BILL ANALYSIS
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1585|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1585
Author: Assembly Accountability & Administrative Review
Committee
Amended: 1/6/10 in Senate
Vote: 27 - Urgency
SENATE GOVERNMENTAL ORG. COMMITTEE : 9-0, 1/12/10
AYES: Wright, Calderon, Denham, Florez, Negrete McLeod,
Oropeza, Padilla, Price, Wyland
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 77-0, 9/2/09 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : State government: reporting requirements
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill deletes hundreds of obsolete reports
and revises the procedure for mandatory reporting
requirements by state agencies.
ANALYSIS : Existing law requires or requests various
state and local agencies to submit reports on specified
topics to the Legislature, the Governor, or both.
Existing law requires a report that is to be made to the
members of either house of the Legislature to instead be
submitted to the Legislative Counsel, the Secretary of the
Senate, and Chief Clerk of the Assembly and a hard copy
CONTINUED
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summary sent to each member of the Legislature.
Each of these reports is required to include a summary of
its contents, which the Legislative Counsel is required to
provide to each member of the appropriate house of the
Legislature.
Existing law also requires the Legislative Counsel to
prepare and publish a list of all the reports that state
and local agencies are required to submit, and upon
request, to provide aid and assistance to any member of the
Legislature with respect to a bill, resolution, or measure,
including drafting a bill into its proper form.
This bill:
1.Provides that any bill introduced or amended in either
house of the Legislature requiring a state agency to
submit a report on any subject to either house of the
Legislature, a committee or office of either house of the
Legislature, or Legislative Counsel must include a
provision repealing or making inoperative the operating
requirement no later than a date four years following the
operative date of the bill or four years after the date
of any report required every four or more years.
(Reports are due on different schedules [e.g., two,
three, four or even five and ten year cycles]. This
sunset requirement is intended to ensure that a report
due, for example, every five years will not be repealed
until four or more years after the due date in order to
provide ample time to effect obtaining the information
via budget or legislative means.
2.Requires Legislative Counsel, in drafting a bill that
imposes a reporting requirement to include a provision
that repeals or makes obsolete the reporting requirement,
four years after the date on which the requirement
becomes operative, unless the person requesting the bill
or amendment directs Legislative Counsel to do otherwise,
as specified.
3.Modifies an existing provision of law that requires
Legislative Counsel to prepare and publish annually a
list of all reports that state and local agencies are
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required or requested by law to prepare and file with the
Governor or the Legislature to, instead, require
Legislative Counsel to annually prepare and maintain an
"electronic list" (list) of all such reports, including
updating the list by removing obsolete or duplicate
reports, as directed by this bill, or a subsequent
statute that further requires Legislative Counsel to
remove reports included in the list.
4.Provides that any report required or requested by law to
be submitted by a state or local agency to the members of
either house of the Legislature must, instead, be
submitted as a printed copy to Legislative Counsel and to
both the Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Clerk of
the Assembly as "electronic copies." Also requires an
agency to provide a one-page electronic summary directly
to each m ember of the Legislature rather than a full
copy now that reports are available electronically.
5.Declares that the requirement to delete a report pursuant
to this bill shall not prohibit Legislative Counsel from
including the report on a future publication of the list,
if the report is required by law to be listed.
6.Defines "obsolete report" to mean a report that has not
been completed and filed and for which the date that
report was required to be completed and filed was four or
more years after the initial report is submitted.
7.Authorizes Legislative Counsel to direct public inquiries
for reports to the appropriate state agency or to the
California State Library as the final repository of
public information.
8.Contains a listing of existing reports, as specified,
identified as obsolete to be deleted by Legislative
Counsel.
Comments
According to the Senate Governmental Organization Committee
analysis, this bill (1) deletes nearly 1,500 obsolete
reporting requirements from the list of over 2,800 reports
maintained by Legislative Counsel, (2) revises the method
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for receiving and cataloging mandated reports, and (3)
requires any new report requirement to include a sunset
date, as specified. More than 160 government entities,
including commissions and boards, are included in this
bill. This bill is a result of a hearing held by the
Assembly Accountability and Administrative Review Committee
in February of 2009, examining reporting requirements of
state agencies and compliance in fulfilling those
requirements.
At the time of the hearing, the Committee noted that there
were nearly 3,000 mandated reported due to the Legislative
Counsel site. As a result of the Committee's review, staff
discovered that reports had been completed and submitted in
accordance with the law, yet Legislative Counsel had no
record. The Committee also found reports that were
deferred during funding moratoriums listed as due.
Additionally, the Committee found duplicate listings for
the same reports. Furthermore, the Committee encountered
reports listed as due annually that have not been done for
years because the program is no longer in existence or it
is not funded, or the responsible department knows it is no
longer wanted but the requirement remains so they are doing
the reports.
An example of an obsolete report is one required annually
by the Secretary of State to report to the Governor
disclosing all expenditures and activities from the
previous year. The last time the report was completed was
in 1936 and it lists the number of reams of colored voting
paper purchased, and other elements no longer considered
relevant. There are also reports still required relative
to Y2K. There are reports still required relative to the
1976 spike in gas prices.
The Committee estimates a savings of $5 - $8 million that
can be redirected into the core mission of the affected
agencies.
NOTE: Please refer to the Senate Governmental Organization
Committee
analysis for additional information regarding
this subject.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Adams, Ammiano, Anderson, Arambula, Beall, Bill
Berryhill, Tom Berryhill, Blakeslee, Block, Blumenfield,
Brownley, Caballero, Charles Calderon, Carter, Chesbro,
Conway, Cook, Coto, Davis, De La Torre, De Leon, DeVore,
Duvall, Emmerson, Eng, Evans, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong,
Fuentes, Fuller, Furutani, Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick,
Gilmore, Hagman, Harkey, Hayashi, Hernandez, Hill, Huber,
Huffman, Jeffries, Jones, Knight, Krekorian, Lieu, Logue,
Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mendoza, Miller, Monning, Nava,
Nestande, Niello, Nielsen, John A. Perez, V. Manuel
Perez, Portantino, Ruskin, Salas, Saldana, Silva,
Skinner, Smyth, Solorio, Audra Strickland, Swanson,
Torlakson, Torres, Torrico, Tran, Villines, Yamada, Bass
NO VOTE RECORDED: Buchanan, Hall, Vacancy
TSM:cm 1/20/10 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: NONE RECEIVED
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