BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1828
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Date of Hearing: April 14, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1828 (Cook) - As Introduced: February 11, 2010
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 6-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill re-establishes the Commission on Peace Officer
Standards and Training (CPOST) to reclaim responsibility for
developing and monitoring training for correctional peace
officers from the Corrections Standards Authority (CSA), which
assumed this responsibility following the reorganization of the
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in 2005.
This bill does not change current law related to training, other
than reconstituting CPOST and substituting CPOST for CSA in the
sections of law related to correctional officer training. This
bill also adds a member and specifies how this member will be
selected. Specifically, this bill:
1)Specifies the first six members of the executive CPOST board
would be composed of six voting members: three appointed by,
and representing the management of, CDCR, and three appointed
by, and representing the membership of the CA Correctional
Peace Officers Association (CCPOA). This is the same
membership configuration used prior to 2005.
2)Requires the seventh, and potentially tie-breaking member, to
be a person with at least five years experience in a higher
education environment related to corrections or employee
training. This member would be selected in a rochambeau-like
process in which the three members representing management and
the three members representing CCPOA each nominate five
persons as the seventh member.
The management members and CCPOA members would take turns
striking names from the list of 10 nominees. The striking
order would be determined by lot. The last name remaining
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would be the seventh member and serve a term of three years.
Six months prior to expiration of the seventh member's term,
the six would decide whether to extend the term of the seventh
for an additional term of three years. If the six fail to
extend the seventh by majority vote, the seventh would be
replaced with a new member selected via the last-person
standing process described above.
FISCAL EFFECT
To the extent sufficient funds are shifted from CSA to support
CPOST, the net cost could be minimal. To the extent economies of
scale are lost, however, by creating a new entity with a more
singular mission from a large entity with a broader mission,
costs will likely increase by at least several hundred thousand
dollars. Increased costs are likely, particularly if the
proposed budget addresses the recommendations of the Office of
the Inspector General, which recommended increased funding and a
dedicated executive director position.
Prior to being abolished, the CPOST budget was reduced from
about $2.3 million in 2001 to about $1.3 million in its final
year, while the amount budgeted for state corrections standards
and training for 2010-2011 is $705,000.
The bill is silent on funding.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author and sponsor, the CA Correctional Peace
Officers Association, (CCPOA) contend that since
responsibility for developing and monitoring training shifted
from CPOST to CSA in 2005, quality and standards have
deteriorated. The sponsor suggests that since training is but
one of many responsibilities of CSA, it would be more
effective to return this responsibility to CPOST, whose focus
is solely on training issues.
CPOST was created in 1994 (SB 1902, Peace) and abolished in
2005 when training responsibility was transferred to CSA,
which itself was restructured from the former Board of
Corrections in the 2005 reorganization of the departments
under the former Youth and Adult Correctional Agency. In 2004,
the Corrections Independent Review Panel (IRP) under the
direction of former Gov. George Deukmekjian, recommended CPOST
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be eliminated and its function and funding be consolidated
within the CSA.
2)The CSA is a 19-member board with an $80 million budget with
broad responsibilities over state and local corrections,
including developing and monitoring standards for local youth
and adult correctional facilities; reviewing architectural
plans for local detention facilities; establishing recruitment
and training standards for local corrections personnel;
administering funds for the construction or renovation of
local detention facilities; and administering state-funded
local corrections programs.
3)Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports broadly
criticized CPOST and CSA . In 2005 OIG stated that since its
inception CPOST has made only minimal progress in developing
correctional peace officer training standards. The review
found that the commission developed training standards for
only 7 of the 27 correctional peace officer classifications
for which it is responsible and that it had yet to approve any
of the standards that had been developed.
The review also noted that the apprenticeship program lacked
key components essential to an apprenticeship program and was
threatened with decertification for non-compliance with state
and federal standards. The OIG found that CPOST's board had
not met for nearly a year, and had inadequately monitored
compliance with the few general curriculum standards that
already existed.
The OIG stated that CPOST's independence "had been undermined
by the influence of both the Youth and Adult Correctional
Agency and CCPOA, and that the commission's membership
structure was causing institutional paralysis because of
consistent voting deadlocks between management and
rank-and-file, caused by the even split between management and
rank-and-file representatives.
In a 2006 follow-up report, the OIG criticized CSA's response
to deficiencies identified by the OIG in 2005: "Most of the
recommendations from a 2005 special review of the former CPOST
have not been implemented. The CSA has made limited progress
toward developing selection and training standards for
correctional peace officers, and (CDCR's) Office of Training
and Professional Development has not yet implemented
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recommendations pertaining to the correctional peace officer
apprenticeship program.
4)OIG criticisms and recommendations are not resolved simply by
switching responsibilities back to CPOST . Among the
recommendations offered by the OIG:
a) Provide the resources necessary to develop and monitor
training standards.
b) Resolve the voting stalemate by revising the "perpetual
stalemate."
c) Recruit and appoint an independent executive director to
provide leadership.
5)Related Legislation .
a) SB 441 (Ducheny), 2009, establishes the Board of
Community Corrections to replace the Board of Corrections
and CSA, and re-establishes CPOST in a fashion similar to
AB 1828. SB 441 is pending in this committee.
b) AB 890 (Aghazarian), 2007), which was identical to AB
1828, was held on the Senate Appropriations' Suspense File.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081