Industrial Relations to collaborate with the Occupational Safety
and Health Appeals Board to prepare an annually report by March
1 of each year analyzing the outcomes of citations and other
notifications to employers during the immediately prior calendar
year.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
Report $75 annually Special*
Enforcement Minor, likely absorbable costs
ongoingSpecial*
* Occupational Safety and Health Fund
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STAFF COMMENTS: Current law requires DOSH, when it decides that
a place of employment or equipment constitutes an imminent
hazard to employees, to prohibit entry to the workplace or use
of the machine or equipment. This bill would specify that DOSH
may deem a place of employment as dangerous because a particular
machine, device, apparatus, or piece of equipment, as well as a
condition or practice in a place of employment, constitutes an
imminent hazard to employees. This is a clarification and
reflects the current DOSH enforcement practice.
As part of the state government trailer bill Chapter 12 /2009
(AB 12x4, Evans), the Director of Industrial Relations would be
authorized to levy a separate surcharge upon all employers, as
defined, for the purposes of deposit in the newly created
Occupational Safety and Health Fund. Chapter 12 requires that
the total amount of the surcharges be allocated between
employers in proportion to payroll respectively paid in the most
recent year for which payroll information is available. The
surcharge levied shall not exceed $52,000,000 in the 2009-10,
adjusted for as appropriate to reconcile any over/under
assessments from previous fiscal years, and shall not be
adjusted each year thereafter by more than the state-local
government deflator. The cap of $52,000,000 represents the
amount expended by the DOSH in 2008-09 for the enforcement of
workplace health and safety standards. With this cap, the DOSH
will be forced to begin prioritizing enforcement activities if
enforcement duties and costs exceed the cap as adjusted by the
deflator. For 2009-10, the deflator was 0.003 percent. For
2010-11, deflator is estimated to increase to 0.014 for an
increase of $728,000 in additional enforcement funding.