BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 145 (Perea) - State Water Resources Control Board: drinking
water.
Amended: June 18, 2013 Policy Vote: EQ 7-0, Health 7-2
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: August 12, 2013 Consultant:
Marie Liu
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 145 would transfer all the authority, duties,
powers, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction for the
purposes of the California Safe Drinking Water Act and the Safe
Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SDWSRF) from the Department
of Public Health (DPH) to the State Water Resources Control
Board (SWRCB), effective FY 2014-15.
Fiscal Impact:
Unknown one-time costs, likely in the low millions of
dollars, from the General Fund and the SDWSRF for transfer
costs including relocation expenses, reclassification of
employees, and changes to information technology systems.
Unknown one-time costs, likely in the hundreds of
thousands of dollars from the General Fund for CalEPA and
HHS Agency to develop the project initiation documents for
the reorganization.
Unknown, but likely minimal, changes in on-going net costs
for the administration of the Drinking Water Program by the
SWRCB instead of DPH.
Background: The California Safe Drinking Water Act establishes
the Drinking Water Program (DWP) within the DPH to regulate
public drinking water systems under delegated authority from the
federal Environmental Protection Agency. The act also
establishes the SDWSRF which is continuously appropriated to DPH
to provide grants and revolving fund loans for the design and
construction of projects for public water systems that will
enable suppliers to meet safe drinking water standards.
Proposed Law: This bill would establish the Division of Drinking
Water Quality (division) within the SWRCB. The division would be
AB 145 (Perea)
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charged with all authorities, duties, powers, purposes,
responsibilities, and jurisdiction that are currently vested
with DPH under the DWP, including the SDWSRF. This transfer
would be required to be implemented during the 2014-15 fiscal
year.
This bill would require the California Environmental Protection
Agency (CalEPA), in consultation with the California Health and
Human Services (HHS) Agency, to prepare a project initiation
document for the transfer of the DWP before April 1, 2014. The
document would be required to be provided to the Legislature and
be included in the Governor's May Revision of the 2014-15 fiscal
year budget.
Staff Comments: Reorganizations have numerous one-time costs for
activities like relocation and integration of information
technology systems. These one-time costs are unknown, but likely
in the low millions of dollars considering the DWP has a budget
of over $260 million and has position authority for over 330
PYs.
There will also be one-time costs for CalEPA and HHS Agency to
develop the project initiation documents to guide the transfer
of responsibilities. This document is likely to cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars in workload to prepare.
There may also be ongoing fiscal implications of the
reorganization, including personnel costs incurred when merging
different employee classifications. The SWRCB may also incur
additional administrative workload for the program which may be
offset by reduced workload for DPH. The Legislative Analyst
Office has estimated that the ongoing cost of this
reorganization is likely to be negligible.