BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    �



                                                                  AB 1157
                                                                  Page  1

          Date of Hearing:   January 19, 2012

                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
                                Felipe Fuentes, Chair

                   AB 1157 (Nielsen) - As Amended:  March 31, 2011 

          Policy Committee:                              
          JudiciaryVote:10-0

          Urgency:     No                   State Mandated Local Program: 
          No     Reimbursable:               

           SUMMARY  

          This bill requires the Victims Compensation and Government 
          Claims Board to notify the chairpersons of the Appropriations 
          and Budget Committees in both houses, and the Chairperson of the 
          Joint Legislative Budget Committee at least 15 days prior to 
          allowing either (1) the use of a current year appropriation to 
          pay claims for prior year costs of $500,000 or more; or (2) 
          claims from a single provider of goods or services with respect 
          to a single department that exceeds $500,000.

           FISCAL EFFECT  

          Negligible fiscal impact for the board to provide the required 
          notifications.

           COMMENTS  

           1)Purpose  . According to the author, "? it has come to the 
            attention of those on the Budget Committee that certain 
            departments and agencies in California have circumvented 
            the appropriate budgetary process and have used the 
            Victims Compensation and Government Claims Board to 
            transfer funds.  As Vice-Chair of the Assembly Budget 
            Committee, I feel that this is not the appropriate venue 
            for such a transfer, as these requests should be made 
            through and by the Legislature.  It may turn out the 
            money appropriated by the Board to these departments was 
            used correctly, but there is no question that blindly 
            approving such a large claim to a department without any 
            questions asked is a serious breach of the Budget 
            process."








                                                                  AB 1157
                                                                  Page  2


           2)Prior Legislation  . The sole provision of this bill was 
            previously chaptered into law in late March 2011 as part 
            of SB 80, a budget trailer bill.  In late June 2011, 
            however, the another chaptered budget trailer bill (AB 
            119) included repeal of this provision. AB 1157 
            represents the author's renewed effort to put this 
            language back into law independent of budget 
            negotiations.

            According to staff at VCGCB, the practice of legislative 
            notification was implemented, pursuant to SB 80, during 
            the three month period this requirement was in effect 
            before being repealed.  In addition, according to staff, 
            the vast majority of claims made to the board do not fall 
            into the specified types of claims exceeding $500,000 
            covered by this bill.
           Analysis Prepared by  :    Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081