BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2143
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Date of Hearing: April 28, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2143 (Gilmore) - As Amended: April 27, 2010
Policy Committee: Veterans
AffairVote: 7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill establishes a new division within the Department of
Veterans Affairs (DVA) to coordinate and administer veterans'
assistance programs. Specifically, this bill establishes the
California Veterans Services and Workforce Development Division
to:
1)Coordinate with other state agencies providing benefits and
assistance to veterans to ensure that information about all
veterans services are made available to these agencies.
2)Administer the Transitional Assistance Program (TAP) and the
Disabled Veterans Outreach Program (DVOP), and oversee Local
Veteran Employment Representatives (LVERs), and, working with
staff from the Employment Development Department (EDD),
develop a plan transfer responsibility for TAP and DVOP
administration from EDD to the new division.
3)Ensure that other state agencies are informed of changes to
existing veterans services programs or the establishment of
any new programs, and that those same agencies report any
changes or new programs to the division.
4)Collaborate with other state agencies with regard to the
provision of veterans services.
The bill also requires that administrative and support staff
responsible for DVOP, TAP, and LVERs be transferred from EDD to
the new division.
FISCAL EFFECT
AB 2143
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1)The DVA will incur one-time administrative costs, probably in
the low hundreds of thousands of dollars, to establish and
organize the new division and transition the specified
programs and staff from EDD to the new division, and ongoing
costs of around $150,000 to coordinate and collaborate with
other state agencies providing veterans services.
2)At the time of this analysis, EDD had not determined it fiscal
impacts. The department would likely incur some one-time
transition costs associated with the relocation of staff and
programs to the DVA. There are approximately 180
federally-funded positions at EDD involved in the impacted
programs.
COMMENTS
Background and Purpose . The genesis for this bill is the
success of the Texas model for providing veterans benefits. In
2005, the Texas veteran workforce program ranked 32nd in the
nation in veteran employment and retention. The following year,
legislation was enacted to transfer the program from the Texas
Workforce Commission (TWC) to the Texas Veterans Commission
(TVC), which provided more focus on-site in the delivery of
veterans services. Today, Texas is considered to have one of the
strongest veteran workforce and job training programs in the
nation. By the end of 2007, Texas' veteran employment retention
had risen from 32% to 86%--11th best among state programs.
Also, Texas had increased the percentage of veterans receiving
benefits to 16.1%. (Only 12.3% of California veterans receive
benefits.)
Analysis Prepared by : Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081