BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE GOVERNANCE & FINANCE COMMITTEE
Senator Lois Wolk, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1806 HEARING: 6/20/12
AUTHOR: Cook FISCAL: Yes
VERSION: 6/14/12 TAX LEVY: No
CONSULTANT: Weinberger
COUNTY PUBLIC ADMINISTRATORS AND VETERANS' REMAINS
Requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to maintain a
list of veterans and their dependents whose unclaimed
remains are identified and reported by county officials.
Background and Existing Law
State law establishes numerous county officers, including a
public administrator. A county public administrator
investigates and administers the estates of people who die
without a will, any known relatives, or any other qualified
person willing or able to administer their estates. A
public administrator must provide for the interment of a
deceased person's remains, if there are no other qualified
individuals, as specified in state law, who are available
to assume that duty.
A county board of supervisors may appoint a county veterans
service officer (CVSO) to administer specified veterans'
benefits and to perform any other veteran related services
as requested by the county board of supervisors (AB 3016,
Conroy, 1992). A CVSO must be a United States military
veteran.
Each county board of supervisors must designate an
honorably discharged United States military veteran or a
member of a veterans' remains organization (VRO) to be
responsible for interring the body of any qualified
indigent, abandoned, or unclaimed veteran or veterans'
dependents. State law defines a VRO as an entity,
including the entity's members and employees, recognized by
the Veterans Administration and the National Personnel
Records Center as an organization authorized to verify and
inter unclaimed cremated remains of American veterans. To
facilitate the proper interment of veterans' remains, the
Legislature authorized a VRO to take possession of
AB 1806 -- 6/14/12 -- Page 2
unclaimed remains in the possession of a cemetery
corporation or other entity, subject to specified
conditions, for the purpose of interment (AB 1644, Nielsen,
2010).
To make it easier for VROs to identify unclaimed remains
that need proper interment, veterans' advocates want the
Legislature to require the California Department of
Veterans Affairs to maintain a list of unclaimed remains of
veterans and veterans' dependents identified by county
officials.
Proposed Law
Assembly Bill 1806 requires a county public administrator
to make every reasonable effort to determine if the
unclaimed remains of an individual in the possession of the
county coroner belong to a veteran or a veteran's
dependent. If there is reason to believe that the remains
belong to a veteran or a veteran's dependent, AB 1806
requires the public administrator to work with the county
veteran service officer (CVSO), a national veterans
cemetery, the United States Social Security Administration,
the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, or other
applicable entity to determine if the remains belong to a
veteran or a veteran's dependent.
AB 1806 requires a CVSO who determines that unclaimed
remains are those of a veteran or a veteran's dependent,
and that the remains meet the criteria for interment by a
veterans' remains organization pursuant to state law, to
report the following information to the Department of
Veterans Affairs:
The name, rank, and branch of service of the
deceased or, if the deceased is the dependent of a
veteran, the name of the deceased and the name, rank,
and branch of service of the eligible veteran.
Dates of service.
Location of the remains and a telephone number and
name for the contact at that location.
If a county public administrator determines, without the
involvement of the CVSO, that the remains belong to a
veteran or dependent of a veteran, AB 1806 requires the
public administrator to report this information to the
CVSO, who must report the information listed above to the
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Department of Veterans Affairs.
AB 1806 requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to
create and maintain a list of veterans and veterans'
dependents whose remains are reported by CVSOs. The bill
requires this list to be available to the representatives
of veterans' remains organizations by telephone or in
person.
The bill updates references to the federal Veterans
Administration by referencing the United States Department
of Veterans Affairs.
State Revenue Impact
No estimate.
Comments
1. Purpose of the bill . The right to a decent burial is a
long-standing principle of common law. Federal and state
law honor military service by providing qualified veterans,
and their dependents, with specified burial benefits.
Unfortunately, when a veteran dies without any relatives or
others responsible for properly interring the remains, that
veteran may not receive the military burial to which he or
she is entitled. Some volunteer veterans' organizations
are working to locate and properly bury the unclaimed
remains of veterans. Requiring local officials to report
unclaimed veterans remains to the State Department of
Veterans Affairs for inclusion on a statewide list of
unclaimed remains will ease the work of these VROs. By
imposing modest new duties on county and state officials,
AB 1806 advances the laudable goal of locating,
identifying, and honorably interring the unclaimed remains
of veterans' and their dependents.
2. Too narrow ? AB 1806's provisions only apply to remains
that are in the possession of the county coroner. State
law requires a coroner to investigate only those deaths
that meet specified criteria. However, county public
administrators often are responsible for unclaimed remains
that are not in the county coroner's possession. The
unclaimed cremated remains of a person who died of natural
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causes while under a physician's care at a nursing home,
for example, could become a county public administrator's
responsibility without involving the county coroner. By
limiting its scope only to remains in the coroner's
possession, AB 1806 may provide the Department of Veterans
Affairs with incomplete information about all of the
unclaimed remains of veterans, and veterans' dependents,
that county officials identify. The Committee may wish to
consider amending AB 1806 to apply the bill's provisions to
all unclaimed remains that are identified by county public
administrators as belonging to a veteran or a veteran's
dependent.
3. Mandate . The California Constitution requires the
state government to reimburse the costs of new or expanded
state mandated local programs. Legislative Counsel says
that AB 1806 creates a new state mandated local program by
increasing county officials' duties. Section 5 of the bill
requires the state to reimburse any costs identified by the
Commission on State Mandates.
4. Double-referral . Because AB 1806 imposes requirements
on county officials relating to unclaimed veterans'
remains, the Senate Rules Committee double-referred AB
1806, first to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and
then to the Senate Governance & Finance Committee. On June
12, the bill passed out of Senate Veterans Affairs
Committee on a 7-0 vote.
Assembly Actions
Assembly Veterans Affairs Committee: 8-0
Assembly Appropriations Committee:17-0
Assembly Floor: 75-0
Support and Opposition (6/14/12)
Support : American Legion, Department of California; AMVETS,
Department of California; California Association of County
Veteran Service Officers; California Sate Commanders
Veterans Council; Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United
States, Department of California; Vietnam Veterans of
America, California State Council.
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Opposition : Unknown.