BILL ANALYSIS
SB 106
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Date of Hearing: June 17, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
SB 106 (Senate Committee on Local Government) - As Introduced:
January 27, 2009
SENATE VOTE : 33-0
SUBJECT : Local agencies: ethics training
SUMMARY : Makes changes and clarifications to the list of local
agencies whose officials must receive ethics training.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Adds community college districts, county boards of education,
and school districts to the definition of local agencies,
whose legislative body members, elected officials, or locally
designated employees must receive ethics training if that
agency provides any compensation or reimbursement to a member
of the agency's legislative body.
2)Requires that each school district official in local agency
service as of January 1, 2010, except for those whose term of
office ends before January 1, 2011, receive ethics training
before January 1, 2011.
3)Requires, commencing January 1, 2011, that each school
district official receive ethics training at least once every
two years.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires any member of a local agency legislative body or any
elected official of a local agency who receives compensation,
and any designated local agency employee to receive two hours
of specified ethics training every two years.
2)Defines local agency to include a city, county, city and
county, charter city, charter county, charter city and county,
or special district.
3)Requires that the ethics training cover ethics principles and
relevant ethics laws.
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4)Allows local agencies or local government associations to
develop and offer ethics training courses (in person or
online) or self-study materials, in consultation with the
Attorney General and the Fair Political Practices Commission.
5)Requires training providers to give participants proof of
participation; also requires a local agency to annually inform
its local officials about available ethics training, and
maintain records about participation in the training.
FISCAL EFFECT : This bill is keyed non-fiscal; however, the
bill has been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee
for analysis of potential fiscal effects.
COMMENTS : Ethics training currently required for local agency
officials includes, but is not limited to, training in the area
of laws related to personal financial gain by public servants,
the prohibition of bribery, conflict-of-interest, the claiming
of perquisites of office, acceptance of gifts, travel
restrictions, prohibitions against the use of public resources
for personal or political purposes, prohibitions against, gifts
of public funds, mass mailing restrictions, prohibitions against
acceptance of free or discounted transportation by
transportation companies, government transparency, financial
interest disclosure requirements, open government, fair
processes, common law bias prohibitions, due process
requirements, incompatible offices, competitive bidding
requirements for public contracts, and disqualification from
participation in decisions affecting family members. However,
the requirement for training in these areas does not explicitly
apply to local agency officials in community college districts,
county boards of education, or school districts. This measure
clarifies existing law to ensure that these provisions apply to
legislative body members, elected officials, and locally
designated employees in those local agencies.
According to the Senate Committee on Local Government, the
author of this bill, "The public values honest government. And
good government relies on the support of the governed.
Government leaders earn their constituents' trust by acting in
the public interest and behaving with integrity. But the
public's trust in our representative democracy is fragile; even
small ethical lapses can swiftly undermine confidence in public
institutions." Continuing, the author states that, "Without
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ethics training, school officials may not be fully aware of
their responsibilities under the state's ethics laws."
In 2007, the Bakersfield Californian conducted a survey of a
number of "school districts in Kern County to determine how
elected trustees were filling out their state-mandated financial
disclosure forms." The newspaper was prompted to conduct this
survey as a result of a controversy that developed over a
Bakersfield City Councilmember's failure to make a full
financial disclosure, as required by state law, during his
tenure on the City Council as well as during 14 years of service
on a local school district governing board. The survey found
"that many school districts and elected trustees are lax in
making the mandated disclosures. After all, no one challenged
[the Councilmember's] filings until he was elected to the
council, where his actions received more public scrutiny. Those
elected or appointed to serve on less visible boards and
commissions may ignore the many laws that dictate how government
officials must behave, or simply are ignorant of them." The
Californian also concluded that, "School trustees make decisions
that affect the educations of our children and the spending of
millions of our tax dollars. The risk of self-serving abuse of
power is just as great on a school board as it is on any local
government board or commission."
In support of this bill, it can be argued that local educational
agency (LEA) officials should be held to the same standards as
other local government officials. Just as LEAs must follow open
meeting laws, the Public Records Act, and the Political Reform
Act, so should they also be held to the same ethics training
requirements as in cities, counties, and special districts. In
the same vein, LEAs are defined as local governmental entities
for many purposes in state law (e.g., the reimbursement of state
mandated local costs), so it again follows that ethics training
requirements on LEA officials should parallel those for other
local agencies. For purposes of parity and consistency, LEAs
should be held accountable to the same ethics training
requirement as other local governments.
Arguments in opposition would focus on the issue of local
control. The governing boards of many LEAs currently require
participation, or have board members and other officials that
voluntarily participate, in ethics training. Since LEAs are
autonomous, local governmental entities, this bill can be seen
as an attempt by the state to assume control over a traditional
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responsibility of local government. However, the state's
interest in public education, both in terms of programmatic
influence and the provision of resources, has increased
dramatically over the last thirty-five years; this interest can
be better protected by uniform requirements for ethics training
across all educational and non-educational local agencies.
It should be noted that this bill proposes to extend the
existing requirement for ethics training to county boards of
education, as well as to community college districts and school
districts; the bill does not extend this requirement to county
offices of education or county superintendents of schools. Any
policy argument that can be made to support ethics training for
governing board members and other local agency officials in
community college districts, county boards of education and
school districts, can also be made to support the application of
this requirement to county offices of education (COEs) and the
county superintendents of schools that administer those COEs;
there is no policy argument for excluding COEs and county
superintendents from the ethics training requirement once that
requirement is extended to other LEAs. In addition, the failure
to extend this requirement to COEs also creates an inequity in
that a small number of county superintendents may be required to
undergo ethics training, while others will not. Because of
historical differences across counties, a small number of COEs
are administered by a county superintendent of schools that is
appointed by the county board of education or administered by a
county superintendent that simultaneously serves as the
superintendent of a school district (e.g., a county with a
single school district). Since this bill extends the training
requirement to designated employees of a county board of
education or a school district, these county superintendents may
be required to receive ethics training; at the same time,
elected county superintendents who do not also serve as district
superintendents would not be required to receive training.
In order to further expand the benefits generated by this bill
and eliminate the inequity that exists in current law, the
Committee could also consider extending the requirement for
ethics training to COEs and county superintendents of schools.
There are, however, two problems that would arise from this
amendment. First, the extension of this requirement to COEs and
county superintendents of schools would create a clear
reimbursable state mandated local cost, even though the bill as
currently written is keyed non-fiscal. Second, this amendment
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would require additional technical changes to current law to
authorize a non-governing board elected official (e.g., a county
superintendent of schools) to designate other local agency
officials to receive ethics training. Neither of these issues
precludes an amendment that extends the requirement for ethics
training to COEs and county superintendents of schools; however,
Committee staff recommends that these issues be considered at a
later date by the Committee, along with the possibility of
including this additional change in future legislation.
Committee Amendments: The bill suffers from a technical
oversight in that the transitional timing proposed in this bill
to bring current local agency officials into compliance with the
ethics training requirement is only applied to school districts.
Committee staff recommends that this transitional timing also
be applied to local agency officials in community college
districts and county boards of education in order to conform
with other sections of this bill.
Previous legislation: SB 76 (Florez), held in Assembly
Appropriations in 2007, was substantially similar to this bill.
AB 1234 (Salinas), Chapter 700, Statutes of 2005, established
existing law and clarified the rules pertaining to compensation
to members of a local government legislative body for attendance
at authorized meetings and conferences by requiring the
establishment of guidelines for reimbursement of members of a
local government legislative body for actual and necessary
expenses incurred in the performance of official duties. This
bill also established provisions for ethics training for local
government officials and designated employees.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
AFL-CIO
California School Boards Association
Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087
SB 106
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