BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1873
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Date of Hearing: April 11, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Cameron Smyth, Chair
AB 1873 (Galgiani) - As Amended: March 27, 2012
SUBJECT : County costs: mutual aid: reimbursement.
SUMMARY : Appropriates $90,000 from the state's General Fund to
the Counties of San Joaquin and Calaveras to reimburse costs
incurred for assistance provided by outside agencies that
offered mutual aid during the 2012 excavation and recovery of
victims of a serial killing. Specifically, this bill :
1)Appropriates $90,000 from the state's General Fund to the
Counties of San Joaquin and Calaveras for reimbursement
related to the costs incurred during 2012 for the excavation
and recovery of victims of a serial killing and costs incurred
for assistance provided by outside agencies that offered
mutual aid.
2)Makes findings and declarations about the serial killings in
the Counties of San Joaquin and Calaveras and the assistance
those counties have received from other agencies offering
mutual aid to help recover additional evidence.
3)Declares that this bill is an urgency statute necessary for
the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and
safety because of the fiscal assistance urgently needed by the
Counties of San Joaquin and Calaveras, and will take effect
immediately.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Creates the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA)
for the coordination of overall state agency response to major
disasters in support of local government and for homeland
security activities throughout the state.
2)Authorizes the Governor, with the advice of Cal EMA, to divide
the state into mutual aid regions for the more effective
application, administration, and coordination of mutual aid
and other emergency-related activities.
3)Allows cities and counties to create disaster councils by
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ordinance in order to develop plans for meeting any condition
constituting a local emergency or state of emergency,
including, but not limited to, earthquakes, natural or manmade
disasters specific to that jurisdiction, or state of war
emergency.
4)Allows cities and counties to enact ordinances and resolutions
and either establish rules and regulations or authorize
disaster councils to recommend to the director of the local
emergency organization rules and regulations for dealing with
local emergencies that can be dealt with locally.
5)Allows cities and counties to act to carry out mutual aid on a
voluntary basis and enter into agreements.
6)Allows a governing body of a city or county to proclaim a
local emergency and provides that the governing body must
review the need for continuing the local emergency at least
once every 30 days until the governing body terminates the
local emergency.
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7)Creates the California Disaster Assistance Act.
8)Defines, for purposes of the Act, the term "disaster" to mean
a fire, flood, storm, tidal wave, earthquake, terrorism,
epidemic, or other similar public calamity that the Governor
determines presents a threat to public safety.
9)Defines, for purposes of the Act, the term "project" to mean
the repair or restoration, or both, other than normal
maintenance, or the replacement of, real property of a local
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agency used for essential governmental services, including,
but not limited to, buildings, levees, flood control works,
channels, irrigation works, city streets, county roads,
bridges, and other public works, that are damaged or destroyed
by a disaster, and includes activities and expenses specified
under 10a), 10c), 10d) and 10e) below.
10)Provides for reimbursement of local agency and state costs
under the Act as follows:
a) Local agency personnel costs, equipment costs and the
costs of supplies and materials used during disaster
response activities, incurred as a result of a state of
emergency proclaimed by the Governor, excluding the normal
hourly wage costs of employees engaged in emergency work
activities;
b) To repair, restore, reconstruct, or replace facilities
belonging to local agencies damaged as a result of
disasters as specified;
c) Matching fund assistance for cost sharing required under
federal disaster assistance programs, as otherwise eligible
under the Act;
d) Indirect administrative costs and any other assistance
deemed necessary by the director; and,
e) Necessary and required site preparation costs for
mobilehomes, travel trailers, and other manufactured
housing units provided and operated by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
11)Provides, for purposes of the Act, for any eligible project
the state share shall amount to no more than 75% of total
state eligible costs.
12)Provides, for purposes of the Act, in spite of 11) above,
that the state share shall be up to 100% of total state
eligible costs connected with specified disasters.
13)Defines, through state regulations, the term "mutual aid" to
mean "voluntary aid and assistance provided by one
jurisdiction to another, consisting of the provision of
services and facilities, including fire, police, medical, and
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health, communication, transportation, and utilities."
14)Provides, through state regulations, that the intent of
mutual aid is "to provide adequate resources, facilities, and
other support to jurisdictions whenever their own resource
prove inadequate to cope with a given situation.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill is keyed fiscal.
COMMENTS :
1)In 1970 the Legislature passed the California Emergency
Services Act, partly to mitigate the effects of natural,
manmade, or war-caused emergencies that result in conditions
of disaster or extreme peril to life, property, and the
state's resources. The purpose of the Emergency Services Act
is to ensure that the state and its political subdivisions,
such as cities, counties, districts, and local governmental
agencies, as well as the federal government, other states, and
private agencies, coordinate their emergency services
functions to deal with any emergency that may occur.
In 2008, the Act was amended to establish the California
Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA) and on January 1, 2009,
Cal EMA became the entity responsible for the state's
emergency and disaster response services, including activities
necessary to prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate
the effects of emergencies and disasters on people and
property.
2)At the heart of California's mutual aid system is the master
mutual aid agreement signed by Governor Earl Warren on
November 15, 1950, which was entered into by and between the
State and its departments and agencies and the various
political subdivisions, municipal corporations, and other
public agencies within the State.
Mutual aid is the voluntary sharing of personnel and resources
when an agency cannot deploy its own resources sufficiently to
respond to an unusual occurrence. Resources are requested by
the affected agency through a system established by the Master
Mutual Aid Agreement and Emergency Services Act, which can
then be executed on a local, countywide, regional, statewide,
or interstate basis, as needed.
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According to the Cal EMA, a Master Mutual Aid agreement has
been adopted by most cities and all 58 counties in California.
This agreement creates a formal structure within which each
jurisdiction retains control of its own personnel and
facilities, while giving and receiving help whenever it is
needed. The state is a signatory to this agreement and
provides available resources to assist local jurisdictions in
emergencies. California is divided into seven mutual aid
regions in order to apply, administer and coordinate mutual
aid.
Generally speaking, there is no reimbursement for providing
mutual aid. The agency receiving the mutual aid is
responsible for the care, feeding, and shelter of personnel
from those agencies that have responded and have volunteered
as mutual aid resources. In some instances, reimbursement for
costs related to mutual aid may be possible under state and
federal disaster declarations, otherwise, all mutual aid costs
are the responsibility of the individual agencies.
No jurisdiction is required to unnecessarily deplete its own
personnel, equipment and service capabilities in order to
furnish mutual aid resources. When an agency receives a
request to provide mutual aid, it is reasonable that the
response consist of up to 50% of available on-duty personnel.
3)According to Cal EMA, state agencies and local governments
sometimes enter into other mutual aid agreements that
stipulate that the responding agencies will provide mutual aid
without reimbursement for short periods, such as the first 12
or 24 hours of an emergency, and that the requesting agencies
must pay the responding agencies for any aid provided after
that time.
The Committee may wish to ask the author whether San Joaquin
or Calaveras Counties have any other agreements or MOUs with
neighboring agencies that specify reimbursement, and whether
those particular agencies assisted with the situation in these
counties.
4)This bill appropriates $90,000 from the state's General Fund
to the Counties of San Joaquin and Calaveras to reimburse
those counties for the costs they incurred during 2012 for the
excavation and recovery of victims of a serial killing and
costs incurred for assistance provided by outside agencies
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that offered mutual aid.
According to the author, in the 1980s and 90s the Central
Valley was terrorized by two men called the "Speed Freak
Killers." Numerous victims went missing from northern
California and throughout rural Central Valley prior to the
arrest of the two serial killers in 1999. One of the two men
is currently on death row, and in December 2011, he began
revealing information about the locations of homicide victims,
which then led investigators to burial sites containing an
unknown number of victims. The other killer, who was paroled
after serving his plea-bargained time, recently committed
suicide as a result of the new information that has surfaced
in the case.
The search and recovery effort occurred in a remote area in
Calaveras County and an abandoned well in a cattle pasture in
San Joaquin County. According to the author, the scope and
magnitude of this effort has extended far beyond what anyone
might have imagined and may lead to re-opening missing persons
cases in as many as 72 missing persons' cold cases filed in up
to 21 northern California counties.
The author notes that the United States Congress has granted
the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) authority to
investigate serial killings in accordance with federal law.
In the case of the "Speed Freak Killers" the FBI is assisting
the Sheriffs' Departments of Calaveras and San Joaquin
Counties with the investigation, search, and recovery effort
due to the need to continue the search of other sites, the
need to process the volume of remains and evidence being
recovered, and the need to communicate between multiple
jurisdictions.
5)A similar bill, AB 1863 (Chesbro), which is set for hearing on
April 11, 2012, also makes an appropriation from the state's
General Fund to reimburse Mendocino County for costs related
to providing mutual aid. Given that local agencies are
turning to the state in order to help with funding of mutual
aid costs, the Committee may wish to consider the following:
a) If the state is going to reimburse local agencies, what
kind of information does the state need to see in order to
ensure that the costs listed for mutual aid lodging and
food are appropriate and reasonable? There appears to be a
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lack of information in both situations about the breakdown
of costs and which agencies that provided mutual aid those
costs are attributable to.
b) Should there be a per-day cap on expenses for lodging
and food, and if so, should Cal EMA be responsible for
developing guidelines and developing the forms used by
local agencies to request reimbursement?
6)There have been previous legislative attempts at a setting up
a process for mutual aid costs related to housing and food to
be reimbursed by the state. In particular, there was a bill
in 1984 by Senator Campbell, SB 1935, that would have set up a
5-year pilot program and would have established a financial
assistance fund to provide law enforcement mutual aid
assistance to local agencies that provided or requested such
assistance. SB 1935 would have appropriated $1.5 million from
the General Fund to the "Law Enforcement Mutual Aid Financial
Assistance Fund" and would have provided for reimbursement for
the actual food, lodging, and transportation costs of the
assisting agency, not to exceed a specified per diem rate, and
would have also covered personnel costs of $240 per day of
each assisting employee. Under the provisions of SB 1935, the
State Controller would have made the payments to reimburse
local agencies for their costs.
A committee analyses of SB 1935 noted that "fiscal constraints
and increasing demands �were] severely impacting a local
jurisdiction's ability to participate in mutual aid."
Additionally the "lack of strong local participation in a
statewide mutual aid program could be seriously detrimental to
the well-being of the State of California as a whole." One of
the cons listed in the analysis of the bill notes that the
bill "would �have] established another level of bureaucracy
and increased state control over local governments" and would,
in effect "become a grant program giving the Office of
Emergency Services (OES) more control over local law
enforcement action."
Governor George Deukmejian vetoed SB 1935, with the following
message:
"I am concerned that in providing state reimbursement of local
law enforcement agencies for providing mutual aid we would
establish a precedent that represents a major restructuring of
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the current mutual aid concept, and could lead to an
expectation that the state should reimburse local
jurisdictions for all mutual aid services."
7)The Bureau of State Audits (BSA) recently released a report in
January 2012 focused on California's mutual aid system. The
Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC) directed BSA to
determine whether participation in the system by local and
regional agencies is viable given the economic stresses on
locally governed bodies throughout California, along with
direction to examine the reimbursement process by Cal EMA for
local agencies requesting reimbursement for resources provided
during an emergency response. Cal EMA, for the most part,
invoices for mutual aid provided under the California Fire
Assistance Agreement or other specific agreements and not
mutual aid provided under the California Disaster and Civil
Disaster Master Mutual Aid Agreement, which is generally
provided without reimbursement.
The audit found that a majority of the 15 local fire agencies
that BSA interviewed stated that they have not evaluated the
impact that providing mutual aid has on their budgets.
Moreover, the majority of these local fire agencies said that
they absorb in their operating budgets the costs of responding
to mutual aid requests. Similarly, the five local law
enforcement agencies BSA interviewed stated that they have not
evaluated the impact that fulfilling aid requests have on
their budgets.
8)The Committee may wish to consider whether the provisions of
this bill undermine the foundation of California's statewide
system of providing emergency mutual aid services. Mutual aid
agreements, by their very nature, are agreements based on
reciprocity - the agency that needs immediate help because of
a lack of resources can count on their neighboring, regional
or even state agencies to offer help, and in turn, that agency
will provide help in a reciprocal manner at a future date.
9)This bill is an urgency statute and requires a two thirds vote
of each house.
10)Support arguments : The California State Sheriffs'
Association notes that the situation in San Joaquin and
Calaveras Counties has resulted in an enormous amount of
additional staff and financial resources and this bill will
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ensure that those counties have the necessary financial
assistance to finish the investigation.
Opposition arguments : This bill may undermine the
long-standing history and nature of mutual aid agreements and
the underlying foundation of reciprocity. The bill's
provisions that reimburse mutual aid lodging and food costs
will set a precedent of requiring the state to bear these
costs.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California State Sheriffs' Association
Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC)
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Debbie Michel / L. GOV. / (916)
319-3958