BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
Senator Ben Hueso, Chair
BILL NO: SB 948 HEARING DATE:
4/8/14
AUTHOR: Committee on Veterans Affairs
VERSION: As amended, 3/10/14
FISCAL: Yes
VOTE: 21
SUBJECT
State Active Duty Program: Clarification of existing statutory
provisions.
DESCRIPTION
Existing law :
Establishes - within the California Military
Department (CMD) - the State Active Duty (SAD) program,
providing both temporary and permanent uniformed positions
funded by the State.
Provides that permanent positions be filled by a
military competitive selection process and that applicants
for those positions meet specified eligibility criteria.
This bill:
Makes changes to the
eligibility criteria for permanent positions so that they
more accurately reflect the original intent of the bill's
sponsor when those criteria were established initially via
SB 807 (Correa, 2012).
More specifically:
o Clarifies that federally recognized retirement from
other states' national guards and the federal reserve
components (Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve,
Marine Corps Reserve, and Coast Guard Reserve) confers the
same SAD hiring eligibility as already provided under
current law by retirement from the California National
Guard (CalGuard) and federal active military components.
o Clarifies that a current SAD member, who retires from
active service with the CalGuard, must maintain
"gubernatorial call-up" eligibility for continued SAD
employment by assessing into the State Military Reserve
(SMR).
BACKGROUND
The CMD is a state department located within the executive
branch. The CMD is comprised of several components and contains
an eclectic mix of personnel. The mix includes both paid
employees and volunteers, both uniformed military and civilian
workers, both full-time and part-time, and both federal and
state.
California National Guard
The CMD's 24,000-person roster is dominated by its largest
component, the CalGuard. The CalGuard is the largest of the 54
"state-level" National Guards located in U.S. states and
territories.
The CalGuard is split into two components, the larger Army
National Guard (ARNG) and the Air National Guard (ANG). Each of
these is commanded by a federally recognized Guard general
officer from the appropriate branch of service. The ARNG is an
official component of the United States Army.
The ARNG joins with its "sister" reserve component, the purely
federal United States Army Reserve (USAR), and the full-time
Active Component Army to form the total United States Army.
Similarly, the ANG joins with its sister reserve component, the
purely federal United States Air Force Reserve (USAFR) and the
branch's Active Component Air Force to form the total United
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States Air Force.
The National Guard system does not contain sister elements
associated with the other branches of the national armed forces
- the United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, or United
States Coast Guard. Those military branches have only one
reserve component each and all are purely federal. The purely
federal reserve components have no affiliations with any state
governments.
Individual service members of all federal active components,
federal reserve components, and federally recognized national
guards must meet the same military combat readiness standards
and receive the same training, federal pay (pro-rated for
part-time service) and federal pensions (also pro-rated).
* Under existing law, the Governor may call members of the
CalGuard onto state active duty for various purposes, including
disaster response, so long as it does not conflict with the
contemporaneous imperatives of federal duty.
Other Federally-Funded Personnel
The remaining tiny slice of uniformed CalGuard troops work
full-time as Guard members. They constitute a cadre that
provides dedicated administrative and training support of the
part-time force. Both full-time and part-time uniformed Guard
members are federally trained and paid.
The CalGuard's administrative and training support cadre also
includes a modest number of full-time, federally paid,
non-uniformed civilian technicians. Some have dual status,
laboring in civilian status during the standard work week, but
also serving as a part-time uniformed Guard troop with the same
military unit on drill weekends and for federal mobilization
purposes. Other administrative technicians are not dual status
and work only as civilians. They have no additional uniformed
military association with the Guard.
State-Funded Personnel
In addition to the personnel provided by the federal government,
the CMD contains approximately 750 personnel funded by
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California state taxpayers.
About 500 of these are full-time uniformed personnel serving
full-time on state active duty (SAD). These SAD positions are
not federally recognized and place the employee at no risk of
being mobilized federally as part of the national defense force.
(However, existing state law provides that, in order to be
eligible for "mobilization" by the state into a full-time SAD
job, a person must fit one of the following profiles, which
cross-link different CMD components:
A current member of the California National
Guard; or
Retired or otherwise honorably separated from
federal active military or California National Guard
service with current membership in the State Military
Reserve; or
A current member of the State Military Reserve
(SMR) volunteer component with a minimum of two years of
service.
The primary rationale for SAD employment requiring active
membership in either the CalGuard or the SMR is that both the
Guard and SMR components fall under the "active state militia"
defined in California statutes. Since members of the active
militia may be called onto state active duty by the Governor,
active membership in one or the other places the SAD applicant
in the position of being eligible for "call up" into the SAD
full-time job.
In addition to the uniformed SAD personnel, about 250
non-uniformed state civil servants provide administrative
support to the CMD.
State Military Reserve
Finally, the CMD includes the State Military Reserve (SMR), a
purely volunteer component with approximately 1,000 active
members.
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COMMENT
1. Sponsored by the CMD, SB 807 (Correa, 2012) was intended
to include retirees from other states' national guards and
the federal reserve components, but the wording was
ambiguous and confusing. The CMD has not taken a formal
position on SB 948, but has indicated that this bill's
provisions constitute clarification of what the CMD
intended with SB 807.
2. Existing MVC �142 clearly states that "(s)ervice members
on state active duty who retire federally from the
California National Guard shall be automatically assessed
into the State Military Reserve." Nevertheless, there is
concern that MVC �210(c), which does not pertain to the SAD
program, could be misread and misapplied to SAD eligibility
in a confusing manner; therefore, this bill states that
"(f)or purposes of this section, a member described in
subdivision (c) of Section 210 shall not be qualified to
serve on state active duty unless he or she maintains
current membership in the State Military Reserve."
POSITIONS
Sponsor: None.
Support: None.
Oppose: None.
Analysis by: Wade Cooper Teasdale
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